Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Tosses Kari Lake’s Election Contest

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson handed down his ruling after last week’s hearing, effectively tossing Kari Lake’s Election Contest.

After the Arizona Supreme Court sent the case back to lower courts, Lake’s legal team set out to prove signature verification of mail-in ballots in Maricopa County was detrimentally flawed, so much so it led to the victory of Lake’s Democrat opponent Katie Hobbs.

While Lake’s team made a compelling case citing surveillance video footage, whistleblower accounts and expert witness testimony proving tens of thousands of ballots weren’t properly verified, Judge Thompson ultimately ruled he was unconvinced by the evidence presented.

“IT IS ORDERED: confirming the election of Katie Hobbs as Arizona Governor pursuant to A.R.S. § 16-676(B),” he wrote in a decision issued Tuesday, just one business day after court proceedings ended.

More on the judge’s ruling from Arizona Sun Times reporter Rachel Alexander, who argues Thompson did not judge the case on the basis on which it was returned by the higher court:

Thompson stated in his ruling that the legal standard was whether Lake had shown there was misconduct by election boards participating in a canvass, citing A.R.S. 16-672(A)(1). However, the Arizona Supreme Court did not specifically refer to that part of the statute in its remand opinion. Thompson then tied the misconduct to the standard the Arizona Supreme Court did use, which was to show that “votes [were] affected ‘in sufficient numbers to alter the outcome of the election’ based on a ‘competent mathematical basis to conclude that the outcome would plausibly have been different, not simply an untethered assertion of uncertainty.’”

The Arizona Supreme Court tied that standard to all of A.R.S. 16-672, not just its misconduct clause. That statute lays out the grounds for an election contest, which includes “On account of illegal votes” and “by reason of erroneous count of votes.”

Thompson asserted that Lake had to prove that election boards’ misconduct affected the outcome of the election, citing Miller v. Picacho Elementary School District No. 33. However, that case did not state that a showing of misconduct was required. Instead, the Arizona Supreme Court looked at the violations of the statutes on their face to invalidate the election. “We therefore hold that a showing of fraud is not a necessary condition to invalidate absentee balloting,” the court stated. “It is sufficient that an express non-technical statute was violated, and ballots cast in violation of the statute affected the election.”

Kari Lake addressed the judge’s ruling in a statement to the press in Phoenix Tuesday. Check out highlights below:

On the heels of the ruling, she also announced she’s “launching the LARGEST and MOST EXTENSIVE ballot chasing operation in Arizona history.”