Kari Lake’s attorneys are once more arguing that Maricopa County broke election regulation. The county once more says it is not true.
BOMBSHELL alert.
Kari Lake this week dropped one more one in her ongoing, never-ending problem to the 2022 election. (Yeah, it’s nonetheless occurring.)
“The sabotage was worse than we thought,” she tweeted on Thursday. “We’ve got some bombshells to share with you …”
This specific “bombshell” — versus her earlier duds — entails devious Maricopa County elections officers who performed “secret testing” of tabulators and knew, weeks earlier than the election, that 260 of the county’s practically 450 vote counting machines would fail.
It was a “surprising revelation,” her legal professional, Kurt Olsen, informed Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Choose Peter Thompson on Friday.
Will a choose reopen Lake’s rejected declare?
Nicely, it’s the newest “surprising revelation” anyway — all of the others having been sizably lower than surprising as soon as examined by Thompson, the Arizona Courtroom of Appeals and the Arizona Supreme Courtroom.
It’ll be as much as Thompson whether or not to reopen Lake’s already rejected declare that the county’s printers have been deliberately set to fail, denying her victory.
Thompson additionally will resolve whether or not to carry a trial subsequent week to find out whether or not the county adopted the regulation on validating early poll signatures.
The Supreme Courtroom ordered him to take one other look the signature verification subject, saying his earlier foundation for rejecting Lake’s declare was incorrect.
However the BOMBSHELL is that this week’s large revelation, being hyped by Lake and on right-wing “information” websites throughout the nation.
Lawyer claims the county broke the regulation
It comes courtesy of “new and compelling proof” from Lake’s IT skilled, who pored over tabulator logs for hours to uncover the incendiary system.
Lake is now claiming the county didn’t actually take a look at its tabulators for logic and accuracy, as required by regulation, on Oct. 11.
As an alternative, because the BOMBSHELL goes, the county secretly examined the machines on three days the next week, whereby they realized that 260 of the tabulators produced error codes when ballots have been inserted.
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This might solely occur, Olsen informed the choose, due both to malware put in on the tabulators or “another nefarious act of distant entry.”
“Not solely did Maricopa officers knowingly violate the regulation mandating logic and accuracy testing,” Olsen wrote in his movement to reopen the matter, “however that they knew about and deliberate the Election Day debacle” — one which he claims resulted in additional than 8,000 ballots not being counted.
Besides ‘secret testing’ was livestreamed
Even when that’s true — and the county says it’s not — Lake misplaced by 17,117 votes.
County officers referred to as Lake’s newest declare “laughable”.
The required tabulator testing not solely occurred on Oct. 11, they are saying, however was noticed and licensed by state and county officers and even representatives of the state Republican and Democratic events.
As for the so-called “secret testing” the next week, it was livestreamed.
Maricopa Deputy County Lawyer Joseph La Rue informed Thompson the county was putting in new reminiscence playing cards containing an already licensed safety function designed to stop votes from being counted twice.
A small variety of ballots have been then run to ensure the reminiscence playing cards have been put in correctly and a number of the ballots have been spit out, often as a result of they weren’t inserted correctly, he stated.
What’s subsequent for Lake? Her signature verification dispute continues
“That’s the surprising bombshell,” he stated.
One which doesn’t appear to quantity to even a small firecracker, on condition that printer failures didn’t have an effect on the end result of the election.
My guess? This ‘bombshell’ goes pfft
However don’t take my phrase for it.
“Plaintiff’s personal skilled acknowledged {that a} poll that was unable to be learn on the vote middle may very well be deposited by a voter, duplicated by a bipartisan board onto a readable poll, and — within the ultimate evaluation — counted … .
“It’s price repeating that ballots that would not be learn by the tabulator instantly due to printer settings — or anything — may very well be deposited in Door 3 of the tabulator and counted later after duplication by a bipartisan adjudication board.”
So wrote Choose Thompson, in his December ruling tossing out Lake’s problem.
We’ll know quickly whether or not Thompson is impressed by her most up-to-date BOMBSHELL.
Me? I’m guessing his ruling will include a soundtrack that goes one thing like this:
Pffffft.
Attain Roberts at [email protected]. Observe her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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This text initially appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake’s newest election bombshell seems like one other dud