Funviralpark (Reuters) – An Arizona judge on Saturday dismissed an attempt to overturn Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s gubernatorial loss.
The order by Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson was filed on Saturday.
Lake was one of the most high-profile Republican candidates to accept former President Donald Trump’s false voter claims in the 2020 midterm elections.
Earlier this month, Lake sued Arizona election officials, challenging the tally and accreditation of November’s campaign and demanding they declare the winner despite no evidence of voter fraud.
Her lawsuit targeted Lake’s Democratic opponent, Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs, who is now Arizona’s Secretary of State, and senior Maricopa County officials.
In November, Trump-backing Lake lost the gubernatorial race to Hobbes, but refused to admit it and continued to make unconfirmed allegations of election fraud on her Twitter feed.
Saturday’s order confirmed Hobbes’ election and said it found no “clear and convincing” evidence of wrongdoing that influenced the outcome of the election.
Lake tweeted on Saturday that he would appeal the ruling.
The order’s findings were consistent with the rulings against unsuccessful Republican candidates for Attorney General and Secretary of State, Abe Hamade and Mark Finkem, respectively.
In her lawsuit, Lake asked the state court to declare her the winner of the gubernatorial race or to overturn the results and hold a new election in Maricopa County. The lawsuit claimed that “hundreds of thousands of illegal voters infected the election” in Maricopa, the state’s most populous county.
A former television newscaster, Lake was one of a string of Trump-backed Republican candidates who lost the hard-fought state race in the midterm elections.
During the campaign, Lake vowed to ban mail-in ballots in the state, which conspiracy theorists falsely claimed were vulnerable to fraud and undermined the voting methods used by hundreds of thousands of Americans. It instilled a sense of distrust about safety.
Reported by Kanishka Singh, Washington.Edited by Diane Kraft
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