Howard Fischer PHOENIX — A trial judge will give Kari Lake one more chance to try to prove that Maricopa County did not properly verify signatures on early ballot envelopes.
Some of that"proof'' was based on a report about Election Day problems prepared for the county by retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor. Lake's attorney Kurt Olsen claimed McGregor's report backs Lake's contention the county knew the equipment would fail on Election Day. But in a Twitter post, Lake immediately hailed the first part of the ruling late Monday as giving her"the opportunity to EXPOSE election fraud IN COURT.''
"She must demonstrate at trial ... that Maricopa County's higher level signature reviewers conducted no signature verification or curing and in doing so had systematically failed to materially comply with the law,'' the judge said.Thompson said she also would need to prove all this changed the outcome of the election.
But now, the judge said, Lake is saying the problem was with on-site tabulators that refused to read many of the ballots fed into them. Yet Thompson said another expert testifying the very next day — and also a witness called by Lake — undermined that theory. That expert said the problems with the printers and tabulators were mechanical issues, which could often be resolved by such actions as cleaning the tabulators and adjusting the settings on the printers.