CNN Observer Special Report: CNN’s Dean Obeidallah After the Candidate Unified Action for the 2016 General Reionization Referendum
Dean Obeidallah is a former Attorney and is the host of The Dean Obeidallah Show and a columnist for DailyBeast. If you follow him, you can know more about him. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Have a opinion on CNN.
Lake, a former news anchor for Fox 10 in Phoenix, quickly became one of the most prominent Republicans in the race to replace term- limited Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. The outgoing governor had supported Lake despite endorsing his primary opponent.
Lake joined Mark Finchem to block Maricopa and Pima from using electronic devices to cast or count votes. Instead, they demanded paper ballots and a hand count.
Lake has also called for the imprisonment of journalists she claims have lied about the election. She opposes vaccine mandates, she has demonized drag queens and declared at a conservative summit that women are inherently inferior. “God did not create us to be equal to men,” she said.
Despite all of this, polls show Lake and her opponent almost tied with three weeks remaining before the election.
Hobbs defeated Lake by 17,117 votes, or a 0.6% difference. Kris Mayes, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, edged out Republican Abe Hamadeh by a mere 511 votes, triggering an automatic recount.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who defeated Lake to become governor-elect, is named in the suit in her capacity as secretary of state and is one of several defendants.
When Election Officials Start to Roll: Kari Lake, Secretary of State, Reveals a “Massive Annihilation”
During an appearance on right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s talk show Thursday, she said, “I hate that they’re slow-rolling and dragging their feet and delaying the inevitable. They don’t want to be seen as telling the truth about how they won.
There is no evidence that the election officials were delaying the reporting of results. Bill Gates, the chairman of the board of supervisors in the valley, called out Lake at the news conference. “It is offensive for Kari Lake to say that these people behind me are slow-rolling this when they are working 14-18 hours,” Gates, a Republican, said, gesturing to the election workers who were involved in tallying the ballots behind him through a glass window.
Lake had continued to stoke questions about the vote tabulation and Hobbs’ eventual role in certifying the vote as secretary of state hours before the race was projected for Hobbs. Lake said that there should not be election officials who are impartial. The guys running the election are trying to defeat America First Republicans. What a shocking thing.
The Secretary of State formally certified the November 8 results at a small ceremony with other elected officials.
After Trump is Over: Barrett Marson, a California GOP consultant, after the Covid-19 Pandemic, and after Gov.-elect Hobbs
Barrett Marson, an Arizona GOP consultant who worked for Masters during the Senate primary, spoke to the wisdom of following Trump Monday night. It is over. The only thing Kari Lake should do now is graciously concede. The election shows that following trump over the cliff will not win elections.
She dispatched her primary opponents with her forceful denunciations of Democratic leaders’ handling of the Covid-19 pandemic – blasting restrictions like masking as unnecessary and harmful to children. She was thrilled when one of her admirers called her “Trump in a dress” during an event, saying that she was glad to hear them referring to her as Trump.
Jon Gabriel is an opinion contributor to the Arizona Republic and editor in-chief of Ricochet.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ExJon. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
In contrast with the tight and turbulent Arizona election, Monday’s certification of the state’s voting results was uneventful. It was boring, even. Most voters on both sides seem content with that.
“I just want to once again thank the voters of Arizona. Because of your participation, our democratic institutions thrived,” now Gov.-elect Hobbs said. Keep voting and stay engaged.
Two Years of Trumpian Claims During the 2020 Election: A State Law Defender’s Litigation in Cochise County
The bipartisan group of officials smiled for cameras, showing no sign of the extended post-election battle still wending its way through courtrooms. Outside the venue, there were no protesters.
Election Day was dogged with long lines at polling places, malfunctioning tabulation machines and a last-minute lawsuit to extend voting hours. This was followed by a vote count that had close margins in key races. And allegations of fraud and conspiracy ever since.
Yet conspiracy theories, which made a big impact in 2020 in Arizona and elsewhere, are barely making a ripple today. Losing candidates can make allegations of fraud, but Republicans in Arizona are now demanding proof. Many of the true believers were brought down by the two years of Trumpian nonsense.
The Republican governor said before he signed the documents that this was a responsibility he didn’t take lightly. “It’s one that recognizes the votes cast by the citizens of our great state. Voting is a fundamental principle of our nation’s democracy. It is an important right and effective way to ensure the voices of Americans are heard.
The wing of his party that hated him was known as the America First wing. During that certification, he seemingly silenced the phone call from Donald Trump, focusing on his legal duties as governor. It became a viral moment during that crazy December.
Although their voters chose the GOP by a large margin, Cochise County attempted to avoid certifying their results. Their Board ofSupervisory finally gave in after a judge ordered them to.
There are angry statements online and in conservative media, but no one seems to be interested in challenging the results. Lake’s team is trying to start a parade, but nobody is following.
State law allows her to file a lawsuit after five days if she so chooses. She must be hoping it will go better than her previous lawsuit in this election.
The suit was dismissed for standing in August, with US District Court Judge John Tuchi calling it full of “conjectural allegations of potential injuries.”
Lake, who has also amplified former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, makes numerous claims in the 70-page suit, including that printer failures at some polling places disenfranchised voters in Maricopa County, creating a “debacle” in the county.
Lake and Finchem’s legal team were reprimanded by Tuchi last week in order to deter similar lawsuits in the future. The damages are going to be announced in about a month.
The official that will oversee Lake’s next lawsuit was at Monday’s certification. The outgoing Attorney General Mark Brnovich wanted to make it clear he was only a witness, and that he shouldn’t be interpreted as taking sides in future court cases.
Many Arizonans of all political persuasions have doubts about our election processes, as we gathered Monday morning to solidify the results of the upcoming midterm election.
“As attorney general, I have made it one of my office’s highest priorities to defend our election laws and advocate for changes when necessary,” he added. “I will continue to do so throughout the end of my term.”
The Phoenix Tribune, the Arizona Landau Project, and Maricopa County Attorney General Abe Hamadeh, whose former news anchor Karen Lake filed a lawsuit against Trump in 2022
She recently appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast, accused Twitter of disabling “likes” and “retweets” on her account and pitched her upcoming appearance alongside former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell at the “America Fest” conference.
“Kari Lake needs attention like a fish needs water – and independent experts and local election officials of both parties have made clear that this was a safe, secure and fair election,” Hobbs said, calling the filing “baseless” and a “nuisance lawsuit.”
The states of Arizona and Minnesota were battlegrounds for governor and the Senate in 2022, and will be for president in 2024. Leading Democratic figures, including former President Barack Obama, warned that the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s election falsehoods and conspiracy theories could put democracy at risk if they were to sweep to power.
The former news anchor at Fox 10 in Phoenix was one of the most prominent candidates in the 2022 cycle as she and Hobbs vied to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.
Last month, Ducey said he had met with Hobbs following her election win, adding that he “will work to make this transition as smooth and seamless as possible.”
A number of those cited as experts in the lawsuit and one of the lawyers who filed the case — Kurt Olsen — are part of a loose election-denial network led by Mike Lindell, the pillow company entrepreneur who has been pushing conspiracy theories about election machines since early 2021. Another Lake lawyer, Bryan Blehm, represented the contractor Cyber Ninjas during the partisan audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results last year and also represented supervisors in Cochise County this year in a lawsuit over an attempt to carry out a hand-counted audit plan.
Ms. Lake’s legal action came as lawsuits were also filed Friday by two other Arizona Republicans who lost their midterm elections: Mark Finchem, who ran for secretary of state, and Abe Hamadeh, the attorney general candidate. The Republican National Committee joined Mr. Hamadeh’s lawsuit, which was filed after he was trailing his opponent by 541 votes in the recount.
The lawsuit was based on speculation, and it contained no real facts, said Dan Barr, a lawyer for Kris Mayes. He said he planned to file motions to dismiss it and move it to Maricopa County early next week.
That suit was filed by Daniel McCauley, who also represented Cochise County in its recent failed attempt to deny certification of the election results.
Judge Peter Thompson said that 8 out of 10 of the claims that Lake made would be dismissed. The motion to dismiss hearing in Maricopa County did not present evidence or witness testimony. The judge found that Lake should be allowed to go to a trial to try to prove that she had done something that caused her loss.
The Lake campaign presented evidence to back up her claim that an employee of the county interfered with Election Day printers, leading to her losing votes.
The judge also ruled that Hobbs could be called to testify in her capacity as secretary of state, an office she’ll hold until she is sworn in as governor.
Democratic attorney Marc Elias, whose legal team is representing Hobbs, framed the court decision as a victory, pointing out that most of the claims were dismissed and that a higher hurdle lies ahead in the trial. “Proving intentional wrongdoing and that it affected the outcome of the election will be impossible for Lake,” Elias tweeted.