The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Wednesday a lower court must review one of gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s election challenges that alleged a ballot counting issue.
Lake lost the election to current Gov. Katie Hobbs by approximately 17,000 votes but has challenged the results. Lake has argued that a ballot printer issue and the application of signature verification processes in Maricopa County were to blame. A court of appeals denied Lake’s request for review in February to toss ballots she alleges were riddled with errors, thus overturning the results of the election.
Lake’s team argues that Republican voters were disadvantaged in Maricopa County because the chain of custody for ballots was improper, according to KOLD.
But the state’s Supreme Court ruled the lower court had wrongly tossed out Lake’s claim about the signature verification process. The court ruled the appeals court wrongly interpreted her challenge as a challenge to the policies themselves rather than how they were applied. The lower court also ruled that Lake filed her claims too late, though the high court said “Lake could not have brought this challenge before the election.”
The court, however, declined to hear her other challenges to the election. (RELATED: CPAC Straw Poll Shows Kari Lake As Vice Presidential Favorite)
HUGE: AZ Supreme Court Rules In Favor of Kari Lake, Forces Lower Court to Look at Signature Verification Issues
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 23, 2023
Lake said she was “thrilled” about the latest development, according to KOLD.
“I am thrilled that the Supreme Court has agreed to give our signature verification evidence the appropriate forum for the evaluation it deserves. For years signatures have been a third rail for Maricopa County,” she said in a statement. “The process of verifying these signatures is the only security measure on mail-in ballots. The amount of time allotted to check these signatures was only 8 seconds, which is not humanly possible.”