Oral arguments are set for Friday in Kari Lake’s last election challenge following her November loss to Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ).
In March, the Arizona Supreme Court dismissed six of seven legal claims in Lake’s lawsuit, which argued her defeat was tied to more than 35,000 unaccounted ballots she claimed had been unlawfully accepted. Arizona’s high court ruled that her allegations lacked merit and were based on faulty information. However, the justices ordered a trial court in Maricopa to conduct an additional review of the county’s procedures for verifying signatures on mail-in ballots.
ARIZONA REPUBLICANS ARE SKEPTICAL KARI LAKE WILL RUN FOR SENATE, BUT NATIONAL GOP IS WORRIED
Specifically, Lake’s camp has problems with how the state’s most populous county compared signatures on ballot affidavit envelopes.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson directed both sides on Monday to file written arguments throughout the week, with oral presentations beginning on Friday.
Attorneys for the former Phoenix-area news anchor said they would file motions for the judge to reconsider part of Lake’s original case, which has already been dismissed, and pair it with a pending public records request in which Lake is seeking to see ballot affidavit envelopes, the Arizona Republic reported Tuesday. Lawyers for the state said they would be filing motions to dismiss Lake’s signature verification push.
Following the March ruling, Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County recorder and a Republican, stood by his county’s handling of the election.
“Since the 2020 general election, Maricopa County has won over 20 lawsuits challenging the fairness, accuracy, legality, and impartiality of its election administration,” he said in a statement. “This case will be no different, and will simply add another mark to Lake’s impressively long losing streak.”
Lake is a rising star in the Republican Party and a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, who has continued to push claims his loss against President Joe Biden was the result of nefarious activity by bad actors who didn’t agree with his policies.
Last week, Lake’s lawyers, Bryan Blehm and Kurt Olsen, were fined $2,000 by the Arizona Supreme Court for repeating “unequivocally false” claims that 35,563 ballots were “injected” into Maricopa County’s total at a third-party processing facility. Chief Justice Robert Brutinel said while “attendant hyperbole” from the campaign can sometimes carry over into election-related legal challenges, “once a contest enters the judicial areas, rules of attorney ethics apply.”
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Lake, who lost to Hobbs by 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 candidates promoting Trump’s election claims, which she centered her campaign on. Since then, she has visited Mar-a-Lago, has been photographed hobnobbing with conservative donors, and is considering a U.S. Senate run.
