PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has dismissed Republican Kari Lake’s challenge to her defeat in Arizona governor’s race against Democrat Katie Hobbs, dismissing her claim that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of willful misconduct.
In a decision Saturday, Judge Peter Thompson of Maricopa County Superior Court, who was appointed by former Republican Governor Jan Brewer, ruled that the court found no clear and convincing evidence of the widespread misconduct that Lake claimed affected the outcome of the 2022 had influenced. general election. Lake will appeal the ruling, she said in a statement.
The judge said Lake’s witnesses had no personal knowledge of willful misconduct.
“The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in lieu of clear and compelling evidence,” Thompson said.
Lake, who lost to Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was one of the most vociferous Republicans of 2022 promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most other election deniers across the country relented after losing their races in November, Lake has not. Instead, she asked the judge to declare her the winner or order a re-ballot in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona’s voters.
In the ruling, the judge acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of voters who were inconvenienced by the election and noted that overriding the results of an election “has never been done in the history of the United States.”
“But it is not only the task of this Court to respond to public outcry,” the judge continued. “It is to submit the plaintiff’s claims and the defendants’ actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law.”
Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling stations in Maricopa County. The malfunctioning printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling stations. In some areas, lines backed up because of the confusion.
County officials say everyone has had a chance to vote and all ballots have been counted as ballots compromised by the printers have been taken to more sophisticated counters at Electoral Department headquarters. They are investigating the cause of the printer problems.
Lake’s lawyers also alleged that the ballot chain of custody was broken at an outside facility, where a contractor scans the ballots to prepare them for processing. They claimed that workers at the facility put their own mail ballots in the pile instead of mailing their ballots through normal channels, and also that paperwork was missing to document the transfer of ballots. The province disputes the claim.
Lake faced extremely high odds in her challenge and had to prove not only that misconduct occurred, but that it was designed to negate her victory and actually resulted in the wrong woman being declared the winner.
Her lawyers pointed to a witness who examined ballots on behalf of her campaign and discovered 14 ballots with 19-inch (48-centimeter) images of the ballot printed on 20-inch paper, meaning the ballots would not be read by a tabulator. The witness insisted that someone had changed printer configurations, a claim disputed by election officials.
County officials say the ballot images were slightly smaller due to a shrink function selected on a printer by a tech worker looking for solutions to Election Day problems. They say about 1,200 ballots were affected by enabling the feature and those ballots were duplicated so that they could be read by a tabulator. Ultimately, these votes were counted, officials said.
A polling person testified on Lake’s behalf, claiming that technical difficulties at polling places had disenfranchised enough voters that it would have changed the outcome of the race in Lake’s favor. But an expert called to testify by election officials said there was no evidence to support the pollster’s claim that 25,000 to 40,000 people who would normally have voted did not vote due to Election Day problems.
A witness called on Lake’s behalf acknowledged that people whose votes had been rejected by tabulators or ballot printers — a common occurrence for many voters — could still cast a vote and have it counted.
“The BOD printer failures actually had no impact on the results of the election,” the judge said.
Thompson had previously rejected eight of the 10 claims Lake filed in her lawsuit. One of these was Lake’s allegation that Hobbs, in her capacity as Secretary of State, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer engaged in censorship by flagging social media posts with false election information for possible removal by Twitter. He also rejected her claims of discrimination against Republicans and that mail-in voting is illegal.
Hobbs takes office as governor on January 2.
Earlier on Friday, another judge rejected the challenge of Republican Abraham Hamadeh’s results in his race against Democrat Kris Mayes for Arizona attorney general. The court concluded that Hamadeh, who finished 511 votes behind Mayes and did not give up the race, failed to prove the vote-counting errors he had alleged.
A court hearing is scheduled for Thursday to present the results of recounts in the races for attorney general, state superintendent and for a state legislative seat.
