Arizona Supreme Court Gives Major Victory To Kari Lake, Election Lawsuit Will Happen 'Forthwith' To Determine Contested Governor's Seat

The Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday decided that court proceedings should take place "forthwith" in Maricopa County Suprerior Court regarding Kari Lake's (R-AZ) election challenge.

The issue which that trial will be around is over signature verification with respect to the 2022 Arizona governor's race. According to Just the News, The race was decided by a margin of around 17,000 ballots in favor of Katie Hobbes (D-AZ) who now occupies the office of governor. Should enough ballots be cast into doubt due to lack of or mismatching signatures, it could result in a court order of a change of governor.

The last time Arizona experienced a court overturning the official result of an election over allegations of election impropries was in 1916. Back in 1916, the initial declared winner occupied the seat until the court a year later proclaimed his opponent had won. 

The state Chief Justice also denied Kari's opponent's Motion to Strike and denied the request that Kari's lawyers pay the defendant's attorney's fees. The decision by the state Chief Justice did not wholly rule in Kari Lake's favor, however. He ordered that her lawyer pay "the Clerk of the Supreme Court the sum of $2,000.00" as a sanction for repeated asserations that to the effect that it was an "undisputed fact that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total number of ballots."

The Court explained its reasoning for the unfavorable ruling to Lake as being due to the fact that "[n]ot only is that allegation strongly disputed by the other parties, this Court concluded and expressly stated that the assertion was unsupported by the record."

Nevertheless, it is still on balance a good ruling for Lake whose lawsuit gets to now proceed in lower court. As explained by Robert Barnes, an civil rights attorney with experience in election lawsuits, "Honest media headline of AZ Supreme Court today in @KariLake case would be: 'Arizona Supreme Court orders trial court 'shall forthwith' proceed with the signature verification issue, while denying attorneys' fees request from county lawyers.' Oddly, both facts missing from media."
 

Honest media headline of AZ Supreme Court today in @KariLake case would be: "Arizona Supreme Court orders trial court "shall forthwith" proceed with the signature verification issue, while denying attorneys' fees request from county lawyers." Oddly, both facts missing from media.

— Robert Barnes (@barnes_law) May 4, 2023

When Garrett Archer (under the alias The AZ-abc15-Data Guru), an Arizona elections data analyst, tried to portray this as a total loss for Lake by writing "AZ Supreme Court sanctions @KariLake attorney for making false statements to the court", Mr. Barnes wrote back "Fact check: false. Missing context. AZ Supreme Court denied sanctions for the petition noting @KariLake won on key issue. AZ Supreme Court denied sanctions for attorneys fees. AZ Supreme Court required small $2K court fee over use of word 'undisputed' in 1 sentence. Very minor.
 

Fact check: false. Missing context. AZ Supreme Court denied sanctions for the petition noting @KariLake won on key issue. AZ Supreme Court denied sanctions for attorneys fees. AZ Supreme Court required small $2K court fee over use of word "undisputed" in 1 sentence. Very minor. https://t.co/TJGn3CCwhI

— Robert Barnes (@barnes_law) May 4, 2023

Kari Lake's campaign seemed to take the verdict well given their response to Mr. Barnes on Twitter thanking him.
 

Thank you, Robert.

We're moving forward with investigating signature verification.

— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) May 4, 2023

Richard Baris, a pollster, data analyst, and a witness who testified in favor of Lake during her first election trial, also added that "As usual, Garrett G-Man Archer twists to claim something that isn't true. The reporter was wrong potentially because 1) the reporter doesn't know enough about the law to cover that beat or 2) because media hates @KariLake and they lie repeatedly about her."

As usual, Garrett G-Man Archer twists to claim something that isn't true. The reporter was wrong potentially because 1) the reporter doesn't know enough about the law to cover that beat or 2) because media hates @KariLake and they lie repeatedly about her. https://t.co/6GiUBlSK43

— Rich Baris "The People's Pundit" (@Peoples_Pundit) May 4, 2023