Kari Lake files suit challenging certification of Arizona election
By Brian Rokus and Sonnet Swire, CNN
Defeated Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has filed suit in Arizona Superior Court challenging the certification of the state’s election.
Lake, who has also amplified former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, makes numerous claims in the 70-page suit, including that printer failures at some polling places disenfranchised voters in Maricopa County, creating a “debacle” in the county.
As CNN has previously reported, Maricopa officials have said that printer problems affected about 70 vote centers, preventing some ballots from being read by tabulator machines on Election Day, but that the problems were fixed and that those ballots were set aside in a secure ballot box and counted separately. Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, called the inconvenience and the long lines that resulted “unfortunate” in one Twitter video but said that “every voter had an opportunity to cast a vote on Election Day.”
Among other concerns, Lake also cites long lines and criticizes the use of mail-in ballots in the suit.
“Accordingly, Lake is entitled to an order setting aside the election in its entirety and ordering a new election,” Lake’s attorneys write in the suit. The suit also asks the court for “an order setting aside the certified result of the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election and declaring that Kari Lake is the winner of the 2022 gubernatorial election.”
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who defeated Lake to become governor-elect, is named in the suit in her capacity as secretary of state and is one of several defendants.
“Kari Lake needs attention like a fish needs water — and independent experts and local election officials of both parties have made clear that this was a safe, secure and fair election,” Hobbs said, calling the filing “baseless” and a “nuisance lawsuit.”
Lake has questioned the integrity of the results since she lost last month’s election. Arizona certified the election on Monday. It was not immediately clear what impact the challenge would have.
All four GOP nominees that were at the top of the Arizona ticket had echoed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
Arizona was a key 2022 battleground for governor and Senate, and likely will be again for president in 2024. Leading Democratic figures, including former President Barack Obama, warned that the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s election falsehoods and conspiracy theories could put democracy at risk if they were to sweep to power.
Lake has repeatedly said she would not have certified Joe Biden’s win in Arizona in 2020.
The former news anchor at Fox 10 in Phoenix was one of the most prominent candidates in the 2022 cycle as she and Hobbs vied to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.
Last month, Ducey said he had met with Hobbs following her election win, adding that he “will work to make this transition as smooth and seamless as possible.”
“All of us have waited patiently for the democratic process to play out,” Ducey said in a statement at the time. “The people of Arizona have spoken, their votes have been counted and we respect their decision.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
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