PHOENIX — Republican Kari Lake’s long-term challenge to overturn her loss in the Arizona gubernatorial election six months ago fell into the hands of a Maricopa County judge who dismissed Lake’s original challenge in December.

High Court Judge Peter Thompson is expected to issue a ruling in the next few days or possibly weeks.

During the three-day trial that ended Friday, the judge hinted that he did not want to make any procedural errors in the case that could lead to appeals.

Lake’s appeal is the reason Thompson is hearing the case a second time.

The Arizona Supreme Court upheld Thompson’s decision in March. 6 of Lake’s 7 claims dismissed in her election campaign. However, the High Court remanded her allegation that the Maricopa County elections officials did not properly verify the signatures on the vote-by-mail ballot.

Early voters must sign an affidavit certifying that they are registered to vote in Arizona. This is her one of the mail ballot security checks.

Mr. Thompson set a high bar for Mr. Lake’s lawyers to win. It showed that no signature verification had taken place, and proved that there was a mathematical basis for claiming that the failure had damaged Mr. Lake’s election.

Lake lost to Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs by 17,000 votes.

The former Phoenix TV news anchor never conceded defeat. She is considering running for the U.S. Senate next year and is reportedly eyeing the vice-presidential spot in the 2024 election of Donald Trump.

Lake’s case stalled on the first day of the second trial.

Her first “whistleblower” witness, the signing judge, went to great lengths to explain the verification process.

When questioned by the Maricopa County Attorney, she agreed to verify her signature on the ballot. So did Lake’s second whistleblower.

Lake’s attorney Kurt Olsen said in his opening statement that he would prove that “hundreds of thousands of signatures” were not properly verified.

On the second day of trial, Eric Spekin, an expert witness hired to back up this claim, testified that 274,000 voter signatures were reviewed within three seconds each. He claimed it was impossible.

Ray Valenzuela, the county’s co-election director, explained how the signature is verified so quickly and why it complies with state law.

Mr. Spekin also testified that he could not say that signature verification was not done.

In his closing statement on Friday, Mr. Olsen suggested the judge try to calculate how many of those 274,000 votes could have influenced the outcome of the election.

As in the first trial, Thompson voiced his outrage at Lake’s legal team, Olsen and former Cyberninjaz attorney Brian Brem.

“I feel like I’m teaching a seminar here,” the judge said, correcting Lake’s team about court proceedings.

Thompson also blocked an attempt to explore the conspiracy theory of Brem, who voiced his conspiracy theory on his Telegram channel that the county gave reporters special treatment for fulfilling a public record request for signature-related documents. bottom.

Olsen and Blame Licensed by the Arizona Supreme Court For repeating the “blatantly false” claim that 35,000 votes would be added to the 2022 vote count.

in December, Olsen was sanctioned by a federal judge In another lawsuit, Lake was charged with making “false, misleading and unsubstantiated factual allegations.”

The lawsuit sought to ban the use of electronic vote tallying machines in midterm elections.

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