'We Are Not Stopping'- Kari Lake Announces Next Steps In Her Election Challenge - 'We Saw What They Did'

Kari Lake, the Republican gubernatorial candidate of Arizona announced during the 'Defend America Rally' on Wednesday in Scottsdale, Arizona that her legal team has filed an appeal in their ongoing election challenge. Lake stressed that the state of Arizona has to get the 2022 election right if there is any hope to do so in 2024.

According to The Western Journal, Lake told supporters, "My attorneys just filed, in the past few minutes, hour or so, they just filed a notice of appeal to the Arizona appellate court." 

She added, "We saw what they did to the machines. We have the proof what they did to the machines."

🚨BREAKING @KariLake reveals breaking news to @BenBergquam just before she took the stage at her 'Defend America Rally'. Watch what she had to say!

Check out our entire rally coverage: https://t.co/pdCGPNFC9A pic.twitter.com/gwF2JfAir3

— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) June 1, 2023

In the appeal filing, Lake's legal team outlined the two claims up for appeal. At the center of the case is whether an "outcome determinative" number of ballots were affected by Maricopa County officials failing to follow the law. Given that Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) supposedly defeated Lake by a mere 17,000 votes, this is a low hurdle to clear.

During the highly publicized trial, Lake's expert witness shared damning testimony that, based on system logs, found approximately 70,000 ballots were "reviewed" for signature verification in under two seconds.

Controversially, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled that because "there is no statutory or regulatory requirement that a specific amount of time be applied to review any given signature at any level of review," "the process of comparison did take place in compliance with the statute, defeating a Reyes claim under misconduct."

To put it more simply, because the law fails to specify what constitutes legal signature verification, looking at a signature for less than two seconds somehow counts. 

According to the appeal Thompson ruled, "denying Plaintiff’s requested relief on Count III regarding Maricopa County’s alleged failure to perform signature verification in accordance with the requirements of A.R.S. § 16-550(A) with respect to an outcome determinative number of ballots."

The particular statute A.R.S. § 16-550(A) requires: "on receipt of the envelope containing the early ballot and the ballot affidavit, the county recorder or other officer in charge of elections shall compare the signatures thereon with the signature of the elector on the elector's registration record," and "If the signature is inconsistent with the elector's signature on the elector's registration record," take specific steps to 'cure' the ballot. It is only if the authorities are "satisfied that the signatures correspond," that a ballot may be counted.

Judge Thompson asserts in his ruling, in what seems to be an obtuse, biased, and deliberately exclusionary reading of the law, that this can be accomplished in under two seconds.

On appeal, Lake's team notes that they may request the case be heard by either the appellate court or the Arizona Supreme Court, which seems the most likely route.