Kari Lake’s lawsuit over metro Phoenix’s electronic tabulation systems has been tossed out

PHOENIX (AP) — A federal appeals court tossed out a lawsuit brought by former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake that was previously dismissed, challenging the use of electronic tabulation systems and that sought to ban them in last year’s midterm elections.

Lake and failed Arizona Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem, both Republicans, filed a lawsuit in April 2022 that alleged the ballot tabulation systems were not trustworthy.

The former Phoenix TV anchor wound up losing her race by more than 17,000 votes while Finchem lost by over 120,000 votes.

In the ruling Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said their claims didn’t show “a plausible inference that their individual votes in future elections will be adversely affected by the use of electronic tabulation, particularly given the robust safeguards in Arizona law, the use of paper ballots, and the post-tabulation retention of those ballots.”

Messages left for lawyers for Lake and Finchem seeking comment on the appeal court’s ruling weren’t returned Tuesday.

Still pending is a ruling in another lawsuit that Lake filed this year demanding that Arizona’s most populous county release images of 1.3 million ballot envelopes signed by voters under the state’s public records law.

Lake is among the most vocal of last year’s Republican candidates promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign.

While most other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake did not. She is campaigning for U.S. Senate and is regarded as a contender to be Trump’s running mate in his 2024 campaign.

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This story has been updated to correct that Lake’s lawsuit challenged the use of electronic tabulation systems, not voting machines.