Elections Officials in Maricopa County Dispute Lake Charges of Fraud as the Trial Comes to a Close

Here we are talking about Elections Officials in Maricopa County Dispute Lake Charges of Fraud as the Trial Comes to a Close. Elections officials from Maricopa County refuted Republican Kari Lake’s allegations of fraud in the Arizona governor’s race in court on Thursday by providing new information regarding printing issues that caused the counting of some votes to be delayed.

Lake filed a lawsuit to challenge the election after falling short of defeating Democrat Katie Hobbs by around 17,000 votes in November. On two of the ten claims she made in her initial case, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson permitted a two-day trial, which ended late Thursday afternoon. Thompson did not specify a deadline for issuing a decision.

Lake based her campaign on her adherence to the fabrications of former President Donald Trump regarding rampant electoral fraud in the 2020 contest. Despite Hobbs’ triumph, she has since made false claims that she had won the election last month.

However, in Lake’s trial, her defense team did not present proof of willful misconduct or incorrectly tallied or rejected votes. Instead, Lake’s team heavily criticized Maricopa County’s handling of the election and asserted that long lines on Election Day discouraged Republican potential voters.

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Maricopa County Attorney Tom Liddy criticized Lake’s campaign and the Arizona Republican Party for questioning the legitimacy of early and mail-in votes, leaving GOP voters to suffer minor problems on Election Day.

Liddy, a Republican, characterized it as “political malpractice.” “You get back what you put in.” The causes of printing issues that prevented some ballots from being read by on-site ballot tabulators at some polling places on Election Day were explained in detail by Scott Jarrett, the co-director of Maricopa County elections.

Voters whose ballots couldn’t be read had to place them in “door 3,” a safe box designated for ballots that were to be counted later at a central location, according to Jarrett, who claimed that some printers’ toner wasn’t dark enough. Around 17,000 ballots, according to Jarrett, wound up in “door 3” boxes throughout the county.

Additionally, he claimed that while trying to fix the toner issues, workers at three of the county’s 223 sites erroneously chose the “shrink to fit” settings on ballot printers. Because of this, around 1,300 ballots were printed in size complex for on-site tabulators to read.

Later, he stated, those ballots were manually replicated and counted. According to Jarrett, similar “shrink to fit” or “fit to print” problems had happened at a few locations in prior primary and general elections. He described it as a mistake made by a person while attempting to fix a printing issue.

He asserted that he has “no reason to believe” that any issues were caused by willful misbehavior. He claimed that all those ballots were counted after being given to a bipartisan duplicate board.

According to Jarrett, all votes are transferred to the duplicate ballot, which is then duplicated and tallied. On the first day of the two-day trial on Wednesday, Lake’s legal team offered an argument that served as the cornerstone of its defence. Jarrett’s remarks refuted that claim.

In his closing remarks, Lake attorney Kurt Olsen said that Jarrett’s explanation of the “shrink to fit” printer issues “doesn’t fit. It is not logical. “Trust, and your honor are at stake here. The goal is to earn back people’s trust, according to Olsen.

Clay Parikh, the cyber-security specialist for the Lake team, claimed that when he examined 15 duplicated ballots on Tuesday following the court’s approval of the inspection, he discovered that 14 contained incorrect 19-inch ballot pictures printed on 20-inch paper.

Parikh acknowledged that such ballots would eventually have been tallied. If they are reproduced properly, they should be, according to Parikh.

On Thursday, Jarrett said that the smaller-looking votes that could not be counted on the spot were slightly downsized versions of the identical ballots distributed to almost all voters.

Another allegation made by Lake’s team on Wednesday was that workers at Runbeck, a Maricopa County contractor for ballot processing, had improperly inserted their ballots and family members’ ballots into batches intended for on-site counting rather than returning those ballots through the proper channels.

Heather Honey, a Pennsylvanian who managed the contentious Cyber Ninjas investigation into the 2020 Maricopa County election, testified in court on behalf of Lake’s team and claimed to have spoken to a Runbeck employee who said staff members were permitted to bring their family members’ ballots there to be counted.

According to Honey, the staffer informed her that Maricopa County’s count had received at least 50 additional ballots in this manner. She claimed she had no direct knowledge of other ballots that had been incorrectly inserted. You can’t even determine how many might have been taken away, according to Honey.

Rey Valenzuela, the co-director of elections for Maricopa County in charge of early voting, responded by stating that the county had never permitted Runbeck employees to deliver ballots directly to the Runbeck site and was not aware of any instances in which the contractor’s staff had ever done so.

Abha Khanna, the attorney for Hobbs, referred to Lake’s allegations of voter fraud as “their big chance to show their hand” in her closing remarks. “But the only thing that has emerged over the previous day and a half – everyone waiting with bated breath to see the big reveal behind these allegations – is that they never had the proof to support them,” the author said.

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