From their pulpit at press conferences, they shrugged off questions and concerns about the potential for long lines on election day and whether they would have their voting centers properly equipped. For weeks, the mainstream media blasted out to Arizonans that they are competent election officials, about to implement the “safest, most secure” election in history.
Then it all came crumbling down in what was one of the worst election days in recent history. Long lines, yes. But more importantly, critical equipment failures resulted in the complete inability to tabulate ballots at dozens of voting locations for several hours. It didn’t stop there. The issues persisted in the coming weeks for Maricopa County, who responded to requests for information with hostility. And then, we found out Pinal County (following major problems in their primary election) had miscounted hundreds of ballots, shrinking the already miniscule gap between the candidates for attorney general.
Two months later, these issues are still being litigated. But regardless of how the election contests being pursued by Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh turn out, nothing changes the fact that Maricopa and Pinal Counties bungled the election.
Going forward, Arizona must learn from what happened, craft meaningful solutions, and focus efforts on productive goals ahead of 2024…
Maricopa County is investigating the mass failures of Election Day ballot-on-demand (BOD) printers resulting in issues for over 17,000 voters.
In a press release last Friday, the county shared a joint statement from Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates and Vice Chairman Clint Hickman. The duo shared that former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor would lead the investigation. The duo also appeared to mistakenly state that the BOD printers “read” the ballots.
“This Board of Supervisors has always been committed to continuous improvement. When things don’t work, we find out why,” stated the pair. “[We will] find out why printers that read ballots well in the August Primary had trouble reading some ballots while using the same settings in the November General. Our voters deserve nothing less.”
NEW: Former AZ Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor will lead independent investigation into Election Day printer issues. We look forward to her findings. Statement ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/mOhkWideou
McGregor is tasked with hiring a team of outside experts to investigate why there were mass printer failures. McGregor previously investigated allegations of unethical conduct within Arizona State University’s economics department concerning, specifically a quid pro quo agreement between the university and an education and technology company. McGregor’s investigation quickly proved the allegations to be false.
McGregor also investigated Arizona Department of Corrections safety issues pertaining to malfunctioning cell doors and locks. The report resulted in improvements to the malfunctioning security measures.
GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who is challenging the midterm election results in an ongoing lawsuit, questioned why Gates and Hickman stated that the BOD printers “read” ballots.
🤦♂️ Maybe @maricopacounty can examine why they think printers read ballots?
"I mean, how seriously can you take a press release that says they are going to investigate why printers had trouble reading ballots? Printers don’t read ballots, they print them!” https://t.co/AQnXyS9JKOpic.twitter.com/ZEbGZBJIWk
During the county’s canvass of the election results, several poll workers testified that they witnessed election machine issues prior to Election Day. The county also disclosed that only certain BOD printers experienced failures during their preliminary investigative efforts: “Oki” model printers retrofitted to be BOD printers. According to the county at the time, 71 of 211 sites were impacted.
. @MaricopaVote : the faulty printer setting causing widespread tabulator issues occurred in one of two types of printers: the one retrofitted to be a ballot-on-demand printer, "Oki." County expressed confusion with its failure since stress testing went well. 71 sites impacted. pic.twitter.com/jZEmQiZXQn
The timing of the county’s investigation aligns with its other actions to address voter concerns. A few hours before the state certified the election results, the county issued a survey asking voters how they felt about the midterm election.
The county also delayed its compliance with the Arizona Senate’s subpoena for election records for over a month. The legislator leading the charge to obtain the records, former State Sen. Kelly Townsend, did receive the records earlier this month.
Townsend hasn’t published the records on a public forum yet. She stated that she couldn’t post the documents on the State Senate website.
People are asking me about the subpoena. Maricopa county has provided the documents and they are currently being scanned. However, I am not allowed to post them on the Senate website so I’m not sure of the legality of posting on another site. This is what is taking so long.
Governor Katie Hobbs announced the creation of an Elections Task Force over the weekend. The task force must issue a report by Nov. 1 with recommendations to improve Arizona’s election laws, after which point it will be terminated.
In her press release, Hobbs took aim at Ducey. She indicated that him not launching a similar initiative showed a lack of leadership.
The order is one of the latest issued by Hobbs under her “First 100 Days Initiative.”
I've also announced an executive order on election security as part of my First 100 Days Initiative. I've seen first hand how keeping our elections secure is paramount to protecting Democracy. #Hobbs100pic.twitter.com/V43QUGwN0X
Hobbs also reinstated the Arizona Commission on Homelessness and Housing, which Ducey abolished in 2020, and banned gender identity discrimination from state employment.
On New Year’s Day, Kari Lake asked the Arizona Supreme Court to take up her case challenging the 2022 midterm election. The request for special-action appellate review marks a final effort to prevent transition of power proceedings ahead of Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs’ inauguration on Thursday.
Lake’s team filed their appeal with the Arizona Court of Appeals last Wednesday, alleging that suppressed and illegal votes outnumbered Hobbs’ 17,100 lead. Lake is pushing for a new election.
“A new governor is scheduled to be seated under a cloud of electoral uncertainty and impropriety,” stated Lake.
The embattled GOP candidate’s team cited “extraordinary circumstances” as the reason for their request, characterizing the Election Day tabulator-printer fiasco as a “targeted attack” on voters as well as citing the upcoming swearing-in ceremony.
Lake’s appeal insisted that the court should distinguish the election content standards: namely, clear-and-convincing versus preponderance-of-evidence, the use of latches for the right to violate laws in future elections, and that unconstitutional elections would qualify as misconduct.
We would recommend this thread to anyone still pretending that what happened in November was a free & fair election.
The amount of evidence of intentional misconduct on Election Day and the weeks following is overwhelming.
Lake asserted that Maricopa County officials offered “changing and conflicting testimony” that they alleged was proof of intentional malfeasance on Election Day, including chain of custody violations and improper signature review for mail-in ballots. The appeal included a remark made by the county’s counsel, Thomas Liddy, in his closing argument.
“You reap what you sow,” said Liddy, in reference to Election Day voters.
The longer @katiehobbs is allowed to pretend she's governor, the more damage she does to our institutions.
Serious countries don't allow fundamentally unserious people to pretend that they are leaders.
Especially morally vacant and intellectually vapid ones like Hobbs.
Lake claimed that controversy over this most recent election jeopardizes the republic: a seeming counter to Democrats’ claim that scrutinizing elections jeopardizes democracy.
“A significant majority of voters no longer trust the outcomes of elections in Arizona. A functioning republic cannot exist for long in these circumstances,” read the appeal.
Polls support Lake’s claim concerning election distrust. Rasmussen Reports found that 72 percent of likely voters agreed with Lake’s claims that Election Day problems resulted in disenfranchisement, with 45 percent strongly agreeing.
Tufts University polling conducted the week after the midterm election discovered that distrust in elections correlated with age. Younger voters tended to trust the legitimacy of elections more greatly than older voters, especially concerning the 2020 election. Their polling also discovered that younger generations were far less likely to identify with one specific political party, but didn’t view Democrats as “too extreme” compared with older generations.
Although Hobbs’ team points to Monday as the inauguration day, the official ceremony remains on Thursday.
Kari Lake plans to appeal her lawsuit against governor-elect Katie Hobbs in her capacity as secretary of state and Maricopa County.
Maricopa County Superior Court declared in a ruling issued on Christmas Eve that Hobbs was governor-elect because Lake presented no “clear and convincing evidence” of election misconduct or fraud.
“[Election workers performed] their role with integrity. Not perfectly, as no system on this earth is perfect, but more than sufficient to comply with the law and conduct a valid election,” wrote Thompson.
My Election Case provided the world with evidence that proves our elections are run outside of the law. This Judge did not rule in our favor. However, for the sake of restoring faith and honesty in our elections, I will appeal his ruling.
On Monday, Maricopa County sought sanctions against Lake and her attorneys, Brian Blehm and Kurt Olsen. The trio could owe up to $696,000 to cover attorneys’ fees and costs incurred by the county and secretary of state’s office. The county asserted that Lake kept up a “sustained attack on Arizona’s elections” long before this recent election, and filed her lawsuit in bad faith.
The county cited a since-deleted tweet from Lake, which shared a report compiling claims from “legal experts” that Judge Peter Thompson’s ruling was “ghostwritten” by the likes of top Democratic election attorney and principal Russiagate figure Marc Elias and others.
Lake would be far from the first facing sanctions for disputing an election in recent years. There are at least three other parties with outstanding sanctions.
Prominent among Lake’s claims of election malfeasance were missing chain of custody documentation for Election Day ballots in violation of the Election Procedures Manual (EPM) and inducing Ballot On Demand (BOD) printer issues by using 19” instead of 20” ballots.
We know exactly how it occurred.
Somebody in Maricopa County either let it happen or made it happen.
Hopefully, the appeals court gives this damning admission the attention it deserves. https://t.co/WnAj29mFbL
Thompson preceded his 10-page court ruling by acknowledging voters’ “anger and frustration” over the “inconvenience and confusion” at vote centers, but issued a reminder that his duty was to weigh Lake’s claims and the actions of Maricopa County and the state against the law.
“[T]his Court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry,” wrote Thompson.
In order to prevail, Lake needed to prove that alleged misconduct such as EPM violations and BOD irregularities were intentional, conducted by an officer making or participating in a canvass, intended to change the election outcome, and resulted in a change in the election outcome.
The ruling reviewed the testimonies of Lake’s witnesses: Mark Sonnenklar, a Republican National Committee election attorney; Heather Honey, a supply chain auditor and consultant; Clay Parikh, a Northrup Grumman cybersecurity expert; David Betencourt, a temporary technical election support employee (“T-Tech”) with Maricopa County; and Richard Baris, director of Big Data Poll.
With the exception of Honey, Thompson determined that these witnesses completely failed to relay personal knowledge of intentional or unintentional election misconduct. Honey testified that Runbeck Election Services employees introduced about 50 ballots of family members into the stream.
However, Thompson determined that Honey’s claims were insufficient to meet the burden of proof because these ballots weren’t clear and convincing evidence of affecting the election outcome. Thompson noted that Maricopa County in its testimony clarified that it only granted Runbeck permission to submit general public ballots, not those family member ballots.
“Every single witness before the Court disclaimed any personal knowledge of such misconduct. The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence,” wrote Thompson.
Thompson declared further that Lake didn’t offer sufficient evidence to contradict the testimonies of Election Day director Scott Jarrett or County Recorder Stephen Richer.
In response to the ruling, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates declared that Lake sought media attention, not a remedy to the election.
“Plaintiff Lake’s lawsuit was never about well-pled facts and evidence. Instead, it was the continuation of a made-for-TV tirade from a candidate who cannot or will not accept the fact that she lost,” said Gates. “Arizona courts have made it clear that frivolous political theater meant to undermine elections will not be tolerated.”
Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs will face off again over election matters next week — this time, over the course of two days in court.
Lake’s lawsuit against Hobbs and Maricopa County kicked off on Tuesday. Judge Peter Thompson scheduled the two-day hearing for Dec. 21 and 22.
Judge in @KariLake v. @katiehobbs election lawsuit: the volume of the evidence presents a problem that needs fleshing out. Hearing set for two days: Dec. 21 & 22. Effectively, a Christmas Eve battle.
Kari Lake’s counsel, Bryan Blehm and Kurt Olsen, filed an ex parte motion to substitute one of the exhibits: “Attachment C.” They reportedly failed to redact voter signatures on their filings. The judge admitted them, however, which will require the clerk’s office to scan thousands of pages containing the redacted filings into the system.
Andy Gaona, on behalf of Hobbs in her capacity as secretary of state, and Tom Liddy, on behalf of Maricopa County, both said they will file to dismiss. Alexis Danneman was present on behalf of Hobbs as governor-elect.
The judge conferred extensively with all counsel on when and for how long hearings should take place, given the transfer of power designating Hobbs as governor fast approaching (Jan. 2). However, Gaona, Danneman, and Liddy expressed confidence that the judge would dismiss the case and insisted that an evidentiary hearing wasn’t necessary.
However, the judge stated that the substantial amount of evidence before him would require a “reasonable amount of time” to review. He noted that a hearing spanning multiple days would take the case right up to Jan. 2.
“Looking at the timing of this, this is a statutory creature,” said Thompson. “This isn’t a ruling that I will be able to do in 15 minutes.”
Blehm asked for a three day “trial” at minimum, but the judge refused. Thompson stated that the case was a “hearing, not a full-blown trial” that would take a few hours for each side to argue, at most.
Gaona warned that a lengthy hearing would threaten an orderly transition of power. He stated that Lake’s case was “non-existent.”
Liddy argued most of Lake’s evidence was duplicative, and some of the remainder was “of dubious probative value.” Liddy also noted that his team received a thumb drive on Tuesday morning containing confidential voter data. AZ Free News reached out for comment on this point. Liddy explained that they, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, received the thumb drive from the clerk of the board after it was served to the county by Lake’s team late Monday. The thumb drive contained about 6,000 pages of documents, many containing voter information such as copies of voters’ signatures.
Blehm took issue with what he claimed was a characterization of their evidence’s procurement by Liddy, but Liddy said he didn’t issue any characterization.
Blehm also asked the judge for permission to inspect the ballots. Thompson appeared confused by this request and denied it.
Technical issues with the conference call derailed the hearing for the better part of the hour, and continued to plague the livestream for the remainder of the hearing.
The cause came from the publication of the conference call access information from those with massive followings such as the Democracy Docket, Wendy Rogers, and Gateway Pundit. Hundreds of members of the public jumped onto the call, leaving some of the litigants out. Initially, Lake and her legal team were unable to access the conference call.
Kari Lake's lawsuit contesting the results of the Arizona gubernatorial election will meet at 11:00 am MT/1:00 pm ET.
Dial-in (917) 781-4590 Conf ID: 105 414 319# in case link doesn’t work for tuning into… Judge Orders Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs to Appear at Emergency Court Hearing Over Election Lawsuit. @KariLake
