(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Arizona Republican Kari Lake’s legal team scored a victory when the judge hearing her election integrity lawsuit against Maricopa County and state officials rejected the defense’s request Thursday for a directed verdict.
Defense attorneys from Democrat lawfare headquarters Perkins Coie had reportedly spent a majority of the trial, which started Wednesday, scrambling to counter witnesses called by Lake’s team in their bid to overturn the dubious results of the state’s widely-criticized botched 2022 gubernatorial election.
Arizona Democrat Katie Hobbs was named the winner in the disputed tilt, which was decided by a margin of less than 17,000 votes. Lake is trying to prove that Maricopa elections officials failed to properly verify tens of thousands voters signatures to a degree large enough that it skewed the election to Hobbs.
Perkins Coie's motion for a direct verdict.
DENIED.
They will have to put on a case.
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) May 18, 2023
Lake attorney Kurt Olsen spent the trial’s first day producing videos, documents and witness testimonies describing systemic polling place failures on election day that overwhelmed workers struggling to verify loads of mail-in and provisional ballots.
Lake’s team focused Thursday on faulty signatures that they said plagued the verification process, with one demonstration that summarized keystrokes made by signature-verifiers on election day.
Signature-verification specialist Erich Speckin, who analyzed the data, said there were at least 70,000 instances in which a signature-verification determination was made in less than two seconds.
“I don’t believe it can be done,” he said.
Our expert witness just testified thousands of signatures were approved at a rate of 99.87% in under two seconds in Maricopa County.
This is not humanly possible.
It's also not signature verification.
This is rubber stamping bad ballots to alter the outcome of our election.
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) May 18, 2023
Defense attorneys reportedly tried to repeatedly disrupt witness testimony, to the point that their constant interruptions drew official rebuke.
“Judge Thompson is getting madder and madder at the defense attorneys during Kari Lake’s election trial,” tweeted Arizona Sun Time’s reporter Rachel Alexander.
Kari Lake’s attorneys can’t get through 60 seconds of witness examination without an ‘objection’ from the other side. This is excruciating to watch. Is this normal?
— Carolyn Ryan (@CarolynRyanTV) May 18, 2023
“He just decimated former Perkins Coie attorney Craig Morgan, who had the nerve to TELL Thompson what court procedure should be, which was incredibly rude. Morgan was trying to stop Lake’s attorney Kurt Olsen from continuing to direct examine his witness. Thompson let Olsen continue,” Alexander reported.
If anyone was wondering it took the Perkins Coie's attorneys just 4 minutes to object after recess.
Overruled
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) May 18, 2023
The attorneys for Hobbs, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Maricopa County, had not called any witnesses when they asked Judge Peter Thompson to enter a judgment. The trial is slated to resume Friday.
Lake attended Thursday’s proceedings and sounded an optimistic note, while once again chastising Hobbs for making a mockery of election integrity and voters’ rights.
“This wouldn’t have been necessary if Maricopa hadn’t disenfranchised Arizonans. It wouldn’t have been necessary if they’d followed the law. It wouldn’t have been necessary if @katiehobbs hadn’t run her own election,” Lake tweeted. “Arizonans asked me to fight this fight for them. Here I Am.”
Arizonans don’t trust voting in person after our Election Day was sabotaged and we don’t trust mail-in ballots.
Today, in court, we proved how messed-up the ONLY security feature (signature verification) on mail-in ballots is.
We the people need relief.
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) May 19, 2023
