Lake alleges ‘intentional misconduct’ in lawsuit | Local News Stories

“Lake cannot show either,’’ Danneman said. “Instead of alleging actual facts and real numbers, Lake’s contest rests of rank speculation and a cynical mistrust of Arizona’s election officials.’’

And she also told Thompson the fact that the Secretary of State’s Office, run by Hobbs, had successfully requested that Twitter remove incorrect election information from its site nearly two years before the race did not, as Lake alleges, interfere with anyone’s free speech rights.

Hobbs is not alone in asking the judge to toss out Lake’s lawsuit.

In a separate filing, attorneys for Maricopa County lashed out at Lake’s contention in her lawsuit that the failures some printers at vote centers to produce ballots that could be read by on-site tabulators “could not have occurred absent intentional misconduct.’’

In essence, the county’s lawyers told Thompson, Lake is alleging the printer issues had to be intentionally caused because they occurred on Election Day when it was known that more Republicans turn out to vote in person than Democrats who vote in larger percentages by early ballot.

“But plaintiff fails to identify who the intentional actor was, what action that actor undertook to affect the ballot-on-demand printers, or when or where the action occurred,’’ wrote the team of assistant county attorneys. “It is nothing more than speculation about the root cause of acknowledged technical issues that occurred on Election Day.’’

Danneman went a step farther in telling the judge he should ignore Lake’s claim that the printer problems, having occurred on Election Day, were the result of foul play.

“By this standard, any issue’’ which occurred at polling places on Election Day was the result of an intentional action against Lake,’’ she said.

“That inference is absurd,’’ Danneman said.”All elections have flaws, and, understandably, many of those issues are not revealed until Election Day.’’

The issues with the printers in Maricopa County has been a focal point not just in Lake’s legal challenge to the election but also in the claims of Mark Finchem, the losing candidate for secretary of state, and Abe Hamadeh who the final tally showed losing the race for attorney general.

These ballots were created because county vote centers allow anyone to cast a vote at any location. This requires a printer at each location that can create a unique ballot that only includes the races eligible to vote.

Multiple printers failed to produce ballots that could have been read by scanners on site. Voters were then given the option to either deposit them in a sealed drawer for later counting at a central location or to go to another location.

That, however, produced problems of its own if the voter was not properly “checked out’’ of the first site, with the county records at the new site showing that person already had cast a ballot. Lake said that other voters, discouraged at the long waiting lines, gave up and gave up.

Danneman claimed that there is no proof that anyone was denied the vote. He pointed out that each voter had the option of submitting the ballot to the sealed box for later counting.

“The fact that some voters had ‘strong preferences’ to have their ballots tabulated on site is beside the point,’’ she told Thompson. Danneman also pointed out that Lake produced affidavits of voters claiming difficulty at voting, but almost all of them actually voted.

“Indeed, she identifies by name only (ITALICS) one (ROMAN) individual who said she did not vote as a result of long lines,’’ Danneman said.

Andrew Gaona, who represented Hobbs separately as secretary of state — she was sued both in that capacity as well as as as the winning candidate — made similar arguments.

“Plaintiff has not alleged that the Election Day issues were caused by a deliberate policy decision by a governmental body,’’ he told Thompson. He said that no one was denied the right to vote in any way.

“That in-person voting proved harder than expected, and that some voters may have been discouraged from voting altogether, does not automatically equate to denial of the right to vote,’’ Gaona said.

The bottom line, Danneman said, is that Lake’s bid to overturn the election “rests on speculation about what might have been had those technical malfunctions not occurred.’’ And that goes to one key element that she said Lake needs to prove: The problems, had they not occurred, would have affected the outcome of the election.

“Even if this court could add hypothetical votes to the count after the election — which there is no precedent for — Lake does not come close to showing the result would have been different in a race separated by over 17,000 votes,’’ Danneman said.

Lake’s claim that free speech is being restricted extends beyond the fact Hobbs’ aide requested that Twitter remove a post about alleged foreign corporations controlling voter rolls. She also said that Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer “participated directly in a propaganda and censoring program at the national level at (the) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency through the 2022 election cycle.

“Hobbs and Richer are striving to secretly stifle facts and manipulate voters’ opinions about elections — while at the same time allowing or participating in the violations of Arizona election laws,’’ Lake’s lawsuit claims.

Lawyers for the county, however, called it “ludicrous’’ for Lake to claim that an election official speaking at a meeting convened by a task force of government and private security professionals somehow violates the First Amendment. Even if the presentation was in violation of the First Amendment, they did not admit that it did.