Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s lawsuit challenging the result of the November election has hit a series of roadblocks in the courts. The latest setback arrived yesterday when a county judge threw out eight of the ten counts that Lake claims demonstrate that electoral malfeasance led to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs being declared the winner. Two of the claims were allowed to move forward, however, and they are among the most serious charges being presented. Lake is hoping to demonstrate that “intentional interference” by election officials resulted in the mysterious failure of so many voting machines in Maricopa County. She will also be able to attempt to show that some mail-in ballots were improperly added by a county contractor, leading to an erroneous result. (Associated Press)

A judge on Monday dismissed part of a lawsuit filed by Kari Lake, the defeated Republican candidate for Arizona governor, but will allow her to call witnesses in an attempt to prove that she lost because of misconduct by election officials.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson dismissed eight of the 10 claims Lake raised in her lawsuit, which asks the judge to either declare her the winner or hold a revote in the county. Thompson took no position on the merits of Lake’s two surviving claims, but he wrote that the law allows her to make her case.

Lake lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes out of 2.6 million cast. She will attempt to prove in a two-day hearing scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday that ballot printers malfunctioned in Maricopa County because of intentional interference by election officials and that ballots were improperly added at a county contractor that handles returned mail ballots.

Matt Lewis, writing at the liberal Daily Beast, describes this effort as Lake choosing to be “a loser.” This is a totally misguided interpretation in my opinion. Anyone who was watching the events in Maricopa County unfold on election day should be demanding answers to obvious questions rather than simply ignoring history in the name of “unity” and refusing to investigate what was clearly a flawed (if not corrupt) voting infrastructure.

Some of the points that Kari Lake has been making clearly seemed to be unsustainable in a court of law. The fact that many voters, primarily GOP supporters who chose to vote in person on election day rather than using mail-in ballots, went home without voting is obviously tragic. But in the end, it was their decision to not deal with the long lines and extensive waiting time. The reason for the long delays clearly requires investigation, but they could have chosen to stay and insist on casting their ballot.

The other questions, however, clearly merit a more detailed inspection. How did that many voting machines suddenly fail to produce legible ballots as soon as they were turned on when they had all allegedly been tested shortly before election day in front of witnesses from both parties? What happened to all of the provisional ballots that were filled out by people at the polling places where the machines failed and who collected and tabulated those ballots?

The goal of this lawsuit should be to restore the faith of the voters in the electoral process. If there was intentional electoral fraud taking place, the perpetrators need to be identified and prosecuted. If the problems were all the result of unintentional systemic failures, those flaws need to be corrected before the next election. What remains unclear is what will happen if Kari Lake prevails in the remainder of her lawsuit. Even if a court finds that the printers failed because of intentional interference or that ballots were improperly added in favor of her opponent, what comes next? The election is over and Hobbs was certified as the winner. To my knowledge, there is no provision in Arizona’s election laws for a reversal of the certified results or a “do-over” of the entire election. But the distrust of the public in the integrity of the system will have been justified and they should demand that the system be fixed immediately.