Should Kari Lake be prosecuted for posting voters' ballot signatures?

Imagine this story with no names, only facts.

Cold. Hard. Facts.

Simple and straightforward.

Fact No. 1: A person posts online what she claims to be signatures of more than a dozen Arizona voters.

Fact No. 2: Arizona law (ARS 16-168, Section F) says “that the month and day of birth date, the social security number … and the records containing a voter’s signature … shall not be accessible or reproduced by any person other than the voter … .”

Fact No. 3: Violating that law is a Class 6 felony, for which a person who is found guilty could receive fines, probation or a prison sentence.

Is this Lake's First Amendment right?

Now, the politics.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, wrote a letter to Attorney General Kris Mayes, also a Democrat, asking her to “investigate and take appropriate enforcement action” against Kari Lake, a Republican, for her Jan. 23 Twitter post that included a graphic with 16 signatures from voters.Tim LaSota, Lake’s attorney, called the request “a phony allegation against a Republican.”

He added, “This information came from the Arizona Senate investigation on acceptance of clearly mismatched signatures on early ballots, and Kari Lake has an absolute right under the First Amendment to republish the information presented to the Senate.”

Ballot envelops, with signatures, were subpoenaed by the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate in 2021 and turned over by Maricopa County. A judge later said the info must be kept confidential, as the law states.

Then a group called We The People, which has spread election fraud conspiracies, says it got access to the information from former Senate President Karen Fann.

If they do it first, that makes it right?

There were presentations by Republicans that included showing signatures. Lake has used some of that in her ongoing lawsuit. Then, she posted the signature images on Twitter.

Her attorney says she has a First Amendment right to publish the information.

Does she?

Is that something a court should decide?

Lake posts signatures:Fontes asks attorney general to investigate

Every person facing a possible criminal offense deserves his or her day in court, and certainly if Lake were to be charged with an offense LaSota could make his argument in court.

Perhaps LaSota is correct, although I don’t see anything in the statute about anyone having a First Amendment right to post someone else’s signature, even if someone else has shown the information first. I only see the part that says “a voter’s signature … shall not be accessible or reproduced by any person other than the voter.”

(Remember when you were a kid and your mom would say, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you do it, too?”)

Politics complicates possible prosecution

We have this quaint saying in the United States about no one being above the law. We say it a lot, perhaps because we’d like to believe that it’s true. But we know it’s not.

High profile individuals seem to get away with a lot of stuff for which regular folks go to jail.

Roy Cohn, the sleazy, pit bull investigator for Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the communist witch-hunting days of the 1950s, used to say, “Don’t tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is.”

Politics complicates the possible prosecution of a politician. It allows for excuses. It generates claims of persecution. It clouds facts.

Imagine what Republicans would be saying if Katie Hobbs had make the signatures public.

Imagine the case with no names, only facts

Judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys in Arizona have all kinds of professional conduct rules about being fair and not yielding to outside pressures or influence. It’s not easy. One way to judge whether a case has merit or not, however, is to imagine it with no names, only facts.

Cold. Hard. Facts.

Simple and straightforward.

For example.

Fact No. 1: A person posts online what she claims to be signatures of more than a dozen Arizona voters.

Fact No. 2: Arizona law (ARS 16-168, Section F) says “that the month and day of birth date, the social security number … and the records containing a voter’s signature … shall not be accessible or reproduced by any person other than the voter … .”

Fact No. 3: Violating this law is a Class 6 felony, for which a person who is found guilty could receive fines, probation or a prison sentence.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake posted voters' signatures. The law clearly says it's illegal