U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is urging the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of using electronic voting machines in Arizona elections, Newsweek reported. The Arizona Republican is attempting to resurrect an earlier lawsuit that was thrown out.
In a petition filed Thursday, attorneys for Lake and former Arizona state Representative Mark Finchem, who is running for state Senate, requested the high court's review. They claim that new evidence on their side should prompt a fresh look at their case.
Lake has been beating the drum about fraud since her 2022 loss in the Arizona gubernatorial race. She couldn't get any traction with her in either the lower courts in Arizona or the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at the time.
Instead, judges called the case "frivolous," and she was sanctioned so as never to bring "similarly baseless suits in the future." Still, the matter deserves additional scrutiny if the new evidence is compelling.
The attorneys for Lake and Finchem point to problems found with the machines. "Newly uncovered evidence also shows Arizona's Maricopa County flagrantly violated state law for electronic voting systems—including using altered software not certified for use in Arizona—and actively misrepresented and concealed those violations," the request stated.
"Perhaps worse—although potentially unknown to Maricopa—the Dominion Voting Systems, Inc., systems used in Maricopa and almost thirty states have a built-in security breach enabling malicious actors to take control of elections, likely without detection." They believe it's enough for a "do-over" of the 2022 election.
Critics say this new evidence is very much like the old evidence that's already been dismissed, however. A unanimous lower court opinion stated that the 2022 case hinged on "operative complaint relies on a 'long chain of hypothetical contingencies' that have never occurred in Arizona and 'must take place for any harm to occur.'"
"This is the kind of speculation that stretches the concept of imminence 'beyond its purpose,'" the opinion added. Moreover, the Supreme Court seldom takes "direct appeals that skip the trial and appellate courts."
Because Lake and Finchem are running for office again, their attorneys argue it's reason enough to take up the matter anew. The lawyers are currently challenging the sanctions from the lower courts as well.
According to the Arizona Republic, My Pillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell is also behind this push for another review of the voting machines. He, too, promised new information that would be "the most explosive evidence ever" earlier this week.
“It's going to be the biggest thing ever, and we are going to save this country. It’s going to shock the world," Lindell said.
The pillow magnate was speaking about new evidence of a scheme that easily could have been pulled off using the technology already in the machine with the help of some bad actors along the way. However, the news outlet was largely dismissive of Lindell's claims about the potential for fraud in using the voting machines.
It seems that if the machines are accurate and unable to be tampered with, then the recount should show that. They are sampled and checked against the machines randomly, but without a thorough investigation, it's impossible to know if the machines are tamperproof.
All Lindell, Lake, and Finchem were asking for was a hand recount of all of the ballots, and they were laughed out of court. If there's nothing to hide, then there should be no reason not to grant that request.
