Kari Lake loses appeal in attempt to overturn election results

PHOENIX — The state Court of Appeals rejected Kari Lake’s latest bid to overturn results of the 2022 election for governor.

In a 12-page opinion, Judge Kent Cattani said Lake’s legal arguments highlighted various Election Day “difficulties.’’

“But her request for relief fails because the evidence presented to the superior court ultimately supports the court’s conclusion that voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that other basis justifies setting aside the election results,’’ he wrote for the three-judge panel.

And in doing so, the appellate judges rejected Lake’s contention a new vote is required based on the mere possibility that whatever occurred on Election Day could have changed the results.

In a Twitter post, Lake said she told supporters she would take the case all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court.

“And that’s exactly what we are going to do,’’ she wrote. “Buckle up, America!’’

‘No evidence’

Lake, a Republican, sued after the final tally showed her losing to Democrat Katie Hobbs by 17,117 votes.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson dismissed eight of her claims as being outside the scope of what Arizona law permits in election challenges, or for other reasons.

That left her contention that Maricopa County officials, either negligently or intentionally, altered on-site ballot printers.

Some machines printed out ballots with a 19-inch format rather than the standard 20 inches. That made them unreadable to the tabulators at vote centers.

Cattani said there was “ample evidence’’ the problem resulted from mechanical malfunctions that were ultimately remedied.

“More importantly, Lake presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by on-site tabulators were not able to vote,’’ he said.

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In fact, Cattani said, Lake’s own cybersecurity expert confirmed that those misconfigured ballots — and others that could not be read for any reason — could be placed in a locked container, taken to county election offices to be duplicated onto a readable ballot by a bipartisan board, and ultimately counted.

‘Sheer speculation’

“Lake’s claim thus boils down to a suggestion that Election Day issues led to long lines at vote centers, which frustrated and discouraged voters, which allegedly resulted in a substantial number of predominately Lake voters not voting,’’ Cattani said. That was based on her argument that Republicans are more likely to go to the polls, versus voting early, than Democrats.

“But Lake’s only purported evidence that these issues had any potential effect on election results was, quite simply, sheer speculation,’’ Cattani said.

The judge said her claim was based on testimony from a pollster who said, based on fewer people than expected completing an exit poll on Election Day, he could “infer’’ that meant about 16% of those who turned out that day had been deprived of their right to vote, and that the deprivation was the result of printer and tabulator issues.

“But the expert failed to provide any reasonable basis for using survey responses or non-responses to draw inferences about the motivations or preferences of people who did not vote,’’ Cattani wrote. The judge said the 16% figure appears to have no basis “other than the fact that he picked the number precisely because it was what it would have needed to be in order for it to change the outcome.’’

Lake had no better luck with her claim that Maricopa County failed to maintain proper chain-of-custody documentation or follow proper procedures for early ballot packets submitted in drop boxes in Election Day. That failure, she alleged, might have permitted some unspecified number of ballots to be wrongfully inserted into the system before being counted.

Cattani, however, said there was ample basis for the trial judge, who heard the evidence, to conclude Lake failed to prove that claim.

Lake claimed various other improprieties, evidenced by the fact that Republican County Recorder Stephen Richer initially said there were “over 275,000’’ early ballots dropped off at polling places on Election Day, when the actual count done by the private company with whom the county contracted was 291,890. But Cattani said the difference between the initial estimate and the final count does not mean about 25,000 votes were illegal.

The appellate court also found that Thompson did nothing wrong in dismissing out of hand Lake’s claims that signatures on many early ballot envelopes did not match signatures on file. Lake based the allegation on statements by certain people reviewing those envelopes.

But Cattani pointed out these statements came from first-level reviewers and did not reflect the ultimate decision by others farther down the line on the review process on whether to accept a signature.

Beyond that, he said Lake was aware for “months before the election’’ of the signature verification process used by Maricopa County. That made her post-election challenges too late, the judge said.