After Losing Appeal, Kari Lake Has a Message: 'Buckle Up!'

Says she'll take challenge of her defeat in governor’s race to Arizona Supreme Court
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 17, 2023 1:00 AM CST
After Losing Appeal, Kari Lake Has a Message: 'Buckle Up!'
Kari Lake, former Republican candidate for Arizona governor, speaks during a lunch hosted by the Scott County Republican Women, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023, in Bettendorf, Iowa.   (Nikos Frazier/Quad City Times via AP, File)

An Arizona appeals court has rejected Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, denying her request to throw out election results in the state’s most populous county and hold the election again. In a ruling on Thursday, the Arizona Court of Appeals wrote Lake, who claimed problems with ballot printers at some places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct, presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by tabulators at polling places were not able to vote, reports the AP.

The court said that even a witness called by Lake to testify had confirmed that ballots that couldn’t initially be read because they printed in too light a manner were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters and counted. And while a pollster who testified on behalf of Lake claimed the polling place problems had disenfranchised enough voters to change the outcome in Lake’s favor—she lost by just over 17,000 votes—the court said his conclusion were baseless.

The appeals court wrote Lake’s appeal failed because the evidence supports the conclusion that “voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results." Shortly after the ruling, Lake tweeted: "I told you we would take this case all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. Buckle up, America!"

(More Kari Lake stories.)

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