Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake says that she has filed an appeal in her Arizona election case, claiming that there is new evidence in her 2022 midterm-related lawsuit that implicates Maricopa County officials.
Her appeal, filed with the Arizona Court of Appeals, claimed that a top Maricopa County elections manager, Scott Jarrett, gave false testimony about issues that occurred on Election Day in November 2022. On that day, several officials with Maricopa County announced that there were issues with voting machine printers that forced some voters to go to other polling locations.
“Maricopa’s Co-Director of Elections, Scott Jarrett, gave false testimony about the causes and the extent of the Election Day tabulator ballot rejections caused by misconfigured, speckled, or faded BOD-printed ballots,” the appeal reads. “BOD” stands for “ballot on demand.”
The appeal asserts that the “ensuing chaos led to massive lines and wait times, thereby impairing or depriving the right to vote of tens of thousands of predominately Republican voters” and that “Arizona elections are now in uncharted territory.”
Neither Mr. Jarrett nor Maricopa County has publicly responded to Ms. Lake’s appeal. The Epoch Times contacted Maricopa County for comment on Sept. 17 but received none by press time.
Maricopa County lawyers have previously rejected Ms. Lake’s claims that there was intentional malfeasance on behalf of county officials in connection to Election Day printer problems. Mr. Jarrett blamed printing issues in some polling spots on toner that wasn’t dark enough, saying that it caused some voters with ballots that couldn’t be read to have to place them in a secure box to be counted later.
Since the November midterms, Ms. Lake and her team have filed multiple lawsuits and appeals in a bid to challenge the election. So far, all of them have been rejected by multiple judges.
Ms. Lake, a former local Fox anchor, hasn’t conceded the race. Her Democrat opponent, Katie Hobbs, was sworn in as governor earlier this year.
In July, Ms. Lake filed an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court that claimed that some 8,000 unreadable ballots were misconfigured on Election Day. In her initial lawsuit filed last year, she argued that thousands of voters were disenfranchised in Maricopa County on Election Day.
Several weeks ago, the GOP candidate filed a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer earlier this year. In June, Mr. Richer claimed that Ms. Lake and her team have made false accusations that he was attempting to sabotage the midterm elections, saying that he’s since received death threats.
The motion stated that Mr. Richer “certainly has the right to publicly dispute defendants’ speech,” but Arizona law “does not allow him to bring this lawsuit in an attempt to punish or silence such speech simply because he disagrees with it.”
It added, “In fact, Richer’s own public statements about this lawsuit shows that his intention is to violate Kari Lake’s right to free speech.”
Ms. Lake has also suggested that she might run for the U.S. Senate seat that is currently held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent.
“I’m contemplating it,” Ms. Lake told Fox Business last month in response to a question about a Senate bid. “I mean, I could go off and go back into media and make a fortune, but this is not the season for that.”
