Trump acolyte Kari Lake loses bid to overturn Arizona election defeat
- The court found no clear evidence of the misconduct alleged by Lake, who lost the governor race to Democrat Katie Hobbs by a margin of 17,117 votes
- Arizona has been under intense scrutiny since Joe Biden eked out a narrow 2020 win in the state over Trump
An Arizona judge on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit brought by Republican candidate Kari Lake, a Donald Trump loyalist who sought to overturn her unsuccessful bid to become the southwestern state’s governor.
The court found no “clear and convincing evidence of misconduct” that would have impacted the outcome of the November election as Lake alleged, Judge Peter Thompson said in his decision.
Lake, a 53-year-old former television news anchorwoman, tweeted Saturday that “for the sake of restoring faith and honesty in our elections, I will appeal his ruling”.
After losing to Democrat Katie Hobbs by a margin of 17,117 votes, Lake claimed that problems with ballot printing in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county which includes its capital, were intentional and aimed at her defeat.
The court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in lieu of clear and convincing evidence, said Thompson, who also upheld Hobbs’s victory.
Lake supporters had seized upon minor problems with vote tabulation machines in Maricopa, home to America’s fifth biggest city, Phoenix, which left some people standing in short queues during the November vote.
Officials have forcefully insisted that no legitimate vote would be excluded, and mounted a well-organised social media campaign to push back at falsehoods circulating online.
