PHOENIX (AP) – Attorneys for Republican Kari Lake were awarded $2,000 Thursday by the Arizona Supreme Court in their unsuccessful challenge to her loss in last year’s gubernatorial race to Democrat Katie Hobbs.
In an order, the state’s highest court said Lake’s attorney made “false factual statements” that more than 35,000 ballots were improperly added to the total ballot count. They have 10 days to submit the payment to the clerk of court.
The court, however, refused to order Lake to pay attorney fees to cover the cost of defending Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, also a Democrat, in Lake’s appeal.
Chief Justice Robert Brutinel said Lake’s challenge to signature verification remains unresolved.
Hobbs and Fontes said Lake and his attorneys should face sanctions for unsubstantiated claims that more than 35,000 ballots were cast in the race at a facility where a contractor scans mail-in ballots to prepare them for county election workers to process and count.
When the high court first took up Lake’s challenge in late March, the justices said the evidence did not show that more than 35,000 ballots were added to the vote count in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters.
Lawyers for Hobbs and Fontes told the court that Lake and his lawyers misrepresented the evidence and undermined the election process by continuing to push baseless claims of election fraud. Fontes’ lawyers asked the court to order Lake’s lawyers to forfeit any money they may have earned in the appeal, arguing that they should not be allowed to benefit from their own misconduct.
Lake’s attorneys said the sanctions were inappropriate because no one could doubt that Lake honestly believed his race was determined by election fraud.
Lake, who was defeated by Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, one of the most vocal Republican candidates in 2022 promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which he made central to his campaign. While most other dissidents across the country conceded after losing their races last November, Lake did not.
In his challenge, Lake pointed to problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County.
Defective printers produce ballots that are too light which will be read in the on-site tabulators at the polling places. Lines were backed up in some areas amid the confusion. Lake said the problem with the ballot printer was the result of intentional misconduct.
County officials said everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted because those affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at election headquarters.
The state Supreme Court declined on March 22 to hear nearly all of Lake’s appeal, saying there was no evidence that 35,000 ballots were added to the vote totals.
However, the high court revived Lake’s claim challenging the application of Maricopa County’s signature verification procedures on early ballots. The court sent the claim back to a lower court judge for consideration. This latest order will allow the trial court to continue to litigate the matter.
In mid-February, the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Lake’s claimsconcluding that he presented no evidence that voters whose ballots could not be read on the tabulators at the polling places could not vote.
Lake’s attorneys say the chain of custody of the ballots was broken at an off-site facility where a contractor scans mail-in ballots to prepare them for processing. Attorneys alleged that workers put their own mail-in ballots in the pile instead of returning them through normal channels, and lost paperwork documenting ballot transfers. The county disputes the claims.
