US midterm elections: Judge dismisses Kari Lake's lawsuit to overturn Arizona results

Republican Kari Lake challenged her defeat in the US midterm elections to Democrat Katie Hobbs in the Arizona gubernatorial race. A judge has dismissed Lake’s challenge to her loss, saying that there is no evidence of the fraud that Lake alleged has taken place.

Arizona judge Peter Thompson dismissed Lake’s lawsuit in his decision on Saturday, in a blow to Lake, who has alleged that misconduct played a part in her loss to Hobbs. Lake, who has actively promoted former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud during her campaign, said she plans to appeal Thompson’s ruling. Lake, compared to other election deniers, has not conceded to Hobbs.

Lake asked the judge to either overturn the results to declare her the winner or declare a revote in Maricopa County, where over 60 percent of Arizona’s voters reside in. Lake also claimed that there are “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots” in Maricopa County that “infected the election.”

In Thompson’s ruling, the judge said the court did not find clear and convincing evidence alleging misconduct in the November elections.

Thompson acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of voters who were subject to inconvenience during the election, noting that simply setting aside election results has “never been done” in the country’s history. Thompson added that Lake’s witnesses did not have any personal knowledge of intentional misconduct during the elections.

“The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence,” said Thompson, whose findings were in line with the judgments made against Abe Hamadeh and Mark Finchem, who ran and lost the races for attorney general and secretary of state against the Democratic rivals.

Friday last week, Congress passed final legislation that would make changes to the Electoral Count Act, the law corresponding to the certification of a presidential election. The final passage was passed by the House in line with the Senate’s passage of a similar provision in the government spending law.

This marks the strongest response by the government to prevent a repeat of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol incited by President Joe Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, who refused to concede and instead spouted voter fraud claims as the reason for his loss to Biden.