Kari Lake files lawsuit demanding Maricopa County explain election day problems

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County. Lake’s lawsuit has demanded full details about the printer issues that occurred on election day.

Lake’s suit has requested several public records, including names and contact information for voters at polling sites who experienced issues with the printers, the number of ballots spoiled on Election Day, adjudication rates broken down by legislative district and the number of ballots sent to overseas voters and what the verification process was for these papers.

“These public records are vital to the integrity of the election process and necessary to show, ahead of canvassing, that every legal ballot was properly counted,” the suit reads.

In a recent interview with Steve Bannon, Lake hit out at the county’s handling of the election and said the information her campaign team has requested will be used to support an additional lawsuit.

“We need information from Maricopa County. They ran the shoddiest election ever in history and we want some information,” Lake said in the video. “We’re on a timeline, a very strict timeline when it comes to fighting this botched election.”

Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs won the gubernatorial race by around 17,000 votes. The margain of Hobb’s victory was significant enough that a recount is not required under Arizona state law.

According to Lake’s attorney, 118 polling centers in the county encountered problems due to the tabulators which wouldn’t read ballots, resulting in voters either having to wait in long queues or decided against voting altogether.

The lawsuit requests that the court require the county’s election officials to provide public records ahead of the canvassing deadline of November 28th, to give Lake’s campaign time to seek redress. 

“In the absence of an immediate and comprehensive production of the requested public records, (Kari Lake) cannot ascertain the full extent of the problems identified and their impacts on electors,” wrote Timothy La Sota, Lake’s attorney.