Supreme Court Refuses Kari Lake’s Lawsuit Over Electronic Voting Machines In Arizona
KEY FACTS
The Supreme Court declined to hear Lake’s appeal on Monday morning without comment, which is typically the case when the high court rejects an appeal, leaving the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision standing.
Lake filed the lawsuit after losing the Arizona gubernatorial race in 2022 alongside Mark Finchem, who lost his race for secretary of state in the same election, attempting to ban the use of electronic tabulation machines made by Dominion Voting Systems.
Although Lake submitted a writ of certiorari to the high court, none of the parties she sued submitted a response—including Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and multiple members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Pima County Board of Supervisors.
In her appeal to the Supreme Court, Lake’s attorneys claimed that Dominion machines had a “built-in security breach enabling malicious actors to take control of elections”—echoing long-contested claims repeated on right-wing media after the 2020 presidential election.
Lake’s lawsuit was previously dismissed as “frivolous” and based on “hypothetical contingencies,” by District Court Judge John Tuchi in August 2022, and the Ninth Circuit Court upheld the dismissal in October.
WHAT WAS THE LAWSUIT’S PURPOSE?
Lake’s attorneys asked the high court to intervene in a similar way to how it intervened in the 2000 presidential election, when it shut down a Florida recount after concerns about vote tabulation on paper ballots. “Although electronic voting machines were meant to remedy snafus like the 2000 Florida recount, the flaws that petitioners unearthed in electronic voting machines make hanging chads—the very problem the machines were meant to solve—seem like a blessing,” Lake’s lawyers wrote in their appeal to the Supreme Court. “At least there, humans could see and touch ballots and punch cards.” However, the Ninth Circuit heavily disputed these claims, detailing exactly how the Arizona votes are counted. According to the court, Arizona voters mark their votes on paper ballots which are then fed into electronic machines. Those paper ballots are then retained by authorities for recounts and post-election audits, and are also hand-counted by representatives of both political parties. Arizona stores voting machines with tamper-resistant seals, and mandates that they cannot be connected to the internet, wireless devices or external networks. “In the end, none of Plaintiffs’ allegations supports a plausible inference that their individual votes in future elections will be adversely affected,” the court ruled before denying the appeal.
KEY BACKGROUND
A Trump ally, Lake has made voter fraud allegations a centerpiece of her political image, and has falsely insisted she rightfully won the 2022 race for governor and Trump won the 2020 presidential election. Lake and Finchem eventually conceded to the District Court that no Dominion voting machines were ever hacked in Arizona elections, but instead argued their “security breach” could threaten future elections, calling the machines “black boxes running software outside the public domain.” However, the Ninth Circuit already ruled that Lake’s “speculative allegations” were not sufficient to establish injury against the plaintiffs.
TANGENT
Dominion Voting Systems eventually sued multiple right-wing networks and personalities for defamation—and forced Fox News to settle a case for $787.5 million in April 2023.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Both Lake and Finchem are running for office again in 2024. Lake, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, is running for the Senate seat vacated by outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Lake is running against Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democratic member of Congress representing most of Phoenix. Finchem, a member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, is running for a state senate seat in Prescott, Arizona.
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