Katie Hobbs Makes Request to Court Regarding Kari Lake’s Election Challenge as She Previews ‘Shocking’ Evidence

Katie Hobbs Asks Court To Toss Kari Lake’s Election Challenge As She Previews ‘Shocking’ Evidence

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) refuses to concede defeat to Katie Hobbs (D), who was sworn in as governor on Jan. 2. Lake claims election fraud and has taken her grievance to court. Though losing in a lower court, Lake has vowed to escalate her case to a higher court.

In what some see as a preemptive move, Hobbs has asked the court to dismiss Lake’s challenge and cited some of the evidence she anticipates Lake plans to present.

In a 317-page court filing (pdf) with the Arizona Appeals Court, Hobbs’s team argues that December’s two-day trial in Maricopa County “gave Lake the opportunity to prove her speculative allegations.”

The filing adds:

“Despite seven witnesses, hundreds of declarants, and thousands of pages of exhibits, Lake failed to demonstrate any violations of Arizona law and offered no evidence that absent alleged violations the outcome of the election would have been different.”

“Lake’s arguments to the contrary depend on unsupported and untenable legal standards that would require elections to be thrown out upon mere speculation of election misconduct and conjecture regarding its supposed result,” it said. “But Arizona law requires much more to disenfranchise millions of Arizonans.”

Previously, Lake’s legal team claimed that multiple “printing errors” in Maricopa County disenfranchised potentially tens of thousands of voters.

Notably, County Supervisor Bill Gates and Recorder Stephen Richer confirmed the printing problems on the day of the election, telling voters to place their ballots in drop boxes or find another place to vote.

Hobbs contends that “Lake did not establish that the Maricopa County defendants engaged in any misconduct regarding chain of custody documentation, let alone misconduct that would alter the results of the 2022 gubernatorial election.”

Hobbs’ legal team dismissed Lake’s contention that voters were disenfranchised, noting that Lake did not “identify a single voter,” who couldn’t vote because of the “tabulator issues.”

Lake’s legal team did, however, cite independent pollster Richard Baris, who testified he believed “technical problems” on election day “disenfranchised enough voters that it would have changed the outcome of the gubernatorial race,” according to The Epoch Times.

“Maricopa Election Day voters,” Baris said in court, “trended Republican” though final tabulations showed Hobbs to be the winner. Baris told the court he estimates “between 25,000 and 40,000” were disenfranchised due to “printer errors,” numbers “significant enough to change the leader of the race.”

“There were widespread issues … that deterred people from voting” along with “long lines people couldn’t wait in,’’ Baris added. “Not everyone is so intense about politics that life can’t be put aside,’’ he added. “Life gets in the way.’’

Lake contends that Maricopa officials allegedly “admitted, after first denying, that illegally misconfigured ballots were injected into the election.” As a result, Lake claims this caused “tabulators to reject tens of thousands of ballots.”

Lake also claims that “sworn testimony by whistleblowers employed by Maricopa” show that Maricopa county election officials did not verify mail-in ballot signatures, nor did they keep the proper chain of custody for thousands of ballots.

Earlier this month, the Arizona Court of Appeals agreed to expedite Lake’s case, now scheduled to be heard on Feb. 1. Hobbs seeks to see the case dismissed.

Last week, Lake stated cryptically but ominously that her legal team is prepared to introduce new evidence to the court on Feb. 1

Lake said in a Twitter video post:

“We have evidence that has come to light that is very shocking… Shocking, the levels that they went to cheat. And I believe that when additional evidence comes out, people will wake up. Even people who have been reluctant to accept that there’s any problem.”