Judge delivers massive legal victory for Kari Lake!

PHOENIX, Arizona (PNN) - December 17, 2022 - Arizona Republicans are hanging in the balance as the fight for the governor’s office continues past the calling of the election.

When the midterm races were called, Democrat outlaw Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was proclaimed to have defeated Republican challenger Kari Lake by just over 17,000 votes in the November 8 election. Lake did not skip a beat objecting to the result, as the Election Day and days after were marred by malfunctions and holdups that could have skewed the tabulations.

Lake filed a lawsuit naming her objections in an effort to show she had the votes to win, and also the lack of integrity in the Arizona voting system.

Lake’s attorneys argued in her lawsuit filed last week that the widespread ballot printer and tabulator issues on Election Day affecting 131 polling locations (59% of the total) suppressed the candidate’s vote totals. As the nation watched online, hours-long lines developed due to malfunctions at multiple locations throughout Maricopa County.

Lake’s team clearly wants to get a better sense of what exactly caused so many machines to, essentially, simultaneously go down on Election Day, and seek to determine whether negligence or malfeasance was involved. Maricopa County has said that 71 sites were impacted, which is roughly one-third of all the sites. The county also said a setting on the ballot printers in question caused the ballot tabulators to not be able to read the ballots.

As Lake’s arguments were heard in court, testimony was given as to the details of the malfunctions, holdups, and redirecting of citizens to alternate voting areas.

Now, Lake’s lawsuit will have even more data with which to make their case against the flawed voting system in the state. Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won a legal victory Friday when the judge overseeing her legal challenge of November’s election granted her team access to review ballots cast.

Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ordered Maricopa County to grant Lake’s lawyers access to inspect 50 randomly selected “ballot-on-demand” printed ballots cast on Election Day, 50 randomly selected early ballots cast in the race, and 50 randomly selected ballots that were marked spoiled on Election Day. The inspection will take place on Tuesday.

Lake is not stopping at proving that Arizona’s election was faulty, her lawsuit asks for a declaration that she won the gubernatorial race or a redo of the election in Maricopa County. Already declared in court is a number of ballots, over 20,000, that are in question. Since Lake was said to have been defeated by 17,000 votes, the fate of those votes would put her on top if they were found to be erroneous.

Lake contended that since Republicans voted 3-to-1 over Democrats on Election Day, what happened was large-scale vote suppression of her supporters.

Lake said, “Seventy-five percent of people voting on Election Day were voting for me. Then you basically shut down or make it impossible to vote or very difficult to vote at roughly 60% of the locations to vote, you’re going to cut into our lead. This is the disenfranchisement of voters in Arizona.”

Rather than be open to fixing any flawed election problems, the county is desperately trying to stop the lawsuit and to suppress any data that will come out if the lawsuit continues. Maricopa County lawyers will make their case Monday before Thompson to try to dismiss Lake’s lawsuit. If the judge doesn’t dismiss the lawsuit, there will be a two-day hearing next Wednesday and Thursday, December 21 and 22.

The verdict under law must be rendered quickly. as Arizona is waiting to see who will fill the office of governor. Under state law, the judge must then decide within five days - no later than Tuesday, December 27 - whether to confirm Hobbs as the winner or toss out her victory.

There are, however, appeal processes that may be taken if the lawsuit is suppressed. Hobbs is slated to be sworn in January 2, meaning if Thompson’s ruling is appealed then the lawsuit could continue past inauguration day.