The Arizona Court of Appeals has agreed to expedite consideration of Kari Lake’s claims that the 2022 election was flawed.
By Howard Fischer || Capitol Media Services January 10, 2023
Kari Lake, Republican candidate for governor, waves to her supporters at the Republican watch party in Scottsdale on Nov. 8. The Arizona Court of Appeals has agreed to expedite consideration of Lake’s claims that the 2022 election was flawed.
The Arizona Court of Appeals has agreed to expedite consideration of Kari Lake’s claims that the 2022 election was flawed.
But none of that means the judges are going to give her what she wants: either to be installed as governor or require a new election in the state’s largest county.
In a brief order made public Tuesday, the appellate court accepted her petition that her election claims be handled as a special action. That means the attorneys for now Gov. Katie Hobbs have only until Jan. 17 to file their own legal papers about why the three-judge panel should reject her bid.
The judges also agreed to consider the matter on Feb. 1. That is at least a month earlier than the court would have heard a regular appeal.
Lake’s appeal is essentially a renewal of the claims she made to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson that she would have won — or, at least, would have had a better chance — had Maricopa County not had problems with its ballot-on-demand printers located at many of its 223 voting centers. Many of those printers were producing ballots which could not be read by the on-site ballot tabulators.
Lake contends that this depressed the votes of Republicans who are more likely to go to the polls on Election Day than Democrats. More to the point, she argued there was evidence that the printer problems were the result of intentional misconduct by one or more people — she had no names — working for the county.
