Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled Monday night that two of Arizona Republican gubernatorial contender Kari Lake’s election complaints will proceed to trial.
BREAKING: Our Election Case is going to trial. Katie Hobbs attempt to have our case thrown out FAILED. She will have to take the stand & testify.
Buckle up, America.
This is far from over. pic.twitter.com/291EnXPP3U— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 20, 2022
The next step is that both parties must submit to the judge a summary of the anticipated time required for their arguments by noon Tuesday. The trial will take two days and conclude prior to Jan. 2, 2023. Both Katie Hobbs, the current Arizona secretary of state and declared governor-elect, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer will likely be called to take the stand in their defense.
Fox News reports:
The two counts that Judge Thompson ruled can go to trial involve printers malfunctioning on Election Day and ballot chain of custody. Lake claimed printers that malfunctioned were not certified and had “vulnerabilities” that made them “susceptible to hacking.” She also claimed the printers malfunctioned because of “intentional action.”
Judge Thompson said Lake must prove at trial that someone interfered with the printers in violation of Arizona law, that the interference caused her to lose votes and that those lost votes affected the outcome of the election.
As for the chain of custody issue, Lake claimed employees of the county’s ballot contractor violated the “County Election Manual” when they added ballots of family members and also failed to secure an “Inbound Receipt of Delivery.” Judge Thompson said whether the county complied with its own manual and applicable statutes is a dispute of fact rather than one of law.
Fox notes that Thompson dismissed eight of Lake’s complaints, which are:
Count I – Violation of Freedom of Speech
Count III – Invalid Signatures on Mail-In Ballots
Count V: Equal Protection
Count VI: Due Process
Count VII – Secrecy Clause
Count VIII: Incorrect Certification
Count IX: Inadequate Remedy
Count X: Constitutional Rights
Related: Kari Lake Scores a Huge Victory in Her Election Challenge Lawsuit
Maricopa County has been ripe for legal challenges for several election cycles due to the convoluted way in which they conduct elections, chain-of-custody and security weaknesses, and ballot counting that drags on for days, sometimes weeks, after other election results have been reported.
In the final days of the 2022 Midterm Election voting period, polls had Lake cruising to a significant victory. But on Election Day, more than half of the ballot printers and tabulators mysteriously malfunctioned in the red districts of Maricopa County, which were predicted to turn out strong for Lake. Maricopa ballot counting also lagged far behind the rest of the state and the country. When the dust settled, officials declared Hobbs the winner by just over 17,000 votes.
Lake claims that balloting challenges suppressed her voter turnout. While the incompetence and confusion of the poorly administered election is not in dispute, Lake’s challenge will be proving that the dysfunction was intentional and malicious. Lake has repeatedly referred to at least one “smoking gun” in her legal team’s body of evidence.
Left-wing activist attorney Marc Elias (the same guy who produced the reprehensible Steele dossier) commented, “Court will hold hearing on 2 narrowed claims. For Lake to prevail she must show (1)’printer malfunctions were intentional, and directed to affect the results of the election, and that such actions did actually affect the outcome; (2) lack of chain of custody was ‘both intentional and did in fact result in a changed outcome.’ Proving intentional wrongdoing and that it affected the outcome of the election will be impossible for Lake. This is a careful judge, but the conclusion seems not in doubt.” Take this with a grain of salt, however, as Elias’s own 2022 election lawsuit was savaged by a New York judge.
Judge Thompson was appointed to the Maricopa County Superior Court in 2010 by then-Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican. Both his undergrad degree and J.D. were earned at Brigham Young University, and he served as a U.S. Army reservist for ten years. His professional and judicial background is varied and includes a six-year stint as staff attorney for the City of Mesa Police Department. The main issue that Republican challenges to dubious elections have faced is the unwillingness of judges across the country to give them a fair hearing; no matter what comes of Lake’s challenge, Thompson is to be commended for his courage in allowing the complaints to proceed to trial. Big Left’s establishment derision of Lake and her lawsuit — and of Republican challenges to insecure balloting practices in general — applies crushing pressure to anyone who dissents from the party line, let alone gives them a chance to prove election tampering.
Pray for Kari Lake and her team in their battle for election integrity. If you are so inclined, you can support their fight here.
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