Lake Receives Standing Ovation After Vowing to Go to Supreme Court with Election Challenge, If Necessary
Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake brought a crowd of thousands to its feet Sunday night when she promised to take her election challenge all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
Lake was the final speaker on day 2 of Turning Point USA’s America Fest conservative political conference taking place in Phoenix.
Earlier this month, Lake filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County election officials and Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who certified herself as the winner of the Nov. 8 governor’s race in the Grand Canyon State.
Hobbs defeated Lake by just over 17,000 votes by the official tally, or 0.7 percent of the votes cast.
“They have built a house of cards here in Maricopa County. I think they’re all wondering what I’m going to do. I tell you, I’m not just going to knock that house of cards over, we’re going to burn it to the ground,” Lake said.
“They messed with the wrong woman. They messed with the wrong movement of ‘We the People,’ and we’re not going to take it anymore,” she added.
.@KariLake: “They have built a house of cards here in Maricopa County.
I think they’re all wondering what I’m gonna do.
I’ll tell you what, I’m not just gonna knock that house of cards over.
We’re going to burn it to the ground.”https://t.co/DXTi4W73rt pic.twitter.com/huaH31U6bh
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 19, 2022
Lake promised, “I’m going to take my election lawsuit, which is the strongest election lawsuit this country’s ever put forth, and I will take it to the Supreme Court, if necessary. I will.”
.@KariLake: “The cowardly thing to do right now is to give up. Just give up. That’s a cowardly thing to do. The hardest fights are the ones worth fighting. And this one is worth fighting. I’m in the fight. I’m in it.” pic.twitter.com/gqL4NLUtRF
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 19, 2022
Thousands in the audience rose to their feet cheering at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Chants of “Kari, Kari, Kari!” and “USA, USA, USA!” erupted.
“You do not steal our vote and get away with it. You don’t,” Lake responded.
“Our movement is so powerful that they had to sabotage Election Day operations. They had to steal our vote in broad daylight, and we all noticed,” she said.
Lake stated that 59 percent of the polling places on Election Day (131 sites) had ballot printer and tabulation problems, which led to hours-long lines.
The county has said 71 sites were impacted, about one-third in all.
Lake argued that since Republicans voted 3-to-1 over Democrats on Election Day, what happened was large-scale vote suppression of her supporters.
Here is the problem w/ what happened in Maricopa County on Election Day. This is Anthem, north of Phoenix at about 1:15 pm. Ruby red district of about 30K people. Only one polling location. Ballot tabulators not working in the morning. 2 hr wait to vote midday and still at 6 pm. pic.twitter.com/CY35yQWwq5
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) November 14, 2022
Lake also cited a nearly 25,000 vote discrepancy in the total number of ballots reported the day after the election to the final tally Maricopa County said were cast in the race.
That number could be significant because it exceeds Hobbs’ margin of victory over Lake.
“They didn’t have enough cheating by two days after the election. They had to inject 25,000 more votes. These people are crooks. They need to be locked up,” Lake said.
Both these issues are raised in the Republican’s lawsuit, along with other chain of custody issues her legal team said impacted hundreds of thousands of ballots.
(Lake’s speech at America Fest begins at approximately at approximately 7 hours and 21 mins.)
Lake told Turning Point USA president Charlie Kirk last week that her legal filing also included affidavits from three whistleblowers who work for Maricopa County and who said that 90 percent of ballots being flagged for signature mismatches did not go through the curing process.
Her campaign is asking for access to the mail-in ballot envelopes, so they can be checked against the signatures on file.
“If we do have a situation where votes are being, phony votes are being put in with no people attached to them, it makes sense that they would want to do that, right?” Lake said. “Because when you call to cure, you’re going to find out there’s no human being on the other end of that ballot.”
.@KariLake: “We want a judge to give us access to look at all those signatures and compare them. And we’re happy to do the work. Because this is our only security feature to mail-in ballots & if we blow that off then we truly don’t have secure elections.” pic.twitter.com/wAGWhrrdsU
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 12, 2022
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ordered Maricopa County to grant Lake’s lawyers access to inspect 50 randomly selected “ballot-on-demand” printed ballots cast on Election Day, 50 randomly selected early ballots cast in the race and 50 randomly selected ballots that were marked spoiled on Election Day. The inspection will take place on Dec. 20.
Lake’s team clearly wants to get a better sense of what exactly caused so many machines to, essentially, simultaneously go down on Election Day and seek to determine whether negligence or malfeasance was involved.
Maricopa County attorneys argued Monday for Lake’s case to be dismissed.
Thompson said he would take the defendants’ motion to dismiss “under advisement.”
“If the judge doesn’t dismiss the suit, there will be a two-day hearing … Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 21 and 22.,” KPNX reported.
“Under state law, the judge must then decide within five days — no later than Tuesday, Dec. 27 — whether to confirm Hobbs as the winner or toss out her victory,” according to the outlet.
Hobbs is slated to be sworn in Jan. 2, meaning if Thompson’s ruling is appealed by either side the lawsuit could continue past inauguration day.
Lake’s lawsuit asks for a declaration that she won the gubernatorial race or a redo of the election in Maricopa County.
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