The Arizona Secretary of State’s office and Maricopa County on Monday petitioned a judge to sanction GOP candidate Kari Lake after her election-related lawsuit was rejected over the weekend.
On Monday, the two parties filed a motion in the Maricopa County Superior Court against Lake and her legal team.
“Courts are established by Arizona’s Constitution and statutes to resolve actual disputes between parties,” Maricopa County Deputy Attorney Thomas P. Liddy wrote Monday in a 15-page memo (pdf), asking Judge Peter Thompson for the sanctions and attorneys fees. “They do not exist so that candidates for political office can attempt to make political statements and fundraise. And they should not be used to harass political opponents and sow completely unfounded doubts about the integrity of elections. All of those things happened in this matter.”
Hobbs’s legal team joined the motion for sanctions, according to court documents.
“Enough really is enough. It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against elections officials,” the memo also said. “This matter was brought without any legitimate justification, let alone a substantial one.”
The memo also asserted that Lake “and her counsel doubled down with the present action … this Court should sanction both lawyers and client under [Arizona law] to impart to them the seriousness of their misuse of the courts to seek to undermine Arizona elections and impugn hardworking elections workers and officials for purely political – not legal – purposes.”
The motion asks that Lake pay $25,050 in attorney fees for Hobbs and Maricopa County.
The Epoch Times has contacted Lake’s team for comment. The GOP candidate has not yet issued a response in court.
Dismissed
On Dec. 24, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson tossed Lake’s lawsuit that asserted there were election-related problems across Maricopa County on Election Day.
“A court setting such a margin aside, as far as the Court is able to determine, has never been done in the history of the United States,” Thompson wrote (pdf). “This challenge also comes after a hotly contested gubernatorial race and an ongoing tumult over election procedures and legitimacy—a far less uncommon occurrence in this country.”
But Lake has pledged to appeal after Thompson dismissed her case. On Monday, she sought to compel testimony from alleged whistleblowers about the Nov. 8 election.
“As our appeal moves forward, we again extend our invitation [and] offer complete protection to all whistleblowers,” her campaign wrote on Twitter Monday morning. “Arizona deserves the full truth about what occurred on Election Day. And the people who caused it deserve accountability.”
Her team wrote Sunday that she hopes her appeal gives such claims the “attention it deserves.”
Lake lost to Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs by about 17,000 votes, according to election data. Several weeks after the midterms, Lake filed a lawsuit against Hobbs in her capacity as the current secretary of state, Maricopa County election officials, and other officials.
Among other claims, Lake cited Maricopa County officials’ Nov. 8 news conference in which they confirmed printer errors at a number of tabulation centers across the county. During a two-day trial, she brought in several witnesses that said the problems disproportionately impacted Republican voters.
After Thompson’s ruling, Lake issued a statement saying that her lawyers “proved without a shadow of a doubt that there was malicious intent that caused disruption so great it changed the results of the election” and said that “we demand fair, honest, transparent elections, and we will get them.”
At one point during the trial, Lake’s attorneys questioned a witness who said he found that 14 of 15 duplicate ballots he had inspected on their behalf had 19-inch images of the ballot printed on 20-inch paper, meaning the ballots wouldn’t be read by a tabulator. The witness testified that such a change would have required a change to printer configurations, although election officials disputed those assertions.
Lake also called on pollster Richard Baris, who told the court that he believes technical problems at polling places had disenfranchised enough voters that it would have changed the outcome of the race in Lake’s favor. Baris noted that Election Day voters in Maricopa mostly trended Republican.
Thompson previously gave Hobbs until 8 a.m. local time on Monday to file a motion for sanctions. Lake has until 5 p.m. on Monday to respond.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Just re-do the county election and redo it again until all the vote talley and printer problems totally dissappear. If they would just mandate that people would have to appear in person to vote, nobody would challenge the outcomes. We never had these problems until the machines took over the humans and beat the hell out of WE THE PEOPLE in cyber warefare. If Republicans think they can learn to compete inmail-in and early voting elections whose outcomes can be changed with the keystroke of a computor they will soon be extinct as a party. Hobs should have recused herself.and should be investigated to see what she did behind the scenes when the printers started to fail in an election she was responsible for supervising . Just who in their right mind allowed that? NOBODY cares a flip about unfounded allegations, it is the founded ones about to be found out that creates Hobbs panic for sanctions that all citizens and judges should be concerned with.
Exactly. TILL THE LEFT got their teeth into the fraud machine, by USING THESE DAMNABLE machines, we didn’t have this issue..
This scenario sounds familiar doesn’t it? Remember Sidney Powell and Lin Wood who were working on behalf of Trump?
Right is wrong and wrong is right.
Now, why is it the people who seem so opposed to voter integrity and fixing our election system seem to be predominantly Democrat?? Coincidence??
BECAUSE if it wasn’t for their FRAUD< i doubt they would ever WIN An honest election…
That is why they don't WANT ACTUAL voter integrity
The suit was DISMISSED so nothing based on the evidence was actually decided. Now the person who ‘won’ and controlled the election process at the same time, ultimately responsoble for the SNAFUs in Republican precincts, wants to silence her opponent! This would lead me to believe there is merit in the questioning of the outcome that could shift the outcome. Democrats don’t like that.
“The suit was DISMISSED so nothing based on the evidence was actually decided.”
This is the ways of this treasonous Democrat Party and their minions.
Nancy Pelosi admitted an unfortunate truth about her
orchestrate and fabricated President Trump’s impeachment “farce”
– It hinges on witness’s “allegations” not “proof”.
It’s Not A Question” Of “Proof”, It’s About “Allegations”
https://youtu.be/7dzhIxeF204
See no evil,, hear no evil, speak no evil.
JUDGES LIKE THIS need to get permanently STRIPPED OF THEIR ROBES..
How does Hobbs think that she will get ANY support as Governor from the nearly-exactly 50% of her constituents when she rubs salt into the wounds of Lake and her supporters? Lake deserved to have her day in court, and the outcome of that was a miscarriage of justice. This motion is just vindictive, mean-spirited, ugly, and un-American. Shame on Hobbs.
BECAUSE commucrats HATE THE population that doesn’t vote FOR THEM.. Just look at obama, and biden!
Remember law abiding citizens of Arizona, you do have recall capabilities, use it wisely.
IF THEY STOLE this election, what makes you think ANY RECALL election pushed, won’t get stolen too?