judge declined Monday to dismiss Kari Lake’s election challenge after oral arguments by attorneys, giving her a chance to try to prove her claims of misconduct by election officials.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson tossed eight of the claims in Lake’s lawsuit, but allowed two to remain that alleged an intentional plot by officials to manipulate the election in favor of Lake’s Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. In two separate orders, he ruled that a two-day trial will take place before Jan. 2, and that Hobbs and County Recorder Stephen Richer would be required to testify as Lake wished.
Lake has “alleged intentional misconduct sufficient to affect the outcome of the election and thus has stated an issue of fact that requires going beyond the pleadings,” the ruling stated. It continued that Lake must show at trial that the county’s printer malfunctions were intentionally rigged to affect the election results, and that the actions “did actually affect the outcome.”…
His ruling, released just before 8 p.m., dismissed eight of Lake’s 10 counts in her lawsuit. The legal doctrine of laches, which forbids claims that could have been brought much earlier in time, applies when considering the county’s signature-verification process or Lake’s claim that the Arizona Constitution’s Secrecy Clause bars mail-in ballots, he wrote.
In other dismissed counts, Lake didn’t state a claim sufficiently or asked for relief that the court could not provide such as “ordering a new election.”
But she did state a valid claim in alleging that a county employee interfered illegally with the printers, “resulting in some number of lost votes” for Lake, and she’s entitled to try to prove that, Thompson ruled.
Likewise, she made a specific allegation that an unknown number of ballots were added to the county’s total by employees of Runbeck Election Services, a Phoenix company that provides election equipment for the county, and that receipts of delivery were not maintained in violation of state law. Thompson allowed that claim to proceed, too.