Arizona certifies 2022 vote count, election-denying Kari Lake says she’ll sue

Arizona officials certified the state’s votes in the 2022 midterm election Monday, making Democrat Katie Hobbs’ gubernatorial win official.

Republican candidate Kari Lake, who lost to Hobbs by nearly 18,000 votes, tweeted almost immediately to declare she plans to file an “exceptional lawsuit” challenging election results. Lake has a five-day window to file her grievance. The former local news anchor said she also believes Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes.

Lake also claimed she had evidence of fraud in her own party’s 2022 primary, but presented no evidence to make her case after winning that contest. She showed up at one public address holding a sledgehammer and vowed to smash voting machines.

The certification of Arizona’s vote count was delayed last week until a court ordered Republican-controlled Cochise County officials — who offered no evidence of fraud — to certify the county’s ballots.

A Phoenix, AZ., judge last week tossed out a separate “bad faith” Maricopa County claim by Lake and fellow election denier Mark Finchem, and recommended sanctions against the suit’s lawyers for making claims that were “False, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions.”

Finchem unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state, the job Hobbs is leaving, in November. He was defeated by Democrat Adrian Fontes by more than 120,000 votes.

Among the issues brought-up by right-wing election deniers was a technical matter experienced in some Maricopa voting centers where an errant printer setting on ballot tabulators delayed the counting of hand-marked ballots, according to voting officials.

There were also complaints that Hobbs, in her role of secretary of state, was one of the state officials responsible for certifying election results. Governor Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who are both Republicans, signed off on the results as well. Also making the count official was Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, who was appointed by Ducey.

Arizona’s voting process became a subject of ridicule following Trump’s 2020 loss, which was followed by a dubious audit conducted by the Florida-based technology company Cyber Ninjas. After reviewing election results, that group, which had no experience auditing elections, determined President Biden’s win in the Grand Canyon State was even larger than originally believed.

With News Wire Services