(PatriotWise.com) — The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request by Kari Lake to consider a ban on the use of electronic vote counting machines in Arizona, CNN reported.
Lake and then-state Secretary of State GOP candidate Mark Finchem filed a lawsuit in April 2022, before the midterm elections, questioning the security of electronic vote counting, relying in part on the discredited review of Maricopa County’s 2020 presidential election results.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in August 2022, saying the allegations about potential injuries made by Lake and Finchem were “vague” and “conjectural.” The judge later ordered sanctions against Lake and Finchem’s attorneys in hopes of deterring them from filing similar “baseless suits in the future.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s ruling in October 2023, saying the district court was correct that the plaintiffs, who did not claim past injury, failed to provide evidence to support the claim that a “future injury was either imminent or substantially likely to occur,” which the court said was unlikely in light of the state’s “robust safeguards,” its use of paper ballots, and the retention of ballots.
The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case should bring an end to Lake’s two-year attempt to force the state of Arizona to require hand-counting of ballots. The case was refused without comment and no justices dissented.
Kari Lake is currently running for the Republican nomination to the US Senate. Finchem is also seeking office again, this time running for the state Senate.
Lake had also filed suit against the Arizona Secretary of State and the Maricopa and Pima County boards of supervisors. All three defendants waived the right to respond to the Supreme Court challenges, indicating that they believed the lawsuit to be frivolous.
The failed gubernatorial candidate accused the high court of “institutional inertia” on election challenges, despite the court’s involvement in several appeals from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, most recently the challenge to the Colorado Supreme Court decision to remove Trump from the ballot.
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