Kari Lake at CPAC 2023 meeting
By Stacey Barchenger || The Arizona Republic
Arizona’s top court has declined to hear Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s challenge to her election loss, but kept the case alive by sending one of Lake’s claims back to a county judge to review.
Lake asked the Arizona Supreme Court to consider her case after a Maricopa County judge and state appeals court rejected her claims that she was the rightful governor, or that a new election should take place.
The former television news anchor made seven legal claims in her case, six of which the state’s top court said were properly dismissed by lower courts, according to an opinion released Wednesday written by Chief Justice Robert Brutinel.
Those included claims that tens of thousands of ballots were “injected” into the election, which Lake called an “undisputed fact” in her lawsuit, as well as alleging that problems with tabulation machines disenfranchised “thousands” of voters.
The opinion said Lake’s challenges were “insufficient to warrant the requested relief under Arizona or federal law.”
But the sixth legal claim, which has to do with Lake’s allegation that Maricopa County did not follow signature verification procedures, must receive a second look by a county judge, the court ordered. The county and appeals courts interpreted Lake’s signature-related challenge as applying to the policies themselves, not how the policies were applied in 2022, and dismissed her claim based on grounds that she filed her legal challenge too late.
But that was an error, the Supreme Court said, noting, “Lake could not have brought this challenge before the election.”
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