The swimsuit targets Lake’s opponent, Governor-elect Katie Hobbs (D), who’s at present Arizona’s secretary of state, together with prime officers in Maricopa County, essentially the most populous within the state. As secretary of state, Hobbs licensed Arizona’s election outcomes.
Within the 70-page lawsuit, Lake asks the Maricopa County Superior Court docket for an order “declaring that Kari Lake is the winner of the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election,” or alternatively throwing out the outcomes of the election and requiring the county to conduct a brand new election.
Lake is the highest-profile election denier to contest her own loss within the midterm elections. Most others who misplaced have conceded defeat.
Even earlier than midterm voting started, Lake refused to say she would settle for the outcomes of the gubernatorial election except she received. She described the race as “botched” earlier than it was known as.
The lawsuit repeats unsupported claims that Lake has beforehand made about Maricopa County’s election and alleges that Hobbs and the county officers have “shattered” public belief within the election course of.
Hobbs’s marketing campaign known as the lawsuit baseless, saying it was a “determined try and undermine our democracy and throw out the desire of the voters.”
“Arizonans made their voices heard and elected Katie Hobbs as governor. No nuisance lawsuit will change that,” Hobbs’s marketing campaign said in a statement on Twitter.
Like Trump, Lake has sought to sow doubt within the election outcomes by way of social media, asking customers to share their accounts of voting points in Maricopa County. She has shared tales of some voters who needed to wait in strains to solid their ballots because of a printing error.
“The Election Day debacle … preclude[s] the Defendants on this motion from certifying Hobbs because the winner of the election,” the lawsuit reads. The swimsuit partly hinges on these claims, alleging “unlawful” votes and saying Republican voters have been “disenfranchised.”
Responding to a request for remark from The Washington Publish, Lake’s authorized counsel, Kurt Olsen, cited particulars from the 70-page lawsuit.
Olsen complained of purported discrepancies between poll signatures and the official file signatures for some voters, in addition to mechanical issues at some websites on election day.
There isn’t a proof voters couldn’t solid their ballots due to mechanical glitches, in response to a report by election officials. Tom Liddy, Maricopa County’s civil division chief and a lifelong Republican, wrote in a five-page letter accompanying the report that “all voters have been nonetheless offered affordable, lawful choices for voting.”
A leaked call final month confirmed that attorneys for Lake’s marketing campaign and the Republican Nationwide Committee questioned a lawyer for Maricopa County, which incorporates Phoenix, about perceived voting issues. After her loss, advisers urged Lake not to claim the election was stolen, as Trump did in 2020, The Publish reported.
Lake additionally asks the judges to order a “forensic examination” into what the lawsuits lists as issues on Election Day, to throw out any invalid ballots, and to permit her to examine Maricopa County’s ballots.
Meryl Kornfield contributed to this report.
