Cary Lake sues Arizona’s largest county, seeking to overturn her defeat

Many of the people cited as litigation experts and one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit — Kurt Olson — were part of a loose network of denialists led by Mike Lindell, a pillow The company, an entrepreneur, has been pushing conspiracy theories about an election machine since early 2021. Another of Lake’s attorneys, Bryan Blehm, represented contractor Cyber ​​Ninjas during a partisan audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results last year and filed suit this year on behalf of Cochise County’s supervisor. , attempting to conduct a hand-measured audit plan.

Mrs. Two other Republicans in Arizona who lost midterm elections also filed lawsuits against Lake on Friday: Mark Finchen, who is running for secretary of state, and Abe Hamad, a candidate for attorney general. gentlemen. Hamad trailed his opponent by 511 votes in a race that is undergoing a recount, and the Republican National Committee has joined his suit.

gentlemen. Hamad previously filed a lawsuit late last month seeking to overturn the election results, but the lawsuit was dismissed by a Maricopa County judge as premature. His new lawsuit — filed in Republican stronghold Mohave County, where he won 75 percent of the vote — is narrower than Ms. Lake’s, claiming it did not challenge the validity of the election. But, like ladies. Mr Hamad is seeking an order to overturn the election results and declare him victorious, claiming he was not alleging widespread fraud but “certain errors and inaccuracies”. On Twitter late Friday, Mr. “Maricopa County faces unprecedented and unacceptable problems on Election Day,” Hamad wrote.

Dan Barr, attorney for Mr. Hamadeh’s opponent, Kris Mayes, said the lawsuit was “based on speculation” and had “no real facts”. He said he plans to file a motion to dismiss it and move it to Maricopa County early next week.

gentlemen. Finchem was one of several candidates for secretary of state across the country to deny the results of the 2020 presidential election, losing by more than 120,000 votes. In his lawsuit against Maricopa County, Mr. Finchem claimed Arizona had “failed miserably” in enforcing a “full, fair and safe election” and asked the court to declare the election “null” and name him the winner.

The lawsuit was brought by Daniel McCauley, who also recently unsuccessfully represented Cochise County in refusing to certify election results.

One of Ms. Lake’s lawyers, Mr. Olsen also participated in an earlier, unsuccessful federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Ms. Lake with Mr. Finchem. It was submitted before November. 8 election, but earlier this month a federal judge found it had made “false, misleading and unsubstantiated factual assertions” about the electoral system. The judge said the misleading assertions should be sanctioned. He said he would decide at a later date which of the lawyers involved would be sanctioned.

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