Arizona judge dismisses Kari Lake’s 2022 election case

An Arizona judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Kari Lake over her defeat in last year’s race for governor, ruling that she had failed to prove that Maricopa, the state’s most populous county, had failed to obtain the signatures of check voters on mail-in ballots.

The decision, published late Monday, is the latest legal setback for Ms. Lake, a Republican who was backed by former President Donald J. Trump in one of the country’s most high-profile 2022 gubernatorial races.

During a three-day trial last week in state Superior Court in Maricopa County, Ms. Lake’s lawyers argued that election officials were working too quickly to properly review the 300,000 signatures that accompanied the ballots submitted.

But at one six-page conclusionJudge Peter A. Thompson wrote that the process complied with state law, which requires signatures to be compared to signatures in public voter files, but does not include specific guidelines for how much time an employee must spend on each ballot.

“The plaintiff’s evidence and arguments do not clear the bar,” he wrote, adding, “Not one second, not three seconds, and not six seconds: no standard appears in the plain text of the statute.”

Ms Lake and her lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday and it was not clear whether she would appeal the ruling.

The case was the latest in a string of court losses over the election of Ms Lake, who has alleged without evidence that voting by mail compromises election integrity. Other claims in her lawsuit had previously been rejected by the court.

Mr. Lake has suggested she could run again. This year, she said she was considering running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party in December to become independent.

Clint L. Hickman, the president of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which oversees the county’s elections, praised the judge’s decision in a rack on Monday.

“Wild allegations of rigged elections may garner media attention and fundraising pleas, but they don’t win lawsuits,” he wrote. “If ‘bombs’ and ‘smoking guns’ are not supported by facts, they will fail in court.”