Wednesday, June 12th, 2024

ARIZONA -–  Kari Lake’s efforts to overturn the result of her failed 2022 gubernatorial run have failed, again, and one of Lake’s attorneys has been “suspended for lying to [the] Arizona Supreme Court.” On Tuesday, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that Lake “will not get a do-over of the 2022 election she lost,” “nor is Lake entitled to a new trial.”

In May, the Arizona Supreme Court “sanctioned attorneys for Kari Lake, the 2022 Republican candidate for governor, ordering them to pay thousands of dollars for repeating ‘unequivocally false’ election claims in court.”

Despite her election lies repeatedly being knocked down in court, Lake announced last week that she is continuing to push baseless conspiracy theories about the 2022 election in federal court. Lake filed a new motion in her case to ban the use of voting machines, which the U.S. Supreme Court “brushed aside” in April, refusing Lake’s request for them to “endorse a conspiracy theory” election denial case that has previously been described as  “furthering false narratives,” “baseless,” and “reckless” – and resulted in over $100,000 in sanctions. 

Read more:

Arizona Capitol Media: Appeals Court says Kari Lake isn’t entitled to rerun of election she lost

By: Howard Fischer

June 11, 2024

Key Points:

• Republican Kari Lake will not get a do-over of the 2022 election she lost in the governor’s race, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled late Tuesday.

• Nor is Lake entitled to a new trial, the judges said, to present evidence she claims was unavailable the first time she went to court to challenge her election loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

• The judges acknowledged there are legal procedures to resurrect a case, even after a judge has ruled, such as whether evidence was available at the time. But they said Lake’s claims don’t fit any of the requirements.

• And in one case, they noted, Lake did have the evidence at the time of the trial, which she claimed would show misconduct in the handling of the election — but she didn’t present it….

• But Brearcliffe said that’s just part of the problem with Lake’s arguments.

• “Perhaps most important, the vote differential between Lake and Hobbs in the election was over 17,000 votes,” he wrote. “Even if 8,000 uncounted votes had all gone to Lake, it would have been insufficient to overcome this differential.”

• There was no immediate response from Lake or either of her attorneys…

• But Lake, now running in the Republican primary election for U.S. Senate against Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, also appears to be looking beyond state courts, where she has been continually rebuffed. Brearcliffe noted that Lake, in court documents, also argued she can file suit in federal court alleging civil rights violations.

• In arguments to the state appellate court, Lake’s attorneys contended she should get a do-over because of a series of acts by Maricopa County officials…

• But Brearcliffe said Lake and her attorneys presented no evidence that those doing the signature verification had to follow a specific process nor to take any specific amount of time. Instead, it came down to an election worker determining either that signatures corresponded or, if they didn’t, sending them to a process where the issue could be resolved through a phone call to the voter.

• He also said the trial judge was free to conclude the testimony of county election officials about verification was “more credible” than that of Lake’s witness… 

• Even if this case goes away, eventually, Lake still has legal issues.

• Key among them is a defamation case filed against her by Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer based on her statements claiming he “sabotaged” the 2022 election by having ballots printed in the wrong size and that he illegally inserted more than 300,000 phony ballots into the system.

• Lake agreed in March to have a default judgment entered against her, essentially admitting she defamed Richer.

• But Lake has claimed that was a strategic move as it now forces Richer to prove he was financially harmed. That fight continues to play out in Maricopa County Superior Court.