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Six months after the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, a judge in Maricopa County has granted GOP nominee Kari Lake a new trial to present evidence regarding one of her seven claims that challenge Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ victory.
According to NBC affiliate News4 in Tucson, the trial is scheduled for Wednesday and “will focus on Lake’s claim that there were serious flaws in the county’s signature verification process for mail-in ballots during the 2022 election.”
An attorney for Hobbs has asked Judge Peter Thompson to dismiss the signature verification claim, the outlet reported.
Earlier this month, the Arizona Supreme Court ordered proceedings in her case challenging Maricopa County signature verification processes in the 2022 election to take place “forthwith” while also denying defendants’ attorneys fees and granting one sanction.
As reported by Just the News, Lake lost the election to then-Secretary of State Hobbs by around 17,000 votes. She is now suing Hobbs, as well as Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Maricopa County election officials, and is seeking to invalidate the election results or be declared the winner.
Lake’s lawsuit was reviewed by the Arizona Supreme Court in March, which remanded one of her seven counts back to the trial court and allowed the consideration of sanctions against her.
The remanded count pertained to Lake’s claim that Maricopa County violated its signature verification policies during the 2022 election, the outlet’s report continued.
“The signature verification allegation was remanded to the Maricopa County Superior Court, which was waiting on the high court to determine if she must pay sanctions to Hobbs and Fontes regarding her claim of 35,563 unaccounted early ballots being added to Maricopa County’s final tally,” the report said.
A day earlier, the state’s highest court granted a request by defendants of $2,000 in sanctions against Lake’s counsel for “asserting ‘the undisputed fact that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total number of ballots,’ and for repeating such false assertions in an additional filing in this proceeding,” the ruling stated.
However, the defendants’ requests for attorneys’ fees as sanctions were denied by the justices. The court also ordered “that the trial court shall forthwith conduct such proceedings as appropriate to resolve” the charges regarding the alleged signature verification process violations.
Late last month, meanwhile, Maricopa County investigators released a report regarding irregularities observed during the November elections after the county faced severe ballot-printing problems that drew criticism from Republicans.
Maricopa, the largest county in Arizona, has been under scrutiny for alleged election irregularities and voter fraud in recent elections, particularly in the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 gubernatorial race. The county’s ballot printers and tabulators again faced significant problems on Election Day, leading to criticism from Republicans and legal action from Lake.
Former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor led the team of investigators who authored the report. According to their analysis, changes in the ballot length combined with the paperweight put a strain on some of the older printers’ abilities, the outlet said.
In order to include all the mandatory information, the county increased the length of the ballots from 19 inches to 20 inches between the August primaries and the November general contest. As per the report, the combination of the larger ballot size and the use of 100-pound ballot paper proved to be a significant burden on the printers, resulting in the observed irregularities.
After the Arizona Supreme Court remanded one of Lake’s counts back to Judge Thompson, polling firm Rasmussen Reports noted on Twitter: “Apparently upwards of 300,000 mail ballots in Maricopa County Arizona will now be checked for missing or mismatched signature issues in a race that has captured international attention and is divided by less than 15,000 ‘votes.’ Waiting to see the actual court order.”
