A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit originating with Arizona Republicans Kari Lake and Mark Finchem that sought to compel a hand count of ballots in place of electronic tabulation on the basis of unsupported claims of serious vulnerability. The original target date for their sought tabulation by hand of these votes was last year.
Lake ran unsuccessfully for Arizona governor in 2022, and that same year, Finchem lost the race to become the state’s Secretary of State, which is their number two position in state government. (There’s no lieutenant governor there — for now.) Lake is now running for office again, this time hoping to become the state’s next Senator in a race that will have the seat currently held by Kyrsten Sinema (I) on the ballot. In the meantime, Lake and her associates just keep pushing this stuff, no matter the lack of substantial evidence backing them up, which the appeals court highlighted.
“In the end, none of Plaintiffs’ allegations supports a plausible inference that their individual votes in future elections will be adversely affected by the use of electronic tabulation, particularly given the robust safeguards in Arizona law, the use of paper ballots, and the post-tabulation retention of those ballots,” the appeals court said, as highlighted by the voting rights organization Democracy Docket this week. “The district court correctly dismissed the operative complaint.”
Lake is still challenging her loss in the 2022 governor’s race in court, though you might wonder what her long game is for that dispute, considering it wouldn’t be as though she could serve as governor and Senator at the same time! There’s also the open question of who Donald Trump will choose as his running mate for the 2024 general election, if he prevails in the GOP presidential primary as expected and isn’t substantially hindered by one of his criminal cases — and Lake could be a possibility, considering her well documented closeness with the former president.
Image: Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons
