The first election lawsuit filed by Arizona’s Kari Lake failed spectacularly. The Republican election denier brought her case to a federal court in April, asking that Maricopa and Pima counties be blocked from using electronic election equipment.
It wasn’t altogether clear why Lake had a problem with electronic election equipment, or why local officials shouldn’t be allowed to utilize the technology, and the case was thrown out a few months later. The GOP candidate proceeded to lose her gubernatorial race, at which point her misguided litigation took a turn for the worse: Members of the Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors sought sanctions against Lake and her fellow plaintiffs for making “numerous false allegations” in the lawsuit.
As we recently discussed, U.S. District Court Judge John Tuchi agreed, ordering sanctions against Lake’s attorneys for having filed a “frivolous” and deceptive complaint.
With this recent history in mind, common sense suggests the failed gubernatorial candidate and her lawyers should probably steer clear of courtrooms for a while, especially while peddling election conspiracy theories. And yet, as NBC News reported, Lake and her team apparently can’t help themselves.
Kari Lake, the GOP candidate who lost Arizona’s governor race in November, filed a lawsuit Friday challenging certification of the state’s election results and seeking a court order that declares her the winner. The 70-page lawsuit from Lake, a prominent election denier and Trump ally, contains numerous inaccuracies about the election won by Democratic Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state.
Sounding very much like a certain former president who enthusiastically backed her candidacy, Lake’s lawsuit insists she’s now “entitled” to the governor’s office — official election results be damned — though she’s willing to accept a court order for a do-over election in Maricopa County.
How generous of her.
The trajectory of this story doesn’t do the Republican any favors. About a month after her first lawsuit was thrown out of court, Lake claimed she’d seen evidence to substantiate her conspiracy theories, but she wouldn’t share it with anyone. It was an odd position to take given the circumstances.
After she came up short on Election Day, Lake sat down with ABC News, shifted gears, and shared what she described as “facts” that bolstered her claims. None of the claims withstood scrutiny.
The failed GOP candidate has nevertheless returned to court, asking a judge to make her the governor despite her defeat, and pushing arguments that aren’t likely to succeed. A New York Times report added, “The 70-page filing relies on a hodgepodge of allegations, ranging from voter and poll worker accounts to poll numbers claiming that voters agreed with Ms. Lake on the election’s mismanagement. Some of what is cited comes not from last month’s election but from the 2020 contest. Other allegations accuse officials of wrongdoing for taking part in efforts to try to tamp down election misinformation.” The article added that some of the purported experts cited in the lawsuit “are part of a loose election-denial network led by Mike Lindell, the pillow company entrepreneur who has been pushing conspiracy theories about election machines since early 2021.” In case this weren’t quite enough, one of the lawyers from Lake’s failed lawsuit earlier this year also helped file this new case. What could possibly go wrong? If the former candidate and her supporters are counting on the litigation to propel her into the governor’s office, they should probably start lowering their expectations now.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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