An Arizona choose on Thursday denied defeated gubernatorial candidate
Kari Lake’s request to see poll affidavit envelopes from the 2022
Common Election — which she nonetheless claims she received practically a 12 months after
the election was licensed. 

Lake has lodged 4 totally different
lawsuits since she misplaced the gubernatorial race to Katie Hobbs by extra
than 17,000 votes, claiming every thing from improper signature verification to defective, hackable voting machines in her bid to show the election was rigged.

Lake
sued Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer this previous April after he
denied her public information request for the poll affidavit envelopes of
greater than 1.3 million early mail-in ballots. She claims the envelopes
comprise fraudulent, unverified voter signatures that swung the election
to Hobbs. 

These envelopes comprise the identify, deal with, telephone quantity and signature of every voter who casted an early poll.

Greater than two months after the conclusion of a two-day trial over the envelopes, Decide John Hannah agreed with the county recorder and rejected Lake’s request to examine the envelopes. 

“The
public launch of 1.3 million poll affidavit envelopes signed by
Maricopa County voters would undermine the method of verifying these
voters’ ballots in future elections,” Hannah wrote within the order.
“It will create a major danger of widespread voter fraud the place
none now exists. It will expose voters to harassment and doubtlessly
pressure them to defend the integrity of their very own votes. Some variety of
voters would cease taking part totally, out of concern of id theft
or concern about privateness.”

Hannah acknowledged early in his order
that the poll envelopes are certainly public file, and the federal government
ought to at all times lean towards disclosure relating to public file.

However
the general public’s proper to disclosure will be outweighed by “the pursuits of
confidentiality, privateness or one of the best pursuits of the state.”

On this case, he wrote, the chance to voter privateness outweighs the general public’s proper to disclosure.

“After six hours on the witness stand… I used to be proper on the regulation,” Richer posted on X, previously Twitter. “Once more.”

Richer didn’t reply to a request for additional remark.

Lake argued in September
that conserving the envelopes from the general public view doesn’t defend privateness
pursuits as a result of signatures are already public elsewhere, resembling on
petitions, property deeds and divorce information. However the Arizona Supreme
Court docket dominated in 1997 that the provision of data elsewhere doesn’t get rid of privateness pursuits.

The
ruling in that case “defeats Ms. Lake’s argument that voters haven’t any
privateness curiosity within the signatures on the poll affidavit envelopes
as a result of signatures are ‘frequent foreign money’ or as a result of voters ‘waive’ the
expectation of privateness after they place the signed affidavits into the
‘stream of commerce,’” Hannah wrote. “A person has a privateness
curiosity in his or her signature exactly as a result of the signature serves
as a badge of private identification for authorized paperwork and in
business transactions.”

State regulation additionally dictates that public
data that turns into a part of a voter’s registration file isn’t
topic to disclosure. Hannah discovered by the 2 days of testimony
that poll affidavit envelopes are certainly a part of a voter’s
registration file. 

Lake additionally argued that her request carries
further weight as it’s for election functions. She wants the information as
proof for her election problem over signature verification, however a
ruling has already been issued in that case. Additional, she didn’t argue
in that case that signature verification was performed incorrectly – solely
that it wasn’t performed in any respect. 

“That argument failed,” Hannah wrote. “She doesn’t get to begin over with a distinct argument now.”

That
problem, which was shot down for the second time by Decide Peter
Thompson in state court docket this previous Could, is now pending attraction.

Lake didn’t reply to a request for remark by press time.