A court has handed a big win to Kari Lake by granting the Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate’s request for a partial inspection of Maricopa County’s ballots.
The court ordered the inspection as part of Lake’s lawsuit as she contests the results of her widely disputed election defeat against Arizona’s Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
Lake filed a lawsuit on December 9 seeking to either have Maricopa County ordered to re-run its gubernatorial race or be declared the election’s winner, according to USA Today.
The Maricopa County Superior Court of Arizona granted her petition for a partial inspection.
50 randomly selected Election-Day-cast will be inspected from six separate Maricopa County voting centers.
Another 50 Election Day spoil-marked “ballot-on-demand” printed ballots from six separate Maricopa County voting centers and 50 early cast ballots from six separate county batches will also be inspected.
The court rejected Lake’s request to have 50 randomly selected early ballots’ envelopes inspected.
It forbids the approved inspections from disturbing any ballots’ integrity, storage or maintenance in the county’s custody or interfering with any ongoing 2022 election result recount.
We didn't ask for this fight.
But we intend to win it. pic.twitter.com/Qd3zYA9bNy
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) December 16, 2022
The court ordered the inspection to start Tuesday morning.
Lake has claimed that “nearly half of all polling locations had problems with tabulating machines and printers” on Election Day.
She says the issues were forcing voters “to wait in line for hours.”
At least 20% of tabulation machines in Maricopa County malfunctioned that day, county officials said.
Hobbs, Arizona’s top election official, has also come under fire for refusing to recuse herself from her own race.
