Kari Lake's failed election-fraud suit should be the last
FILE - Kari Lake, Arizona Republican candidate for governor, speaks to supporters at the Republican watch party in Scottsdale, Ariz., Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. A judge has thrown out Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, Saturday, Dec. 24. The judge rejected her claim that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File) Credit: AP/Ross D. Franklin
Failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake can claim one triumph: The Republican television personality’s lawsuit claiming election fraud caused her defeat is among the most spurious of all such Trump-era cases brought by disgruntled GOPers.
May it also be the last.
On Saturday, Maricopa County Judge Peter Thompson dismissed Lake’s case after a two-day trial unearthed no evidence that even a single vote had been mischaracterized, miscast, miscounted, prevented, swayed, or cast with fraudulent intent.
Lake originally sued on 10 counts. Thompson quickly dismissed eight, but gave Lake a chance to prove the other two: that a county employee interfered with printers in a way that cost her votes, and that ballots were added to the county’s total unlawfully.
As is often the case with these accusations, a kernel of fact fertilized falsehoods. On Election Day, printers at about one-third of Maricopa County’s voting sites had problems, creating frustration and hourslong lines. But no voters were disenfranchised, because they were able to go to other sites or leave their ballots at polls in secure containers.
The problem for Lake and others with such claims is that evidence is needed. Intent to commit wrongdoing must be proved, as well as its effect, but Lake had nothing to show. That was also the case with essentially all 62 lawsuits brought by Donald Trump over the 2020 election. Trump lost every substantive decision, notching only a technical win on a Pennsylvania suit over the timing of “curing” faulty ballots.
American elections are run by bipartisan authorities, and safeguarded by habit, practice, oversight, and law. That process must be protected.
Let this frivolous suit be the end of an era.
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