Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for Arizona governor who lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs but refuses to admit it, filed a public records lawsuit requesting that Maricopa County turn over election-related records.
Her lawyer Tim LaSota filed the suit on Wednesday, stating that “many eligible voters may not have been able to vote” due to election officials’ “failures.”
According to the complaint, the Trump-backed candidate alleged that Maricopa County election officials broke election laws, citing that 118 polling centers had a “printer/tabulation problem,” that “many poll observers saw poll workers mix counted and uncounted ballots,” and that election officials have not fulfilled Lake’s initial public records requests filed on November 15 and 16.
Lake “cannot determine that every lawful vote will be properly counted” because Maricopa County election officials “were unable or unwilling to conduct a reconciliation of voter check ins against ballots cast of each polling center on election night in accordance with Arizona law and have now unlawfully refused to produce public records in response to two public records requests regarding how they administered the election,” the complaint states.
Lake lost to Hobbs by a margin of 17,200 votes, yet has not acknowledged the defeat—which shouldn’t be surprising, as she told CNN host Dana Bash that she wouldn’t accept the election results, unless she won.
She announced the suit on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast on Wednesday, calling the November 8 election “the shoddiest election ever, in history.”
“We want some information,” Lake added. “We’re on a timeline, a very strict timeline when it comes to fighting this botched election, and they’re dragging their feet.”
Maricopa County officials are scheduled to canvass on November 28, while the state is scheduled to canvass on December 5.
Two Arizona counties are delaying their certification dates in protest of Maricopa County’s election results; Democrats Mark Kelly and Katie Hobbs secured victories in Arizona. Although tabulators were unable to read some ballots, officials said it did not affect voters’ ability to cast their ballots.
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates and Vice Chairman Clint Hickman addressed the printer problems in a joint statement: “The good news is election administration has built in redundancies — backup plans when things don’t go as planned. This enables all valid votes to count even if technology, on occasion, fails. Voters impacted by the printer issue had several ways to cast their ballot yesterday, including dropping their completed ballot into a secure box (door 3) on site. Those ballots will be verified as legitimate and then tabulated.”
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