The judge did not rule on the ballot signatures. There is not a single indication that the existing evidence of fraudulent signatures had any part in the judge's ruling. The judge simply stated that in his opinion the law does not require workers to take a certain amount of time when examining signatures for verification. The case was thrown out on the claim that verifying signatures was completed in record time, proving no care was taken in the process. The judge remained silent on the evidence shown of verified mismatched signatures by the thousands.
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Arizona judge dismissed Lake's latest election challenge May 22
Lake, a Republican, lost to Democratic challenger Katie Hobbs in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race by about 17,000 votes. Shortly after, Lake filed a 70-page lawsuit alleging Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, mishandled the signature verification process and that improper ballots were counted during the midterms.
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That case was dismissed in December.
After unsuccessfully appealing her lawsuit in February, Lake asked the Arizona Supreme Court to consider her election challenge. The court ordered in March that a county judge must review Lake's claim that Maricopa County did not follow proper signature verification procedures for a second time, according to The Arizona Republic.
But the video in question was shared two days before the county judge ruled in Lake’s case, and provides no evidence the judge was forced to overturn the election or throw out 274,000 ballots. And the judge ultimately ruled against Lake.
Fact check: False claim that Kari Lake's lawsuit shows Arizona used 'no signature verification'
The case centers on an Arizona law that says election officers must compare the signature on a mail-in-ballot envelope with the one in the voter's registration record and determine if they match. If there are inconsistencies, the elections office must give voters a chance to correct the discrepancy – a process known as curing.
During a three-day trial in May, Lake’s legal team argued Maricopa County election workers compared signatures on ballot envelopes with those on voter files so fast that it “could not meet the legal standard for comparison,” The Arizona Republic reported.
The lawyers also claimed during the trial that 274,000 signatures were compared in three seconds or less and 70,000 signatures were compared in two seconds or less, basing their numbers off a signature verification expert who analyzed data provided by Maricopa County, according to The Arizona Republic.
However, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who oversaw the case, concluded the expert’s analysis was not relevant to the law since “there is no statutory or regulatory requirement that a specific amount of time be applied to review any given signature at any level of review.”
Thompson ruled there was no “clear or convincing evidence” of misconduct in Maricopa County that would have affected the results of the 2022 election and upheld Hobbs as the winner.
