‘Another Win for Democracy’: Katie Hobbs Celebrates After Maricopa County Court Dismisses Kari Lake’s Election Challenge

Kari Lake’s lawsuit challenging her loss to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in Arizona’s gubernatorial election was dismissed by the Maricopa County Superior Court on Saturday.

Lake’s claims in her complaint centered around documented problems that occurred on Election Day, specifically in Maricopa County. Printers at about 60 of the 223 voting centers printed the ballots too light to be read by the tabulating machines. County officials remedied the problem, and affected voters had been given the option to either place their ballot in a secure box to be counted later or to go to another nearby voting center (voters were allowed to vote at any voting center of their choice within Maricopa County).

The Arizona Republican Party filed a lawsuit seeking an emergency order extending the closing time for the polls by three hours. The legal action was filed shortly before 5:00 pm MT on Election Day, and was joined by Lake’s campaign, GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters’ campaign, the Republican National Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

After an emergency hearing that afternoon, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Tim Ryan rejected the Republicans’ claims. “This court finds no evidence that voters were precluded from turning in ballots, although there was some confusion and some difficulties,” said Ryan in denying the request to extend voting. Arizona’s polls closed as scheduled at 7:00 pm MT.

Regarding Lake’s election challenge lawsuit, the court had already dismissed all but two of her claims, and the ruling by Maricopa County Judge Peter S. Thompson came after a tw0-day trial earlier this week. Thompson found that Lake had failed to show “clear and convincing evidence” that the election was fraudulently taken from her, citing the high burden required to overturn election results.

“Throughout the history of Arizona, the bar to overturn an election on the grounds of misconduct in this State – or Territory – has always been a high one,” the opinion (embedded below) began.

“It bears mentioning that because of the requested remedy – setting aside the result of the election – the question that is before the Court is of monumental importance to every voter,” Thompson added. “The margin of victory as reported by the official canvass is 17,117 votes – beyond the scope of a statutorily required recount. A court setting such a margin aside, as far as the Court is able to determine, has never been done in the history of the United States.”

The two remaining claims were 1) the claim that the Election Day printer malfunctions “were caused intentionally and that these malfunctions resulted in a changed outcome, and 2) the claim that “Maricopa County violated its own election procedures manual (“EPM”) as to chain of custody procedures in such a way as to result in a changed election outcome.”

The burden of proof was on Lake as the plaintiff challenging the election results, and she failed to establish the necessary elements of her remaining claims with clear and convincing evidence, wrote Thompson. Lake had presented testimony from multiple witnesses, as the ruling described in detail, but their testimony failed to prove the problems were intentional or that they had changed the result of the gubernatorial election.

As one example, here is Thompson’s analysis of the testimony of Mark Sonnenklar, an election attorney with the Republican National Committee who was observing polling locations on Election Day:

The Court credits the personal observations of Mr. Sonnenklar and does not doubt his knowledge or his veracity. But the Court cannot follow Mr. Sonneklar to ascribing intentional misconduct to any party…Mr. Sonnenklar testified to nothing that suggested those tech efforts were anything other than best-efforts intended to remedy the problem. Second, as Mr. Sonnenklar himself admitted, he did not personally observe anything that allowed him to support his intuition that someone had engaged in intentional misconduct. Third, Mr. Sonnenklar admitted that he had no technical knowledge which would allow him to infer that these ostensible technical failures were anything but malfunctions rather than malfeasance. Last, Mr. Sonnenklar admitted that he had no personal knowledge of any voter being turned away from the polls as a result of BOD printer failures.

“Every single witness before the Court,” including both the plaintiff’s and defendants’ witnesses, wrote Thompson, denied having any personal knowledge of intentional misconduct, and specifically intentional misconduct that would have changed the election. “The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence.”

Thompson then issued specific rulings as to each of the statutory elements in Lake’s claims, writing repeatedly “The Court DOES NOT find clear and convincing evidence” that misconduct occurred, that such misconduct was intended to affect the election, and did in fact affect the election.

“Therefore,” the judge concluded, “IT IS ORDERED: confirming the election of Katie Hobbs as Arizona Governor-Elect pursuant to A.R.S. § 16-676(B).” Thompson also set a deadline for Hobbs and the other defendants to file an expected Motion for Sanctions,  for Monday Dec. 26 at 8:00 am MT.

“Lake can appeal the case before Hobbs is expected to be sworn into office Jan. 2,” reported Ray Stern with the Arizona Republic. “Because of the tight timetable, the case may move swiftly to the Arizona Supreme Court.”

Hobbs tweeted the last page of the ruling, celebrating it as “[a]nother win for democracy.”

She also tweeted a statement from her campaign manager, which lauded the court ruling and commented that Arizona voters had chosen “sanity over chaos” last month. “The voters of Arizona — not the conspiracy-riddled, dark corners of the internet — are the ones who choose are leaders.”

Lake posted her own statement, vowing to appeal.

Kari Lake Lawsuit Tossed by Sarah Rumpf on Scribd

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