TL/DR –
Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, financially backed by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, have once again lost in their attempt to force Arizona to conduct a hand count of ballots in the upcoming election. The two have alleged that Dominion Voting Systems machines produced inaccurate results in the 2020 election and that there were no paper ballots to verify the machine count, although they provided no evidence to support these claims. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals swiftly rejected their appeal, with one judge imposing sanctions of $122,000 on their lawyers for bringing a “frivolous” lawsuit.
Arizona’s 2022 Election Lawsuit: Kari Lake and Mark Finchem Lose Again
In a predictable turn of events, Kari Lake and Mark Finchem have once again failed in their attempt to mandate an unreliable and costly hand count of ballots in Arizona’s upcoming election.
On Monday, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously dismissed the pair’s claims about vote counting machines, stating that their complaint depends on “hypothetical contingencies” that have never occurred in Arizona, as reported by the three-judge panel and the AZ Law blog.
Lake and Finchem’s Unfounded Claims
In 2022, Lake and Finchem, financially backed by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, filed a lawsuit against the state while campaigning for governor and secretary of state. They sought to prohibit the machine tabulation of votes in the 2022 election, alleging inaccurate results from Dominion Voting Systems machines in 2020 and a lack of paper ballots for verification.
They insisted on the necessity for their ballots and all others to be counted accurately and openly, despite having no proof that the ballots had been counted inaccurately or opaquely.
Arizona’s existing use of paper ballots and the state law-mandated hand count of a random sample of these ballots to verify machine accuracy were conveniently disregarded by the duo.
Questioning the Potential for Machine Hacking
Their legal action, which was primarily political, aimed to propagate the falsehood that Arizona’s vote was stolen. U.S. District Court Judge John J. Tuchi dismissed their case in August 2022, fining their lawyers $122,000 for bringing a “frivolous” lawsuit that created unnecessary confusion.
During their appeal last month, Lake’s and Finchem’s attorney admitted they had no evidence. However, they persisted in their argument that the 2024 election should be hand-counted.
Their latest claim is not whether the machines were hacked in 2020 or 2022, but whether they could potentially be hacked in the future.
Request for Additional Sanctions
The judges did not entertain this line of argument. They stated, “none of Plaintiffs’ allegations support a plausible inference that their individual votes in future elections will be adversely affected by the use of electronic tabulation…”
Despite this setback, the so-called Kraken conspiracy may continue, fueled by fundraising efforts and attempts to undermine voter confidence in a system that has functioned effectively for decades.
The county and state should seek further sanctions in this case to cover the costs of defending against these baseless claims. This time, the financial burden should fall on the claimants, not their attorneys.
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