The second day of Kari Lake’s second
trial aiming to overturn the 2020 election was marked by frequent stops
for the decide to elucidate normal courtroom procedures and Arizona and
elections legal guidelines to Lake’s attorneys. 

Lake, an election denying Republican,
misplaced the governor’s race greater than six months in the past to Democratic Gov.
Katie Hobbs. However she has continued to say that she is the true
governor, saying that the election was rigged, and has challenged her
17,000-vote loss. 

That is Lake’s second trial
within the courtroom of Maricopa County Superior Court docket Choose Peter
Thompson. Lake misplaced the primary trial in December, appealed to the Arizona
Supreme Court docket, which despatched one in every of her 10 preliminary claims again to Thompson for additional examination and upheld the dismissal of the opposite 9.

This trial is solely about Maricopa
County’s early poll signature verification efforts. Lake has claimed
that the county didn’t do any certification in any way earlier than approving
ballots, although her personal “whistleblower” witnesses on the primary day of
the trial testified that they diligently labored to confirm these
signatures and believed they did their jobs effectively.

On Thursday, Lake’s legal professionals known as their professional signature verification witness, Erich Specki.
However shortly after Lake lawyer Kurt Olsen had established Speckin’s
background, Olsen stated he had no additional questions for the witness. He
shortly tried to take that again, saying he didn’t have extra questions
for Speckin at that exact second, however needed to ask extra questions
later. 

“You stated ‘no additional questions,’”
Thompson instructed him, explaining to Olsen that, when an lawyer utters
that phrase, meaning they’re executed questioning the witness. 

And legal professionals for defendants Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Maricopa County weren’t having it. 

“It’s not my fault they don’t
perceive fundamental process,” Craig Morgan, the lawyer for the
Secretary of State’s Workplace, stated. “He ceded the witness to me, and now
it’s my flip to cross-examine or not. That’s how we do that, your
honor.” 

Olsen requested for Thompson’s indulgence in permitting him to proceed and the decide gave it, after admonishing Olsen. 

“I really feel like I’m educating a seminar up right here,” Thompson stated. 

The decide added that he was giving
Lake’s legal professionals some large latitude as a result of he didn’t need to threat the
appeals or Supreme Court docket remanding the case again to him a 3rd time. 

“I’m not coming again, to be blunt
with you, seven months from now, to search out one other decide disagreed with
me,” Thompson stated, including that the prospect was “the 800-pound gorilla
within the room.”

Speckin, who has a 30-year historical past of
working as a doc analyst and professional witness, beforehand testified
earlier than the joint Arizona Home and Senate elections committees on Feb.
23 throughout an notorious listening to that resulted within the expulsion of the legislator
who organized it. Throughout that listening to, Speckin spoke about his
involvement in investigating poll photos throughout the Arizona Senate’s
partisan “audit” of the 2020 basic election in Maricopa County. 

Earlier than the trial that started
Wednesday, Thompson put Lake on discover that, to win her case, she would
must show that Maricopa County performed no signature verification efforts
and that these efforts definitively modified the end result of the
election. Signature verifiers examine the signatures on poll envelopes
to these on file for that voter. If a signature is rejected by preliminary
reviewers, it’s despatched to extra skilled staff for a deeper
examination. 

Speckin instructed the courtroom that, after
reviewing and analyzing information that logged keystrokes of staff verifying
mail-in poll signatures for the November 2022 election, he believes
it was unimaginable to confirm signatures within the period of time among the
reviewers had been taking to do the duty. A few of them verified the
signatures in simply two seconds. 

However Co-Maricopa County Elections
Director Rey Valenzuela later identified that Arizona legislation doesn’t
specify the required period of time {that a} reviewer should spend wanting
at a signature. He added that, based on state legislation, these evaluating
the poll signatures with these on file for the voter solely must
decide if the 2 are constant, not that they had been an actual match. 

Speckin admitted to Maricopa County
Lawyer Joseph LaRue that he couldn’t say with 100% certainty that no
signature verification occurred in Maricopa County throughout and after the
2022 basic election. 

After Lake rested her case Thursday
afternoon, the defendants requested the decide to instantly rule towards
Lake, saying she had not met her burden of proof. 

Elena Rodriguez, an lawyer
representing Hobbs, instructed the decide he ought to dismiss the case as a result of
none of Lake’s witnesses proved that Maricopa County didn’t conduct
signature verification. 

“Certainly, testimony at trial this far helps the other,” Rodriguez stated. 

Two of Lake’s witnesses on the primary
day of the trial labored as preliminary signature reviewers — referred to as stage
one reviewers — throughout the November 2022 election, and each testified
that they verified signatures themselves. 

Olsen countered that merely wanting
at a pc display with a signature for a couple of seconds didn’t equal
signature verification. 

 “That is the primary stage of safety
to make sure unlawful or fraudulent ballots will not be injected into the
system,” Olsen stated. “Proof exhibits that you just can’t examine signatures
in lower than 3 seconds.”

Thompson denied the protection’s movement
for him to rule towards Lake, so the defendants started to current their
case Thursday afternoon, with Valenzuela testifying that when two
signatures are clearly constant, it might take as little as two or
three seconds to confirm.

The trial recessed for the day at
4:30 p.m. Thursday and was set to renew at 9 a.m. Friday, with the
protection persevering with to query Valenzuela, their solely witness.