Arizona Judge Rejects Kari Lake’s Effort to Overturn Her Election Loss - The New York Times

A authorities justice connected Saturday rejected Kari Lake’s last-ditch effort to overturn her decision successful the Arizona governor’s race, dismissing for deficiency of grounds her past 2 claims of misconduct by Maricopa County predetermination officials.

The bid by Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, aft a two-day proceedings successful Phoenix that ended Thursday, follows much than six weeks of claims by Ms. Lake, a Republican, that she was robbed of triumph past period — assertions that echoed the mendacious contention that was astatine the bosom of her campaign: that an adjacent larger theft had stolen the 2020 statesmanlike predetermination from Donald. J. Trump.

Ms. Lake and her supporters conjured up what they called a deliberate effort by predetermination officials successful Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, to disenfranchise her voters. But they ne'er provided grounds of specified intentional malfeasance, nor adjacent grounds that immoderate voters had been disenfranchised.

Ms. Lake has said she would entreaty an unfavorable decision.

Ms. Lake, a erstwhile Phoenix tv quality anchor, mislaid by astir 17,000 votes to Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who is the Arizona caput of state, and who roseate to nationalist prominence erstwhile she resisted efforts by Trump loyalists to overturn the ballot successful 2020.

Ms. Lake’s ineligible challenge, brought against Maricopa County and Ms. Hobbs, was a rallying constituent for the predetermination denial question that grew retired of Mr. Trump’s refusal to judge his defeat. Since Election Day, Ms. Lake has appeared doubly alongside the erstwhile president astatine his Mar-a-Lago resort, vowing to combat on.

The verdict deals a stroke to that movement’s efforts to situation the results of the 2022 election. Republican candidates moving connected Mr. Trump’s mendacious claims mislaid important races successful battleground states and, according to postelection polls, generated an summation successful assurance successful the predetermination strategy among some Democrats and Republicans.

According to Democracy Docket, a left-leaning predetermination instrumentality radical founded by the Democratic run lawyer Marc Elias, 15 lawsuits person been brought by candidates oregon their campaigns implicit federal, statewide and legislative races since this year’s predetermination — a steep driblet from the 36 filed successful 2020, 16 of them connected behalf of Mr. Trump and his run and much by his allies.

Some of the lawyers progressive successful those cases, specified arsenic Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, were aboriginal punished by courts for “a historical and profound maltreatment of the judicial process” and “demonstrably mendacious and misleading statements,” implicit the often conspiratorial and blatantly mendacious claims they made successful and retired of tribunal connected behalf of Mr. Trump.

On Monday, the justice rejected 8 of 10 claims by Ms. Lake, including a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and vague allegations contained successful a ailment filed earlier this month. He ruled that Ms. Lake could proceed connected 2 counts, but acceptable a precocious barroom based connected Arizona law.

To prevail connected 1 claim, Ms. Lake needed to beryllium that a region predetermination authoritative had deliberately caused ballot printers to malfunction for the intent of swaying predetermination results, and that the result flipped arsenic a result.

To prevail connected the other, she needed to beryllium that officials had purposely violated chain-of-custody procedures for handling ballots and, again, that this noncompliance had swayed the election’s outcome.

Ms. Lake’s lawsuit appeared to travel obscurity adjacent gathering those benchmarks. No predetermination authoritative was ever identified arsenic liable for malfeasance, and nary voters were identified arsenic having been disenfranchised — fto unsocial the thousands it would person taken to extremity the outcome.

About the champion Ms. Lake’s squad was capable to travel up with was a cybersecurity specializer from Alabama, Clay Parikh — 1 of a fig of radical who person been moving nationwide to beforehand election-denial theories — who testified that helium had inspected immoderate Arizona ballots and concluded that they were printing retired 19-inch ballots connected 20-inch paper.

“This could not beryllium an accident,” Mr. Parikh said. But helium could connection nary much than theories to enactment his contention.

Mr. Parikh and others progressive successful Ms. Lake’s lawsuit person ties to Mike Lindell, the pillow shaper who is simply a cardinal fig among predetermination conspiracy theorists. Mr. Lindell has said helium was helping to concern Ms. Lake’s ineligible challenge, and his ain lawyer, Kurt Olsen, has led Ms. Lake’s ineligible team.

Testifying connected Thursday, arsenic thousands of radical watched online, Maricopa County’s Election Day director, Scott Jarrett, said that the ballots Mr. Parikh had inspected each came from a fewer voting locations wherever technicians had mistakenly switched the settings of ballot printers successful an effort to effort to hole problems with printers that weren’t heating up properly.

Mr. Jarrett said lone astir 1,300 ballots were affected by the problems Mr. Parikh cited — and that they were inactive counted done a backup process. Mr. Jarrett stressed that, careless of the printer malfunctions and immoderate different issues that created lines astatine immoderate voting locations, nary of those were intentional and each voters were capable to vote, 1 mode oregon the other.

Other witnesses for Ms. Lake sought to represent the problems connected Election Day arsenic causing longer lines than the region claimed. One right-wing pollster cited information from his ain exit poll as enactment for the thought that turnout indispensable person been affected, due to the fact that galore radical who had told him they planned to ballot did not implicit his survey.

But an adept testifying for the defense, Kenneth Mayer, a prof of governmental subject astatine the University of Wisconsin, called the claims made by Ms. Lake’s witnesses “pure speculation” and said their usage of polling information was invalid.

“There’s nary information to enactment immoderate of those claims,” Mr. Mayer said. “There’s rather a spot of information to suggest that did not happen.”

Ms. Lake’s lawyers and witnesses besides sought to rise doubts astir region procedures that guarantee information passim the vote-counting process. One of their cardinal contentions relied connected a unsmooth estimation an predetermination authoritative had given, astatine 1 point, of the fig of mail-in ballots dropped disconnected connected Election Day.

That estimation was revised upward aft each the ballots were counted connected the premises of a third-party vendor. But Ms. Lake’s lawyers and witnesses suggested — but did not connection impervious — that the vendor’s employees had wrongly inserted further ballots into the process.

Mr. Jarrett, however, elaborate extended information procedures, including the sealing and documentation of batches of ballots, and insisted that due procedures were followed. “If immoderate ballots were inserted oregon rejected oregon mislaid successful that process,” helium testified, “we would know.”

Three different midterm predetermination challenges successful Arizona person besides failed successful court, including the dismissal connected Friday of a situation brought by Abraham Hamadeh, a Republican lawyer wide campaigner whose 511-vote shortage to Kris Mayes, a Democrat, triggered a state-mandated recount.

Mr. Hamadeh had sued successful Mohave County to person himself the winner. But during closing arguments successful a trial, Mr. Hamadeh’s attorney, Timothy La Sota, admitted that helium didn’t person immoderate grounds of intentional misconduct oregon immoderate ballot discrepancies that would marque up the spread betwixt the candidates. He asked the justice to change the ballot number slightly, which the justice declined to bash and dismissed the case.

Even then, Mr. Hamadeh blamed predetermination officials, saying successful a station connected Twitter that they “failed democracy” and that helium would determine “next steps” aft the recount was completed.

Richard L. Hasen, an predetermination instrumentality student and instrumentality prof astatine the University of California, Los Angeles, said that the Maricopa proceedings was important successful that it forced Ms. Lake to nutrient immoderate grounds she had to backmost up her claims, which person provided sizeable substance for the predetermination denier movement.

“This demonstrates that outlandish claims of fraud and intentional rigging of elections necessitate existent impervious successful court,” Mr. Hasen said. “I’m gladsome she had her accidental to bring grounds to tribunal and person it reasonably evaluated.”