PHOENIX β The Arizona Supreme Court says attorneys for failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake lied repeatedly in a court challenge to the election and it is fining them $2,000.
In an order Thursday, Chief Justice Robert Brutinel said there was no factual basis for Lakeβs attorneys to claim in court it was βundisputedββ that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total in Maricopa County.
Brutinel said Lakeβs side unethically repeated the βfalse assertionsββ in multiple legal filings.
The high court upheld most of the rulings in lower courts that there was no basis for Lakeβs challenge of the November election results, in which the Republican candidate lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs by 17,117 votes.
The justices did agree with Lake on one point, saying she should have been able to present evidence that Maricopa County did not follow its own procedures when verifying signatures on early ballots.
Thursdayβs order formally sends the case back to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson to hear evidence on that point.
There was no immediate comment from Lake other than a Twitter post Thursday with the comment βundisputedβ and showing her surrounded by supporters.
The high court rejected, in Thursdayβs order, a bid by Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who also was named in Lakeβs challenge, to force Lake to pay their legal fees in the case.
Lakeβs lawsuit alleged mistakes and deliberate actions she said entitled her to a new election. These included claims that someone in Maricopa County intentionally altered printers at voting centers so they would produce ballots that could not be automatically read by on-site tabulators. Closely related were complaints of long lines on Election Day that deterred some people from voting.
Thompson ruled and the Court of Appeals affirmed that Lake failed to present βclear and convincing evidenceββ to back her claims, and did not show that anyone was denied the right to vote. The Supreme Court agreed.
What is left is Lakeβs claim the county failed to maintain legally required chain of custody on ballots. Thompson rejected those claims, saying they came too late. The justices disagreed and directed him to hear Lake out.
Nonetheless, the arguments by Lakeβs attorneys to the Supreme Court on that issue resulted in the penalty leveled Thursday.
Lakeβs lawyers argued it was βundisputedββ there were 35,563 unaccounted ballots βinjectedββ by Runbeck, a private firm used by Maricopa County, into the total final count.
That isnβt true, Brutinel said.
βNot only is that allegation strongly disputed by the other parties, this court concluded and expressly stated that the assertion was unsupported by the record,ββ the chief justice wrote. He said Lake and her attorneys presented nothing in their subsequent legal filings for the court to reconsider the issue.
βThus, asserting that the alleged fact is βundisputedβ is false,ββ Brutinel wrote. βYet Lake continues to make that assertion.ββ
Lakeβs argument about those βinjectedββ ballots was focused on one exhibit at trial that included an estimate of the number of early ballot packets based on the number of trays; a different exhibit showed a precise count.
At best, Brutinel said, Lake could have argued that βan inference could be made that some ballots were added.ββ
But she went further, he said, continuing to argue that it was βundisputedββ there were an extra 35,563 ballots despite the complete lack of evidence.
Brutinel acknowledged that candidates are free to challenge election procedures and results. Campaign βhyperboleββ sometimes spills over into those challenges, he said.
βBut once a contest enters the judicial arena, rules of attorney ethics apply,ββ he said.
Brutinel said financial sanctions should never be wielded against candidates or their attorneys for asserting their legal rights. But their pleadings have to be βin good faith.ββ
βWe also must diligently enforce the rules of ethics on which public confidence in our judicial system depends and where the truth-seeking function of our adjudicative process is unjustifiably hindered,ββ Brutinel said. He said financial sanctions are designed to βdiscourage similar conduct in the futureββ by all lawyers.