Kari Lake signature verifications claim rejected by judge
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- Kari Lake’s lawsuit had another loss after a judge rejected her last remaining claim on Monday. After a three-day trial last week, Judge Peter A. Thompson ruled the court didn’t find clear and convincing evidence that Maricopa County election officials failed to correctly verify signatures during the 2022 general election.
Lake’s lawyers spent several days in court arguing that Maricopa County failed to perform higher level signature verifications on flagged mail-in ballots. The former TV news anchor’s team also showed video footage from a Maricopa County camera feed that allegedly shows a signature verified incorrectly and hastily by a worker. However, the ruling said Reynaldo “Rey” Valenzuela, Maricopa County director of elections, showed the court 1,600 signatures reviewed by him personally during the general election and gave the court an overview of the process based on his 33 years of experience. The court found the signature review consisted of “153 level one reviewers, 43 level two reviewers, and two ongoing audits.”
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Lake’s team also argued that 274,000 signatures were compared in less than two seconds and 70,000 were less than a second. However, Judge Thompson ruled that no reviewer is required to spend any specific length of time on any particular signature. “Not one second, not three seconds, and not six seconds: no standard appears in the plain text of the statute,” a portion of the ruling read. “The Court finds that looking at signatures that, by and large, have consistent characteristics will require only a cursory examination and thus take very little time.”
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman released a statement following the judge’s ruling.
Wild claims of rigged elections may generate media attention and fundraising pleas, but they do not win court cases. When “bombshells” and “smoking guns” are not backed up by facts, they fail in court. This is justice, and this is what happened today in Kari Lake’s election contest. For the past six months, Ms. Lake has uttered false claims, disparaging county staff and elected officials in her attempt to get a judge to discard the valid votes of hundreds of thousands of Arizona voters. Judge Thompson stuck to the requirement laid out by the Arizona Supreme Court that Ms. Lake would have to provide “clear and convincing evidence” that signature verification did not take place. Judge Thompson stated in his ruling: “Plaintiff’s evidence and arguments do not clear the bar.” “This evidence is, in its own right, clear indicia that the comparative process was undertaken in compliance with the statute...”
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Source: Arizona's Family
