Kari Lake, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, has taken further legal action in her campaign to prohibit the use of electronic vote tabulating machines in Arizona. On Tuesday, she submitted a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. Joining her in this endeavor is Mark Finchem, a candidate for the 2022 Secretary of State position, who is currently running for a state Senate seat.
The pair “filed a 210-page petition with the nation’s top court last week, asking it to consider their case. The duo challenges the use of electronic machines that count votes, alleging they are hackable and not properly tested.”
Their claims, first brought up in 2022, have continuously been rejected due to insufficient proof. Dominion Voting Systems, the company behind the machines used in Maricopa County and other states, reached a significant settlement in a defamation case against Fox News last year, as reported by the outlet.
Lake narrowly missed winning her election against current Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, whereas Finch lost his election by a wider gap. In April 2022, the duo initially lodged a petition to have electronic voting machines prohibited before the midterm elections.
“Plaintiffs have a constitutional and statutory right to have their ballots, and all ballots cast together with theirs, counted accurately and transparently so that only legal votes determine the winners of each office contested in the midterm election,” the complaint filed then said.
“Electronic voting machines cannot be deemed reliably secure and do not meet the constitutional and statutory mandates to guarantee a free and fair election,” the pair argued.
U.S. District Judge John Tuchi, who was appointed by President Obama, ruled that their concerns were “too speculative to prove an actual injury” and dismissed the case. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently upheld Tuchi’s decision.
The appeal to the Supreme Court argues: “Although the 2022 election had not yet occurred when petitioners filed the operative complaint or when the district court ruled, a court could order ‘do-over’ relief (e.g., counting the paper ballots) in the 2022 election, as well as similar relief in future elections.”
The appeal documents were filed a mere day prior to Lake submitting over 10,000 signatures, which made her eligible for the August primary ballot. Lake, a former television news anchor, has continuously focused on the media in her campaigns.
“I told the people of Arizona after that election that I would do everything I could to fight for their sacred vote, and this is just another step in that process,” she told reporters last week.
“We need to have honest elections,” she said.
Lake denied that her inquiries about election integrity were contributing to the public’s lack of trust, urging the reporter to observe the current state of elections in the country. USA Today reported that Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s defamation lawsuit against Lake, a fellow Republican, will move forward to trial as confirmed by the Arizona Supreme Court. Richer filed the lawsuit in response to Lake’s accusations of his involvement in election fraud during her loss to Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2022.
He argued that Lake’s false statements led to threats against his family and security concerns. Richer sought compensation and demanded that Lake retract her defamatory comments. Despite Lake’s attempt to dismiss the case, Judge Jay Adelman of Maricopa County Superior Court ruled against her, stating that her legal team failed to provide enough evidence that Richer’s lawsuit was unjustified. Lake appealed this decision, but the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected her appeal. In January, Lake, who is running for the U.S. Senate, took her case to the Arizona Supreme Court.