Court Dismisses Kari Lake Election Challenge, Cites Lack Of Evidence As To Intentional Misconduct Affecting The Outcome
This demonstrates the problem with election challenges that are outside the normal recount process. You are asking a judge to overturn the certified election result – that’s a lot to ask. You need to prove to a high degree of evidentiary proof that a fraud took place and that it affected the outcome. That almost never is provable.
As previously posted, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who was widely predicted to win based on polling, filed legal challenges after she lost, focusing on pervasive problems on Election Day, particularly in Maricopa County. Among other things, an absurdly high number of voting locations experiences problems with ballot printing and processing, causing long waiting lines and many voters turned away and told to come back later.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson permitted two of Lake’s 10 challenges to go to trial:
The two counts that Judge Thompson ruled can go to trial involve printers malfunctioning on Election Day and ballot chain of custody. Lake claimed printers that malfunctioned were not certified and had “vulnerabilities” that made them “susceptible to hacking.” She also claimed the printers malfunctioned because of “intentional action.”
Judge Thompson said Lake must prove at trial that someone interfered with the printers in violation of Arizona law, that the interference caused her to lose votes and that those lost votes affected the outcome of the election.
As for the chain of custody issue, Lake claimed employees of the county’s ballot contractor violated the “County Election Manual” when they added ballots of family members and also failed to secure an “Inbound Receipt of Delivery.” Judge Thompson said whether the county complied with its own manual and applicable statutes is a dispute of fact rather than one of law.
Here is an account of some of the hearing testimony via The Hill:
Election officials acknowledged that some of the county’s Election Day vote centers experienced printer malfunctions that prevented tabulators from reading ballots, but they insisted voters could utilize backup options to ultimately have their ballot counted.
Lake’s campaign noted that Election Day voters tend to support Republicans, leveraging witness testimony and affidavits to argue the issues were intentionally aimed at making Hobbs the winner and disenfranchised enough Lake supporters to cause the Republican’s defeat.
When asked during the trial if he intentionally sabotaged the printers or was aware of anyone who did, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (R) responded, “absolutely not.”
Lake then called a witness, Clay Parikh, who examined ballots on behalf of her campaign and said he inspected 14 ballots that printed a 19-inch image on 20-inch paper. Parikh suggested the discrepancy would cause the tabulation issues and required intentional printer setting changes.
Maricopa County Co-Elections Director Scott Jarrett testified that the county’s root cause analysis remains ongoing, but officials identified that printer heat settings contributed to the problem.
Jarrett said temporary technicians attempting to fix the malfunctions activated a shrink-to-fit print setting at a three vote centers, creating just under 1,300 ballots with the smaller image, but Jarrett insisted those ballots were ultimately tabulated.
Lake’s campaign also called Richard Baris, who managed exit polling in Arizona for conservative firm Big Data Poll and argued the Election Day issues were enough to change the outcome. He said his firm made the conclusion in part based on historical data and an exit poll question asking voters if they experienced issues while voting.
Baris during cross-examination acknowledged that the poll could not say whether the issues were related to the printer malfunctions or if they caused them to not vote.
One of Hobbs’s attorneys also noted that Baris’s firm is one of 10 groups banned by prominent pollster aggregator FiveThirtyEight out of nearly 500 pollsters it assesses. Baris contended that FiveThirtyEight was not “an authority” on pollsters.
Lake’s campaign also argued that Maricopa County violated chain of custody procedures for early ballots when they were transferred to Runbeck Election Services, a third-party that scanned images of ballot signatures so the county could verify them.
Heather Honey, who testified on behalf of Lake’s campaign, said Maricopa County’s response to her public records request for chain of custody paperwork did not include documents for early ballots dropped off on Election Day.
Joe Larue, an attorney for Maricopa County, said Honey misunderstood the different types of chain of custody documents and argued they did in fact exist.
Honey also testified that a Runbeck employee told her that employees could bring their families’ ballots directly to the facility to be counted, and the employee saw about 50 ballots brought in that way.
When pressed by Hobbs attorney Andy Gaona if Honey had any further evidence of other ballots being injected into the system, she said it wasn’t an “answerable question.”
Rey Valenzuela, co-elections director for Maricopa County, testified he wasn’t aware of Runbeck allowing its employees to inject ballots.
In other words, voting was a mess, the issue was whether it was intentional and whether it made a difference since Lake lost by 17,000 votes per the official count.
The Court ruled last Friday night, and rejected Lake’s claims. From the Decision, the court first examined the burden of proof:
…. Plaintiff needed to prove by clear and convincing evidence, each element to be entitled to relief:
1) That the alleged misconduct – whether the BOD printer irregularities, or the ostensible failure to abide by county election procedures – was an intentional act. See Findley, 35 Ariz. at 269.
2) That the misconduct was an intentional act conducted by a person covered by A.R.S. §16-672(A)(1), that is – an “officer making or participating in a canvass.”
3) That the misconduct was intended to change the result of the November 2022 General Election. See Findley, 35 Ariz. at 269.
4) That the misconduct did, in fact, change the result of that election. See Grounds, 67 Ariz. at 189.It bears mentioning that because of the requested remedy – setting aside the result of the election – the question that is before the Court is of monumental importance to every voter. The margin of victory as reported by the official canvass is 17,117 votes –beyond the scope of a statutorily required recount. A court setting such a margin aside, as far as the Court is able to determine, has never been done in the history of the United States. This challenge also comes after a hotly contested gubernatorial race and an ongoing tumult over election procedures and legitimacy – a far less uncommon occurrence in this country. See e.g., Hunt, supra. This Court acknowledges the anger and frustration of voters who were subjected to inconvenience and confusion at voter centers as technical problems arose during the 2022 General Election.
But this Court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry. It is to subject Plaintiff’s claims and Defendants’ actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law. See Winsor v. Hunt, 29 Ariz. 504, 512 (1926) (“It is the boast of American democracy that this is a government of laws, and not of men.”)…
After going through each witnesses testimony, the court concluded that Lake had not proven intentional misconduct that would have, even if proven, affected the outcome:
The Court makes the following observations about Plaintiff’s case as a general matter. Every one of Plaintiff’s witnesses – and for that matter, Defendants’ witnesses as well – was asked about any personal knowledge of both intentional misconduct and intentional misconduct directed to impact the 2022 General Election. Every single witness before the Court disclaimed any personal knowledge of such misconduct. The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence.
The closest Plaintiff came to making an argument for quantifiable changes resulting from misconduct, was Ms. Marie’s Affidavit as discussed by Ms. Honey. Again, she states that Runbeck Election Services employees were permitted to introduce about 50 ballots of family members into the stream. But even this is not sufficient. Such a claim – if the Court accepted the Affidavit at face value – would constitute misconduct but would not come close to clear and convincing evidence that the election outcome was affected. Though again, weighing her Affidavit against other testimony, the Court does not give the Affidavit much weight.
Plaintiff failed to provide enough evidence with which this Court could find for her on either count by clear and convincing evidence….
Lake says she will appeal:
My Election Case provided the world with evidence that proves our elections are run outside of the law. This Judge did not rule in our favor. However, for the sake of restoring faith and honesty in our elections, I will appeal his ruling.
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 24, 2022
This demonstrates the problem with election challenges that are outside the normal recount process. You are asking a judge to overturn the certified election result – that’s a lot to ask. You need more than anecdotal evidence of problems or mishaps. You need to prove to a high degree of evidentiary proof, as opposed to speculation and statistical analysis, that a fraud took place and that it affected the outcome. That almost never is provable.
The time to address election misconduct and mischief is before the election, not after. There needed to be systems and procedures in place, and the personnel to enforce them, to prevent this Election Day debacle. That’s why voter and systemic integrity laws and procedures are so important.
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Comments
This is total bullshit. If the evidence is that thousands or tens of thousands of inoerwin votes were thrown out because of bullshit with the machines then the entire fucking election should be redone or those votes counted. I seem to recall some
P.o.s. Jude refusing to home polls open in Republican districts as well. Even though they were having these issues. Not stolen my ass
Typing while angry but right.
The fix was in at the get-go. (Watch the judge, as closing arguments were given – he was barely paying attention, busy writing his verdict.
No matter the anger, as it has been in EVERY case put before a judge, if the issue did not cause enough ballots to overturn the election, they toss it. Lake’s lawyers should have known this. It has been the ruling in every single case except some on standing. The printer issue did create a few hundred lost or unfilled ballots but nowhere near the 17,000 votes she needed. I am so disappointed and angry about this because here in GA we had so many issues but they have all been thrown out. The lady Ruby Freeman who was with her daughter in the infamous cheating with the suitcases under the table told the original story of how it was a huge fraud. But later changed her story to “No it wasn’t fraud”. My God! It was all on a video yet no judge would touch it. If we don’t react as Brazil has with mass protests of their false election, DC will never change it.
>Does it cause the appearance of Fraud?
Y: Toss the election. Force them to do it right.
“You need to prove to a high degree of evidentiary proof, as opposed to speculation and statistical analysis, that a fraud took place and that it affected the outcome. That almost never is provable.”
Ok, lesson learned. Don’t challenge the results of an election. Got it.
“The time to address election misconduct and mischief is before the election, not after.”
Umm, what do you do when the misconduct and mischief occur *during* the election? You don’t have standing to sue before the election, and apparently not afterwards, either.
Pretty sweet deal for the cheaters, don’tcha think?
To me they should be looking at the invoices for the paper orders. Someone had to order the 20 inch paper for the printers.
There was nothing wrong with ordering 20-inch paper. That was the official ballot paper.
The paper was fine. What the problem was that somehow the settings on the printers was not correct and produced ballots on demand (BoD) that did not have the proper ink density (ie. they were too light) to be properly scanned by the tabulators.
Of course, there’s no explanation as to exactly how those settings came to be different from the official settings nor is there any log/record of who might have accessed the printer driver settings and changed them. But there we are and here we are.
The Judge intentionally misread the law. Read correctly, the statute does not require intentionality.
If his ‘misreading the law’ is accurate, Kari has a great basis for an appeal. But….the fix is in.
No standing before. No ability to discover proof after. No reform of the process because it is impossible to elect candidates who will enact reform. Where the whole process enables the fraudulent suppression of votes and there is no legal recourse, I frankly don’t see a solution. Maybe a constitutional convention but that’s fantasy.
The best solution for the problems is not to allow the problems to develop. That means constant vigilance over local officials who begin to stray. That’s the role of every voter in that location not some white knight or watchdog or other group. If we don’t do it because we are each waiting on someone else to do it that’s how the rot begins; from apathy.
Once the negligent or corrupt officials are in place it is much more difficult to stop and roll back the problem. It’s doable but it takes time. There won’t be a solitary victory of ‘one and done’. It will take a series of wins over time to get new officials in place to undue the damage. Every step to restoration will be fought by our opponents.
What is your suggestion then? I have never seen a more observed election in AZ than this one. As soon as widespread polling location issues started (as soon as polls opened on Election Day), legal challenges were filed to extend voting hours (request denied by the court). Observers were watching the “box 3” at all the sites.
I think the box 3 problem is a bit of a misdirection. Part of the opportunity of it is to get voters to leave in frustration. The main game may be to force large numbers of ballots to adjudication. Somehow the county reportedly didn’t keep the original ballots with the adjudicated ballots – I wonder why??? Like in 2020, they deleted (oops, “archived”) the adjudicated ballot images so the audit couldn’t see them. What were they doing in adjudication?
Problem #2 is that on Election Day only, the county didn’t keep an chain of custody documentation for the dropped off early ballot packets. Nobody knew how many ballots were dropped off until after the counting was done. Reportedly, employees of Runbeck (ballot printing/signature verification vendor) were allowed to just insert their and their family members ballots into the mix at Runbeck, again without any documentation or chain of custody. Sounds legit?
We can’t vote the cheaters out, they will just cheat your vote again and there is no remedy. The governor, having now won the botched election, will veto anything that makes cheating harder.
The only way I see forward is the Supreme Court restoring the legislature’s control of elections. Somehow, although the Democrats got a very unexpected amount of votes for governor, AG, SoS, and Senate, the Republican had a strong showing in the state legislature.
Suggestions:
1. Constant vigilance and awareness by the public so that incompetent or corrupt officials are not elected or appointed in the first place
This is still the case in many States and Counties; the ordinary going public hasn’t allowed the incompetence or corruption the toe hold they need to take over the system. Those of us in States where our election process hasn’t been compromised will be reluctant to allow Congress to provide a Federal one size fits all solution.
Other States and Counties such as Maricopa haven’t been as fortunate to have a critical mass of people to prevent it. They didn’t prevent the fire so now they have much more difficult job to fight the fire. That brings us to:
2. Identify the basic basic factors required competently run and administered elections.
A. Clean voter registration lists
B. Basic ballot security measures and transparency of the process. Voter ID and using a Driver License # in addition to a signature verification for absentee ballots are two examples. Neither are truly unreasonable nor will CTs throw them out out of hand.
3. In general seek to gain simple, clear and easily enforceable voting laws where failing to follow the procedure results in disqualified ballots. It should be relatively easy to vote but hard to cheat.
Establish basic common sense presumptions so that the in person voting option should be preferred in part because the voter can correct their error then and there. The mailed ballot should have the disadvantage of invisible errors as cast to accompany the advantage of convenience.
Another note on AZ. The law allowed early voting. Many r voters and the campaign organizations disfavor early voting. Let’s stipulate that the issues of in person, election day ballots was deliberately created precisely because the r over invest in in person, election day voting.
Such a focus makes it easy to ‘ambush’ the predominantly r voters who prefer election day voting and eschew early or mail voting. All they had to do was misprint the ballots in the wrong size or insufficient ink to cause unreadable ballots on election day.
Where the State allows early voting the r need to embrace it to preclude the ability for an ambush on election day that they claim was a simple mistake or incompetence. Stop making it easy for our opponents to ambush us.
Don’t get me started on “eternal vigilance.” That’s nothing but swamp gaslighting to blame the victim.
The concept of “we give scary powers to government and then we apply ‘eternal vigilance’ to make sure they don’t abuse them” is entirely unworkable. You are demanding that a citizenry who have other jobs and other lives, and who lose money every minute they have to waste monitoring their government, to ride herd on a bunch of people who chafe at your control of them, and have the luxury of literally being paid to go to work every day, full time, and scheme at ways to neutralize you.
Henry,
We have two broad choices in a republic. Either the Citizens retain control the Govt or eventually the Govt expands and controls the Citizens. That’s really what it boils down to.
The Citizens can choose to continue watching the NFL or the Kardashian or they can act. They can organize, campaign, fundraise and work together to throw the bums out one way or another.
Neither the Govt nor our politicians will remain our willing servants when we as Citizens refuse to demonstrate our mastery. Our Nation’s Founders told us this very clearly.
Franklin told us we had ‘A Republic if you can keep it’. Jefferson commented that ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance’. Madison told us our Constitution ‘requires sufficient virtue among men for self govt’.
“This demonstrates the problem with election challenges that are outside the normal recount process. You are asking a judge to overturn the certified election result – that’s a lot to ask. You need more than anecdotal evidence of problems or mishaps. You need to prove to a high degree of evidentiary proof, as opposed to speculation and statistical analysis, that a fraud took place and that it affected the outcome. That almost never is provable.”
The problem is that the misconduct happens *day of* the election. That the judges refused to hold polls open to sort it out should be taken as the assumption that it was intentional.
The proof should be on the government to prove that it wasn’t.
Par for the course. Comey let Hillary skate because ‘she didn’t mean it.’ But the applicable statut’s standard is “gross negligence.” So they just make it up to excuse what they want excused.
In other words: the fix is in.
So the Lake team subpoenaed (discovery?) the chain of custody documentation that is required by law to make a ballot a valid cast vote and the Hobbs team failed to produce them but claimed they exist. Is it believable that the Lake team did not ask the judge to compel the production of the documentation and render the advisory that failure of production would invite a negative inference ruling? I don’t think it is believable and, of course, if this request was made the request would be part of the record. I look forward to learning if this was as surmised by me.
That The KEY question. Did Lake request of chain of custody docs and did the county fail to produce them. It’s inconceivable Lake didn’t make the request. But if the county didn’t provide the docs, why didn’t Lake bring that up in court. If the county failed to produce the docs, then the judge has to make a negative inference and rule for Lake.
If they can’t or won’t produce the docs, they are admitting their guilt. The law to keep accurate chain of custody docs is so there can be an audit to prove that no fraud occurred.
Mr. Commonsense, if you find any more information on this, can you please let me know. Thanks.
One argument the judge didn’t let go to trial was the lack of verification of signatures. In her filings, Lake showed multiple examples ballots that were little more than chicken scratch and couldn’t possibly match any valid signature on file. This was obvious fraud and inarguably these ballots were invalid and illegal.
But the judge wouldn’t let it go to trial on the theory of latches. No honest judge would see inarguable proof of illegal and invalid ballots being counted and say “Sorry, but you waited to long to file you motion, we’ll have to let these illegal ballots be counted.”
Latches is a bar to action based on the inaction of the plaintiff. Lake challenged the election immediately. What the heck is this judge’s absurd definition of “inaction”?
There is no remedy for a botched election because you have to prove it was intentional…..making the same mistake on three separate elections isn’t intentional, it’s just incompetence and incompetent ran elections are just as valid as competent ran elections. This makes it really easy to manipulate the process. The state legislation needs to pass a law requiring chain of custody?
To prove any stealing would require someone within the organization to have a “Come to Jesus Moment”…. which won’t happen as run by true believers or the knowledge that spilling the beans is an automatic “Sent to Jesus moment”.
Proof of intent does NOT require a confession, although if you have one that makes it simpler of course. Intent is usually proven by circumstantial evidence, even in criminal cases which require proof beyond reasonable doubt.
In such a case, a judge would instruct that the fact-finder must use his common sense and knowledge of the ways of the world to evaluate the circumstantial evidence.
There is more than sufficient evidence from which an honest trier of fact could conclude that the problem with the 19 or 20 inch paper was intentional and was designed to render Republican votes not countable. First, the voting stations (or whatever they call them) that experienced this “problem” were solely located in Republican-leaning areas, none in Democrat-leaning areas; the machines functioned perfectly in tests the day before but “magically” failed to function only on election day; and the change in the way the ballots were printed had to be the result of a change in printer instruction that had to be deliberate, not accidental (or all these printers in each polling place would have to have suffered the same “accident”, an “accident” that did not affect any of the machines in Democrat-leaning areas).
To dismiss this all as unintentional and not directed against Republican votes would require an ingenuousness beyond belief in a functioning adult . . . or perhaps some less innocent motive.
No, there is more than sufficient evidence to prove deliberateness and intent in my opinion.
There is no remedy for a botched election because you have to prove it was intentional…..making the same mistake on three separate elections is intentional until proved otherwise.
The law already requires chain of custody. Somehow they lose the records every election now. There is no way to enforce election law.
Unless she can win on appeal,which would seem to be highly unlikely, you can stop arguing about Trump , because no Republican is going to win without Arizona, and they just went deep blue at the ballot box.
Where do they get these judges? From MoveOn.Org or SorosRUs? I would remind the Lake campaign that stealing an election only goes on way. Election integrity requires the Left to win.
From what I read the chain of custody was a policy not a law. The judge admitted they did not follow policy however did not break any law.
In Georgia, at least until the last few years (haven’t checked to see if amended since 2020), you cannot file an election contest until the results are certified.
Arizonans need to get their legislators to fix election contest law. This is buffoonery. It doesn’t matter why the election was botched; it was, new one is called for. All sane people know it.
As I regret saying, Law-itis has hit again.
However, Robert Barnes said Ariz. law doesn’t require intentional errors. We shall see if the Arizona courts let the state twist in the wind. Lake would have stopped the illegal invasion. It’s time for guns, not courts, at the border.
Arizona is the same, have to wait until certification and then you have 5 calendar days to file (maybe Sundays are excluded).
Courts don’t get involved, as Trump found out. Neither does the Constitution, as Trump also found out. If you win by cheating, you won. They uphold the system of elections, not the correct result.
Of course if you win by cheating, it’s a close election anyway, so as far as representation goes it doesn’t matter much which way it goes.
I’m not sure the elections are so close as they seem.
So the Maricopa election was run so incompetently that thousands of votes were counted without being verified with a proper chain of custody, thousands of voters were turned away at polling places because the printers and scanners were mismatched, and in general the Sec. of State did such a fouled up job that she shouldn’t be in charge of a lemonade stand…but she’s going to be governor now regardless. Next few years is going to be fun. Well, for us outside of the state. The people inside the state will have to live with the stench of incompetence until next election.
What basis do you have for assuming that in any putative “next election” that the vote count will be legal and honest? And yes, those two conditions are separate. Something may be ruled legal and be totally dishonest.
Subotai Bahadur
I’m going to make a sad prediction. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is currently made up of four Republicans and one Democrat. I predict the brain-dead voters will re-elect the incumbent RINOs handily.
Henry
You identified THE issue: voter and community apathy. This is the only practical check on incompetence and malfeasance at the County level.
The vile Dumb-o-crats have turned election fraud into an art form. They know that the legal barrier to challenging fraud and malfeasance is absurdly high, so, they can engage in their brazen shenanigans, secure in the knowledge that the end result will rarely be nullified.
As things currently stand in the U.S., there simply is no substantive disincentive for the Dumb-o-crats to refrain from persistently engaging in pervasive election fraud and chicanery.
We aren’t gonna get honest elections. Can’t vote harder to fix that.
The courts aren’t gonna remedy that problem. Can’t rely on the government to police the government.
What is left? More people need to realize what our situation is. We’ve been there for a while, now. People just can’t seem to grapple with what it means.
You or them are not going to find a judge who doesn’t fear for their life to open the can of worms officially there is vote fraud it’s that simple.
The fkin Supreme Court ran away from vote fraud case your not going to find any judge to rule fairly ever.
The Marxists know it and 2024 you could get 81M votes to get rid of the Marxists and they will still win the Presidency if it’s Kamala, Gruesome or the vegetable by then Sundowner.
I believe the law in Arizona on the two charges that Lake was having heard was there had to be “chain of custody” and Maricopa County caused “voter suppression”. The chain of custody was shown broken. The issues with Maricopa County were shown by about half of the tested ballots being the wrong size and being rejected, which indicated it had been done on purpose and had been done in the past. The law shows if there is these issues then the Judge should have ruled in Lake’s favor and called for a new election. It is clear this Judge did not follow the law and do his job. The question is what will happen on appeal. If the State Supreme Court does nothing will people revolt.
How can you prove that any of these issues were intentional, short of a confession?
Why not a presumption? If my vehicle engine is damaged by overheating that didn’t occur in a vacuum. I didn’t perform the required period maintenance on my vehicle. Thus it is my fault.
The judge has just created another path of fraud for future elections: Just make it a chaotic sh*tshow and then claim incompetence. “Hey, the voters are owed no duty of care and competence from us!” Just outrageous. And dangerous. Once it’s shown that judicial remedies do not exist, extra-judicial remedies will become acceptable.
‘S a damn good thing we’re white people, or else Phoenix would be on fire right now.
Laws and constitutions do not of themselves control a corrupt or tyrannical government. In fact without a faith by the overwhelming majority of the population that the rules are being followed, there is no legitimacy to a government and there is no Social and Political Contract binding on the people. If the government, any government, does not follow whatever laws or constitution that makes up the body politic; then the people are justified in also not following. The only authority then remaining is the ability of the government to use whatever it decides is condign force to enforce its will and continuation of power.
In any free country, there is no peaceful and rational assumption of the peaceful consent of the governed, unless there is simultaneously a peaceful way for the governed to register its lack of consent when appropriate and bring things back to where they do consent.
Given the 2020 and 2022 elections, the percentage of the governed who assume such consent is likely <50%. Hard times are upon us.
Subotai Bahadur
We need another government.
Would take the one we use to have
The courts have ruled repeatedly they are not going to play election police.
The only solution is with the State legislature. The State constitutions provide for the certification process. That is the process, not the courts, need to be engaged. The legislature needs to reject the certification.
Stop trying to use the courts. How many times do you need to hear judges tell you, they are NOT going to nullify an election. I doubt they have the jurisdiction. Kari Lake needs to explain that to the people. I am starting to hold her accountable for taking action, she knows will never produce the desired result.
Trump is right when he wanted Pence to toss those Slate of electors to the Electoral college. That is the constitutional solution. Not Judges
And yet when the legislature passes secure voting laws mandating signature matching and forbidding mail-in voting, the Dems happily go to their favorite judges to get these nasty vote-suppressing restrictions blown out right before the election gosh you can’t challenge the decision because you haven’t been harmed by it yet and there goes the election right into the Dems pockets and now you can’t sue because it’s all over, you hater and election denier.
Sigh. Every time.
It’s “Goldilocks Justice.”
This suit is too early. This suit is too late. No suit is ever juuuuuuuust right.
Reminds me of the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass, who promised “jam every other day”. “Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today” she explained when Alice was quizzical.
Great observation.
Yes, but the courts did override the legislature on vetious election procedures in various states and have done so repeatedly. The courts don’t mind being involved before elections our usurping the legislative authority.
The legislature isn’t in session during election season. When the session starts, the winners of the election will have been inaugurated.
One wonders what kind of voting procedures n election certification we would have if we thought it through from first principles.
A great line from software that applies to election procedures I think:
“There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors.”
Tony Hoare
We aren’t doing anything to make it so simple the results are obviously correct.
Interesting association, C. A R — “Tony” — Hoare was author of what was, for decades, the most cited paper in the computer science literature “Communicating Sequential Processes”.
I’m somewhat younger than that cohort of software eminances. Yet, I find going back to early sources a great way to unwind first principles. Actual practice gets encumbered over time, obscuring boh operations and the first principles at play.
The somewhat obscure programming language “Occam”, was based on the CSP model, even being realized in scalable, mesh hardware called the “Transputer.” We do an inconsistent subset of both the model and the topology these days, with ad hoc layers and libraries that work … mostly.
The fundmental problems, and ways to solve them don’t change. Just this evening, conversation over holiday dinner touched on two different kinds of language and architecture features, honored in the breach in current tech. When you’re gold rushing into territory opened by others’ innovation, you don’t have to get it all that right. Just right enough, for now.
Kinda like voting mechanisms n procedures we use.
This is what you get when judges use ridiculous definitions of “intent” and require proof of fraud while never granting discovery to find definitive proof. The granting of discovery should not be on a “beyond a reasonable doubt” basis, which is functionally the evidentiary standard in election fraud cases.
When every act of claimed incompetence or negligence disadvantages only one candidate the presumption should be malice.
What does “intent” have to do with whether or not some government officials failed to do that which the law requires?
The rules aren’t there to prevent only intentionally stolen elections, they’re there to guarantee fair elections in which every valid vote is counted, and invalid votes are not, even when no one is trying to steal them. This judge sent the message “Do what you will. Call me when you can prove what was done altered the results of an election.” Our election laws have been rendered meaningless. They are merely suggestions for how elections should be conducted, and are binding upon no one. Our system has been rendered a bad joke.
Apparently negligent homicide is no longer a thing in Arizona…
When courts fail, maybe a recall election will prevail. Start the petition, get a good election law attorney to dot all the It’s and cross all the It’s and put Lake back on the ballot and vote her in. If she actually won, the votes will be there for Lake to win.
Dot every I and cross every T.
To early to sue. To late to sue (laches). No standing to sue. Did not meet burden of proof. Was not done intentionally. And on and on . . .
Beginning to see a pattern here.
It’s like the democrats can openly rig the system and cheat and the court(s) are too scared to enforce the law.
The Republic is dead. Long live the Republic!
“The Republic is dead. Long live the PEOPLE”S Republic!”
FIFY, sad to say.
Just seems the “higher bar” would be on the elections office when the head of that office stands to gain from any errors……. dang I’m funny
So… do I understand this correctly?
If Lake could prove that:
1) Tens of thousands of GOP votes were not counted
2) Resulting in an incorrect count
3) Which flipped the result of the election…
Even in that case, there would be no available remedy of any kind unless she could also prove that the election officials screwed up on purpose?
I don’t think there is any way to fight illegal elections at the present time. Mail-in ballots and early voting make election fraud a sure thing. A country-wide chain of custody needs be set in stone for election officials to follow. This should include facial recognition apps to ensure that real, registered voters are who they say they are. If the Global Entry program can do it, then so can the state election officials.
Other wise, we will continue to see ballot “dumps,” closed curtains, “water pipe breakage” excuses, and anything else the Democrats can manufacture. It will be surprising if the Republicans can win another nationwide election, given the current “system” of voter fraud.
I really wonder isf there are any remaining Patriots who believe there remains any vestige of a rule of law in Arizona or any other place in the USA.Our nation’s courts are hopelessly corrupted. Simply further evidence that the democratic form of government is a total failure and will not protect western civilization from the vermin which besiege it.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
There’s the problem! These people are more rightly governed by the likes of Joe Stalin
Too much hand ringing here. Disenfranchisement is disenfranchisement whether accidental or not. I am confident if minority folks were impacted we would have had a different judicial outcome.
Failure to do things properly is intentional.
These idiot judges are doing as much to kill trust in elections as the fraudulently elected.
I think that until and unless mail-in voting is severely curtailed, Republicans have to play the same game as Democrats: get out the vote campaigns that go door-to-door and through churches, football crowds, and every sort of civic organization, old-age homes and whatever in order to both maximize the (R) vote—including a lot of people who shouldn’t vote because they are too low-information, apathetic, or gaga to know who they are voting for or why. Aside from increasing the (R) vote, it would also make it harder to game an election because it would be more difficult to know in advance how the voting was going and which ballots one would want to disadvantage with respect to others. As it is, one now knows that the bulk of early ballots are going to be (D) and that those cast on election day are more likely to be (R). Not a cure, but anything that helps can make a positive impact in close elections.