(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) The Arizona Supreme Court jolted new life into Republican Kari Lake’s election integrity lawsuit on Wednesday, ruling that lower courts wrongly dismissed her challenge to the signature verification process in the grossly flawed 2022 midterm election.
While the court rejected six of Lake’s appeal claims, it accepted her claim that “a material number of early ballots cast in the November 8, 2022 general election were transmitted in envelopes containing an affidavit signature that the Maricopa County Recorder or his designee determined did not match the signature in the putative voter’s ‘registration record.’ The Maricopa County Recorder nevertheless accepted a material number of these early ballots for processing and tabulation,” according to the court’s order.
The Supreme Court ruled that “Contrary to the ruling of the trial court and the Court of Appeals Opinion, this signature verification challenge is to the application of the policies, not to the policies themselves. Therefore, it was erroneous to dismiss this claim…because Lake could not have brought this challenge before the election,” and sent the claim back to the lower court to reconsider.
“I am thrilled that the Supreme Court has agreed to give our signature verification evidence the appropriate forum for the evaluation it deserves. For years signatures have been a third rail for Maricopa County,” Lake said in a statement. “The process of verifying these signatures is the only security measure on mail-in ballots. The amount of time allotted to check these signatures was only 8 seconds, which is not humanly possible. The system is completely broken. That’s why they are absolutely terrified of letting anyone take a look at their signatures.”
Lake allegedly lost the Arizona’s governor race to Democrat Katie Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes. In the tumult of flaws that erupted on Election Day, Lake contested the results and argued that thousands of Republican voters were disenfranchised when voting machines malfunctioned wholesale in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters.
Writing in the Supreme Court’s opinion, Chief Justice Robert Brutinel said Lake will need to “establish that votes [were] affected ‘in sufficient numbers to alter the outcome of the election'” based on a “competent mathematical basis to conclude that the outcome would plausibly have been different, not simply an untethered assertion of uncertainty.”
Lake sounded up to the task, calling the Supreme Court’s ruling “huge,” and promising supporters that, “We’re just getting started.”
They want to ARREST me for exposing fraud in the 2022 Election.
Now, the AZ Supreme Court has ruled that the very fraud I highlighted has to be looked at. This is big, folks.
Hit me with your best shot.
I will never, ever back down.Try me. pic.twitter.com/YDIuprUM1W
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 23, 2023
“Every judge took the defendants argument hook, line and sinker to avoid having to actually peel back the curtain on signature verification,” tweeted UncoverDC’s Tracy Beanz. “It’s EVERYTHING. The fact that the Supreme Court ruled in @KariLake favor on this is an absolute GAME CHANGER.”
