(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who recently ruled against Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s Maricopa County election lawsuit, systematically ignored over 333,000 misdemeanors exposed by various witnesses, Townhall reported.
Thompson’s dismissal of the lawsuit ignored legal precedent and allowed for the disfranchisement of primarily Republican voters.
According to the officially certified tally, Lake’s opponent, then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, prevailed by a margin of 17,117 votes after Maricopa, the state’s largest county, experienced chaotic technical difficulties on Election Day and then took nearly a week to count the ballots, fueling the suspicions of many.
Per Lake’s legal team, the state bureaucracy delivered nearly 299,000 ballots to a third-party signature-verification service, Runbeck Election Services, ignoring chain-of-custody laws entirely.
Further, a Runbeck employee noted that nearly 10,000 duplicate ballots were printed and issued with no oversight or chain of custody.
Lastly, the county allegedly added 25,000 additional ballots after the Nov. 8 voting deadline.
“Maricopa County’s public statements concerning remaining ballots to be counted on November 9, 2022, and November 10, 2022, show an increase of approximately 25,000 votes with no explanation of why the number of remaining ballots could increase,” said Lake’s legal complaint.
Each of those ballots—totaling more than 333,000—would warrant a class 2 misdemeanor according to state law.
None of this is even to mention the “printing problems” that struck predominantly Republican areas of Maricopa County.
Yet, during Lake’s two-day trial, Thompson required that she, her legal team and her witnesses prove not just negligent practice among election officials, but also intent to manipulate the election’s outcome by their incompetence, feigned or otherwise.
Legal expert Robert Barnes noted that Thompson set up standards that are nearly impossible to meet.
“Arizona law is clear: even inadvertent errors in election require setting aside result if it casts outcome in doubt,” he tweeted. “Intentionality is NOT required when the error casts actual winner ‘in doubt.’”
Arizona law is clear: even inadvertent errors in election require setting aside result if it casts outcome in doubt. Intentionality is NOT required when the error casts actual winner "in doubt."
— Robert Barnes (@barnes_law) December 23, 2022
In light of the rigged legal decision, Lake and her legal team have appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court to take up the case.
