Judge Dismisses 8 of 10 Claims By ‘Krazy Kari’ Lake; Schedules Shitshow Trial Of Remaining 2 Claims (Updated)

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The Arizona Republic reports, Judge orders 2-day trial in Kari Lake’s lawsuit, but dismisses some claims:

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson tossed eight of the claims in Lake’s lawsuit, but allowed two to remain that alleged an intentional plot by officials to manipulate the election in favor of Lake’s Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. In two separate orders, he ruled that a two-day trial will take place before Jan. 2, and that Hobbs and County Recorder Stephen Richer would be required to testify as Lake wished.

Lake has “alleged intentional misconduct sufficient to affect the outcome of the election and thus has stated an issue of fact that requires going beyond the pleadings,” the ruling stated. It continued that Lake must show at trial that the county’s printer malfunctions were intentionally rigged to affect the election results, and that the actions “did actually affect the outcome.”

Thompson didn’t immediately set the time for the trial, but ordered the attorneys for Lake and defendants including Hobbs and county officials to submit a list with the anticipated time required for the proceedings no later than 12 p.m., Dec. 20.

Last week, he agreed to allow Lake’s legal team to inspect a small number of printed and early ballots from the election, including 50 that were marked “spoiled” on Election Day. That inspection was scheduled to begin Dec. 20.

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Hobbs team: Standards not met

Hobbs’ attorney, Abha Khanna of the Democrat-allied Elias Law Group, told Thompson that Lake’s lawsuit was part of a “sustained assault” on election processes by losing candidates and should be immediately dismissed.

The lawsuit’s theory of a “master plot” to target Lake by county officials, who like Lake are Republican, somehow happened “without a single trace: no documents, no emails, no leaks,” Khanna said.

Glitches did strike machines at about a third of polling places in Maricopa County during the election, providing talking points for election-denying candidates such Lake and losing GOP Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem but so far no proof that voters were disenfranchised.

When tabulators began rejecting some printed ballots on Nov. 8, creating frustration and long lines at some polling places, county officials instructed voters who worried their ballots might not count to leave them in a batch called “door three,” where they were retrieved later and counted.

Large numbers of Republican voters followed the instructions of Lake and other conspiracy-minded candidates to vote in-person on Election Day rather than to mail their ballots, which made them more vulnerable to any polling-place issues. Until the Trump era, Republicans had used mail-in ballots more than Democrats in Arizona.

Out of 220 witnesses offered by Lake’s lawsuit, the county’s motion to dismiss the case notes that only three of those were unable to cast a ballot after choosing not to wait in line or go elsewhere.

The voter declarations contain nothing that suggests any votes were counted unlawfully or any voters “were wrongfully turned away,” Khanna said, adding that “at most, those declarations state a handful of voters chose not to vote using the means available to them on Election Day.”

The key point in the case is that Arizona law requires a complaint to contain specific allegations of fraud, a standard developed to prevent unproven, “free-wheeling” speculations that unfairly hold up the democratic process, she said. The law requires “credible, positive, and unequivocal evidence” of perceived problems, with presumptions in favor of the election results, but Lake’s lawsuit offers only insinuations, she said.

The lawsuit says that it is not alleging fraud, therefore striking out one of two legal criteria needed, she said. The other requirement is to show that alleged misconduct or illegal votes actually affected the outcome of the election, but Lake didn’t do that either, Khanna said.

“Ms. Lake does not come close” to meeting the standards,” she said. “The lawsuit requires immediate dismissal.”

Lake lawyer fights back

Lake’s attorneys for the suit include Bryan Blehm, who was a lawyer for Cyber Ninjas, the contractor hired by the state Senate for its review of the 2020 election, and Olsen, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who recently was ordered to pay sanctions in a federal suit brought by Lake and Finchem that a judge said contained frivolous and baseless claims.

Olsen, who spoke after the county lawyers, said the judge should put stock in the affidavit of “top cyber expert” Clay Parikh, whose analysis concluded that the county’s “system-wide” failures could only be explained by intentional manipulation of county officials. An analysis “based on science” also showed that 15,000 to 29,000 votes were “disenfranchised,” Olsen said. He also claimed the county mysteriously “found” 25,000 “extra voters” two days after the polls closed.

Clay Parikh is a computer hacker/conspiracy theorist  with ties to election denier Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Guy insurrectionist who wanted trump to declare “marshall” (sic) law and have the military seize voting machines. See, Black box voting: Confessions of an elections hacker (Part 2) (excerpts):

Parikh spent nine years as a hacker in an election systems lab and, as such, considers all election hardware and software to be woefully inadequate when it comes to voting security.

Parikh has worked with Air Force Col. Shawn Smith (ret.), whose job was to oversee this security effort within the Department of Defense. Smith spoke at a seminar sponsored by Mike Lindell this past summer regarding all election machines.

Parikh says … “There is no secure supply chain,” Parikh said. “I have looked at hardware listings with questionable countries on there. I have seen bogus emails and contact information for vendors.”

Drawing from the lawsuit, Olsen discussed various factors that he said led to “massive failure” on Nov. 8, such as Hobbs’ reporting of misinformation on Twitter, a PAC started by Richer, alleged ballot “chain of custody” problems and what he implied was a suspicious voter-signature verification process.

He appealed to the affidavits of three “whistleblowers” on the last point, claiming that “tens of thousands of ballots were being pushed into the system that should never have been counted” because of sloppy signature checks.

One of the county’s lawyers, Tom Liddy, ripped Olsen’s claim that Parikh was a “cyber expert,” saying someone who maintained printers at a Staples office-supply store would have impressed him more.

Liddy said Olsen’s notion of 25,000 “ghost ballots” was simply because the county gave one early estimate of mail-in ballots that were dropped off at the polls on Nov. 8, and then released the actual number a few days later.

He offered an answer to Olsen’s “challenge” to find another election in which tabulators failed to read ballots: Liddy said those problems “happen all the time” because of printer issues, wet ink on a ballot, or ovals that weren’t filled in.

On the issue of signatures, Khanna said they were not rejected at a rate of 30% to 40% as Olsen asserted, and that in reality, ballot rejection typically amounts to fewer than 1% of ballots checked.

Here’s what the judge’s ruling said

Thompson, who presided over Monday’s live-streamed, hour-plus hearing, listened to each side without asking questions and ended by saying he would make a ruling on the county’s motion to dismiss as soon as possible.

His ruling, released just before 8 p.m., dismissed eight of Lake’s 10 counts in her lawsuit. The legal doctrine of laches, which forbids claims that could have been brought much earlier in time, applies when considering the county’s signature-verification process or Lake’s claim that the Arizona Constitution’s Secrecy Clause bars mail-in ballots, he wrote.

In other dismissed counts, Lake didn’t state a claim sufficiently or asked for relief that the court could not provide such as “ordering a new election.”

But she did state a valid claim in alleging that a county employee  [who?] interfered illegally with the printers, “resulting in some number of lost votes” for Lake, and she’s entitled to try to prove that, Thompson ruled.

Likewise, she made a specific allegation that an unknown number of ballots were added to the county’s total by employees [who?] of Runbeck Election Services, a Phoenix company that provides election equipment for the county, and that receipts of delivery were not maintained in violation of state law. Thompson allowed that claim to proceed, too.

Judge Thompson just set himself up for a shitshow of wild-eyed conspiracy theorists – NOT experts – claiming that the election was rigged against “Krazy Kari” Lake. This is a continuum of the Cyber Ninjas election denier nonsense. This is the trial of Maricopa County election officials – all elected Republicans – that the Cyber Ninjas “fraudit” crowd has been wanting. It will be a circus atmosphere.

Lake’s attorney will have to identify specific individuals (co-conspirators) and present specific evidence of this alleged master plot, and prove actual intentional misconduct to deny “Krazy Kari” Lake a win. He has not done so in the pleadings or at the hearing, which should have been enough for this judge to dismiss.

Mere theories, speculation and conjecture by Team Lake is insufficient and should quickly be shut down by this judge, if he knows what he is doing. I have my doubts.

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