Appeals Court denies Kari Lake’s election contest to 2022 election

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - An Arizona Appeals Court has denied an appeal by Republican Kari Lake who challenged the results of the 2022 gubernatorial election between her and Katie Hobbs. The Division One Appeals Court ruled in an opinion agreeing with the decision of a Maricopa County Superior Court that Katie Hobbs was the Governor of Arizona following the election results.

In the court’s opinion, Chief Judge Kent Cattani said Lake’s “request for relief fails because the evidence presented to the superior court ultimately supports the court’s conclusion that voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results.”

Lake has been challenging the results of the 2022 election claiming that voters in Maricopa County were affected by printer/tabulator issues, chain-of-custody was violated by election workers and other issues. The superior court initially dismissed eight of ten claims by the Lake campaign and after a bench trial, the court found “Lake had failed to prove any element” of the remaining claims. The superior court ended up confirming that Democrat Katie Hobbs was elected Governor of Arizona.

The appeals court also examined printer and tabulator issues in Maricopa County, which did extend lines at polling places on Election Day. “Lake presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by on-site tabulators were not able to vote,” the court found. The court said Lake’s claim suggested that a majority of those people in long lines were a majority of her voters. “But Lake’s only purported evidence that these issues had any potential effect on election results was, quite simply, sheer speculation,” the court said in the opinion.

The court also found Lake’s expert that was brought to court claiming voters were disenfranchised was “baseless,” and the court noted “the expert based his opinion on the number of people who declined to complete his exit poll on election day and who he thus assumed had been unable to vote.”

Lake took to Twitter shortly after the court’s opinion was released Thursday, vowing to take her case all the way up to the Arizona state supreme court.

Since losing the election for Governor by approximately 17,000 votes, Lake has been raising funds for her legal fight through a “Save Arizona Fund.” Most recently Lake has been holding rallies in her home state of Iowa.

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