Supreme Court refuses to hear Kari Lake voting machine lawsuit

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up a case brought by Republicans Kari Lake and Mark Finchem over the use of voting machines in Arizona elections, the latest blow to the pair of Republican candidates who have seen their lawsuit rejected several times. times.

Lake and Finchem asked the Supreme Court to review a federal appellate judge’s decision to dismiss the case last October. The action sought to prevent the use of electronic voting machines in the state, questioning their accuracy and reliability.

Lawyers for Lake, who is running for a Senate seat in Arizona this cycle, and Finchem, who is seeking a state Senate seat, argued in a court filing before the Supreme Court that they had sufficiently argued that all “optical scanners certified by Arizona and the vote marking devices, as well as the software on which they are based, were erroneously certified for use”; Arizona voting machines were “hacked” and “rigged”; and that there were apparent discrepancies in Maricopa County vote counts following the 2020 election.

The lawsuit was filed ahead of the November 2022 midterm elections, when Lake was running for governor and Finchem for secretary of state. Both lost the elections.

The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge in 2022, and that dismissal was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year.

“On appeal, Plaintiffs admitted that their arguments were limited to possible future hacking and not based on any past harm,” the 9th Circuit wrote.

“Ultimately, none of Plaintiffs’ allegations support a plausible inference that their individual votes in future elections will be adversely affected by the use of electronic tabulation, especially given the robust safeguards in Arizona law, the use of paper ballots, and the mail – retention of tabulation of these ballots,” he added.

The Supreme Court’s decision to decline to review the federal court ruling limits Lake and Finchem’s lawsuit.

“We are obviously disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to review the decisions of the Arizona district court and the Ninth Circuit and order that our challenge to the 2022 election procedures be heard on the merits,” said Kurt Olsen, a of lawyers. which sought to get the Supreme Court to consider the case, it said in a statement. He argued that new information came to light after the case was dismissed by the district court.

“Although the Supreme Court grants review in less than 1% of the cases presented in the petition, we believe we present a case.”

“The Kari Lake and Mark Finchem case was dismissed based on an alleged lack of standing to declare an injury,” Olsen wrote. “Therefore, the courts, even now, have not ruled on the merits of our case. We will continue to raise these issues especially in light of the upcoming 2024 elections.”

Republicans, including Lake, Finchem and former President Trump, have sought to cast doubt on the 2020 and 2022 election results in states including Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, even though those election results have consistently been upheld.

Updated at 12:16 pm EDT