Arizona’s top Republican candidates for office, who claim the November election was stolen from them, have spent months making tattered claims in court, six months after the campaign was called. A month has passed and the discussion is still not over.

A Maricopa County judge on Monday allowed defeated Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake to try a claim first filed in December, but the claim went all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, where it was dropped again. changed over time. The trial begins Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a Mojave County judge is considering granting a retrial to unsuccessful Republican attorney general nominee Abe Hamade based on arguments he presented in court Tuesday. In other words, the December statewide recount and other records obtained since then have provided new evidence that he really won.

It is unusual for this kind of incident to continue in May. There’s a reason the deadlines set by state law for challenging election results in court have been shortened. As such, disputes can be resolved before the winner takes a seat. Governor Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Chris Mays (both Democrats) took office in January.

Proving in court that an election should be overturned in Arizona is a high hurdle, especially in the months ahead with little precedent. State and county voter advocates and lawyers said the months-long midterm challenge has caused voters to worry about the stability of their already elected offices.

“Every day this lawsuit exists without a final judgment, another day, contestants and their friends, colleagues, and voters may continue to denounce the legitimacy of the election process in Arizona. “It’s a full and fair election that could call into question the very foundations of our free and free nation,” Craig Morgan, an attorney on behalf of Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, said at the Hamadeh hearing on Tuesday.

The long period and endless search for evidence gives the loser a hook of continued proliferation. false claims about their contestAlex Grotta, Arizona director of voting rights group All Voting is Local, said distrust of the system could deepen.

“The longer misinformation about an election is left unattended or the legal proceedings are still underway so that it appears legitimate, the more damaging it will be,” he said.

Lawyers in Lake and Hamade told judges last week that they wanted to inspect ballots and ballot envelopes for evidence to support their claims, but lawyers in Lake and Maricopa County argues that the time to hunt for such evidence is long past.

Proving their claims will not be easy. Lake must present clear and convincing evidence, the judge wrote. outlandish claims Maricopa County completely failed to verify voter signatures on mail-in ballots, which led to a loss to Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes.

Hamade, who lost to Mays by just 280 votes, accused himself of mistakenly denying votes from voters registered by the county because the machine failed to properly count the hundreds of votes in his favor. need to prove the claim of

The many milestones in court over the months have provided candidates with consistent funding opportunities. Scrutiny of public statements and solicitations reveals that Lake, more than Hamade, has taken advantage of these milestones to demand money.

“There’s literally nothing else to do on Kari Lake, it’s all about fundraising,” said Arizona Republican political strategist Barrett Merson. “It’s a feature, not a bug.”

This week was no exception. On Tuesday morning, the day after the judge granted the lawsuit, Lake said live on Twitter that her supporters could visit her website and the website of a nonprofit advocacy group set up for this purpose. He said he could help pay the legal costs.

“People across the country said, ‘Here’s $25, don’t stop fighting to secure an election, and we’re paying for it,'” she said.

As the lawsuit drags on, the full amount Lake and Hamade raised this year has not been made public because candidates are not required to file campaign finance reports the year after the election. According to reports, Lake raised more than $2.5 million between the day after the election and the end of December. Analysis by Arizona Miller. The Mirror found that she spent $3 million in that period, but less than 10% of her spending was related to her lawsuit. The money Lake raises to the nonprofit Save Arizona Fund isn’t required to be disclosed under campaign finance laws.

Meanwhile, Arizona taxpayers continue to pay state and county attorneys for election defense.

As of March, Maricopa County had seven in-house lawyers for the 2022 contest and paid more than $100,000 to outside lawyers. Since taking office in January, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has paid outside attorneys more than $32,000 in ongoing defense costs related to the case. Hobbs, who served as secretary of state until January, has appointed a pro bono team for the 2022 agenda.

Maricopa County Registrar Stephen Richer, who oversees the county’s early voting signature verification, said the latest legal dispute in the Lake case is seen as “a pitiful last gasp of sorrow” for the majority of Arizona. said.

Lake has claimed her election was “rigged” from the time Hobbes’ victory became apparent, and that Maricopa County officials deliberately rigged the election against her, often calling them ” He said he was calling them scammers. So far, the court has said it has no evidence to support her claims.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson allowed two of the original 10 claims to proceed to trial, but later dismissed them for lack of evidence. All of this was done quickly as required by state law and was completed by the end of December.

There are several ways Lake’s attorneys can expedite the appeal process at this time. Either file a special action objection or appeal directly to the Supreme Court rather than to the Court of Appeal. County attorneys said in a filing that the lawsuit would have been allowed. The case needs to be resolved before Mr Hobbes takes office.

Lake’s attorney did not.

Richer said it was because his attorney was inexperienced with Arizona election law. Kurt Olsen was a former New York attorney, and Brian Brem worked for a family law firm in Phoenix.

“Her attorneys are electoral law novices who have racked up sanctions in various courts, and certainly are probably the only ones to take her case, but we believe Katie Hobbs won. Six months later, we’re still grappling with this issue,” said Richer, a Republican. in a statement to Votebeat.

Kari Lake and her attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

she Weeks after losing her trial According to the Arizona Republic, she was on tour across the country and aired her allegations that the election was stolen. ask for money on Twitter. When the Court of Appeal upheld the Court of First Instance decision of 16 February, she posted a link In a post on the Arizona Foundation’s website, it said it plans to take the case to the state Supreme Court. “Stay strong, America!” she wrote.

On March 22, the state Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling on all allegations except those relating to voter fraud.it even after that Licensed Lake’s lawyer about another claim. “Please support our fight by making a donation at karilake.com.” Lake tweeted the next day.

Lake’s claims about fraudulent voter signatures have evolved over time. County and state attorneys have consistently said she did not fully articulate her allegations, refuting the notion that workers did not comply with the law and approved fraudulent voter signatures.

When voting by mail in Arizona, voters must sign the envelope in which they put their ballot, and county officials use it to compare their signatures to signatures stored on file to determine if they are the correct person. Make sure it’s from

Lake wrote that the county registrar initially determined that some voters’ signatures did not match, but that they “still accepted a significant number of early voters.”

Judge Thompson heard arguments on Friday after the state Supreme Court directed him to reconsider the dismissal. He determined on Tuesday that the actual allegation that Lake’s attorneys appear to be making is that county officials failed to verify signatures entirely during two stages of the process.

This is already inconsistent, with Lake County attorneys themselves presenting witness statements from temporary workers they considered signing, and admitting that the county rejected hundreds of signatures that workers deemed “evil.” It is a claim that In fact, one source says the county rejected twice as many “bad” signatures as in previous elections. Reviewing Votebeat Changes Richer has been working on this process since 2020.

The trial is scheduled to run Wednesday through Friday. Even if Thompson dismisses this final claim, Lake says it doesn’t stop there. “We are going to take this case to the Supreme Court of the United States,” she said Tuesday morning on Cardon.

In Hamade’s case, Judge Lee Jansen initially allowed four of the candidate’s five claims to go to trial in December, but then dismissed them all from the court after just hours of argument. .

During the Dec. 23 trial, Ms. Hobbes’ attorneys did not disclose that her firm was aware of what the ongoing statewide recount had already revealed. Many miscounts in Pinal Countyshe later said she believed she had a court duty not to say anything until the recount was complete.

The results of the recount were released less than a week after the court proceedings ended. They revealed that Pinal County initially failed to count hundreds of votes in the campaign, which helped narrow the gap between candidates from 511 to 280.

On January 4, Hamade filed a petition for a new trial, saying the recount revealed new evidence that he had won the election. He has since received a response to a public records request showing that his provisional ballot was wrongly denied, he told the court.

Hamade’s lawyers are seeking access to uncounted ballots in his favor that the machine failed to tally, as well as entire ballots rejected by the county because voters were determined not to be registered to vote. Attorneys stressed in court Tuesday that they believe Hobbes’ attorneys wrongfully withheld information from the court during his first trial. A Votebeat article stating that her office was aware of the Pinal County issue By December 7th.

Mr. Hamade’s lawyers argued that refusing to conduct a new trial would undermine voter confidence, but the state and county argued the opposite. Judge Jantzen said he hopes to decide in the next few weeks whether to grant a new trial.

Grotta, a voting rights activist, said he hoped to find a way to expedite appeals or somehow stop fundraising at a certain point. He expects the campaign to be drawn again in future elections, as long as it benefits the candidates.

Republican strategist Merson said the extended deadline might be good for the candidate, but not for the state’s Republican party.

“Republicans must move forward into 2024 and ultimately into 2026,” he said. “The Republican Party has a big Senate election in 18 months and we have to really focus on that… It’s time for the Republican Party to turn the page.”