Phoenix (3TV/CBS 5/AP) — Kari Lake’s case suffered another loss on Monday when a judge dismissed her last remaining claim. After a three-day trial last week, Judge Peter A. Thompson said the court had found clear and compelling evidence that Maricopa County election officials did not accurately verify signatures during the 2022 general election. He ruled that he couldn’t find one and upheld the election of Democrat Katie Hobbs.
Lake’s attorneys spent several days in court, claiming Maricopa County failed to perform high-level signature verification on flagged-by-mail ballots. The former TV news anchor’s team also showed video footage from the Maricopa County camera feed, which allegedly shows signatures that officials rushed and incorrectly verified. But in the ruling, Maricopa County Election Commissioner Reynaldo “Ray” Valenzuela presented the court with 1,600 signatures that he personally vetted during the general election, outlining the process to the court based on his 33 years of experience. said explained. The court found that the signature review consisted of “153 Level 1 auditors, 43 Level 2 auditors, and two ongoing audits.”
Consultants Lisa James and Stacey Pearson discuss the latest legal ruling against Kari Lake and whether Kirsten Cinema has realistic hopes of re-election.
Lake’s team also claimed that 274,000 signatures were compared within two seconds and 70,000 were compared in less than one second. However, Judge Thompson ruled that reviewers do not have to spend a specific amount of time on specific signatures. Part of the ruling states: “Neither one second, nor three seconds, nor six seconds are allowed. The plain text of the decree does not state any criteria.” “Courts have determined that examining signatures that are generally consistent in character requires only cursory inspection and therefore takes little time.”
After losing to Hobbes by about 17,000 votes, she filed a lawsuit asking the court to install her as governor or order new elections. Although Mr. Thompson dismissed the lawsuit, the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated a claim contesting how the signature verification process was conducted in early voting in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters. County officials defended the signature verification effort, saying they had nothing to hide.
Mr. Lake’s signature verification claim was the subject of a three-day trial. Her attorneys argued that there was evidence that lower-level inspectors who discovered signature discrepancies moved up the chain of command and were ignored by higher-level inspectors. She did not contest whether the voter’s signature on the ballot envelope matched the signature on the ballot record.
The former TV anchor faced the high hurdle of proving not only her claims about the signature verification effort, but that it influenced the outcome of her election. Thompson was appointed to the bench by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, but she said she hasn’t reached that lofty hurdle. “The evidence received by the court does not support plaintiff’s remaining claims,” he wrote.
At the beginning of the lawsuit, Mr. Lake focused on problems with ballot machines at some polling places in Maricopa County. Ballots produced by faulty printers were too thin to be read by on-site counters at polling stations. Amidst the chaos, lines were jammed in some areas. Lake argued that the ballot problem was the result of deliberate fraud.
County officials said those affected by the press were taken to a more sophisticated counter at election headquarters so everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were tallied. In mid-February, the Arizona Court of Appeals dismissed Mr. Lake’s claims, concluding that he had not provided evidence that voters who could not read their ballots at polling place counters could not vote. The next month, the state Supreme Court refused to hear nearly all of Lake’s appeals, saying there was no evidence to support her claim that more than 35,000 votes were added to the ballot total.
Earlier this month, a court fined Mr. Lake’s lawyer $2,000 for falsely stating that more than 35,000 ballots were improperly added to the tally.
Maricopa County Supervisory Board Chairman Clint Hickman issued a statement following the judge’s ruling.
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