A judge dismissed another lawsuit Tuesday that sought to decertify Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s win in Arizona, marking the eighth failed case that challenged the election results in the state.
Pinal County Judge Kevin White concluded that plaintiff Staci Burk lacked standing to contest the election because she wasn’t a registered voter at the time she filed her lawsuit and that she made her legal challenge after the five-day period for filing such an action had passed.
Burk said in her lawsuit that she was a qualified Arizona voter, but officials said they discovered she wasn’t registered to vote. She has since said she mistakenly thought “qualified electors” were people who were merely eligible to vote, and that her voter registration was canceled because election workers were unable to verify her address.
The decision came a day after Arizona’s 11 Electoral College members cast their votes for Biden, who won the state over Republican President Donald Trump by more than 10,000 votes.
The lawsuit brought by Burk, who isn’t a lawyer but represented herself, is nearly identical to a lawsuit dismissed last week in federal court in Phoenix.
Burk’s lawsuit alleged Arizona’s election systems have security flaws that let election workers and foreign countries manipulate results. Opposing attorneys said the lawsuit used conspiracy theories to make allegations against a voting equipment vendor without any proof to back up claims of widespread election fraud in Arizona.
No evidence of voter or election fraud has emerged in Arizona, which has seen eight lawsuits challenging the results of the state’s presidential vote.
Despite that, Republicans who control the Legislature say they will review how Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, ran its election. Two subpoenas were issued by the Senate Tuesday. One demands a full forensic audit of ballot tabulation machines and software and the second seeks to audit and collect images of all mail ballots.
They were issued by the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Eddie Farnsworth, with the approval of GOP Senate President Karen Fann.
Two of the legal challenges focusing on the use of Sharpies to complete ballots were dismissed. Another lawsuit in which the Trump campaign sought inspection of ballots was dismissed after the campaign’s lawyer acknowledged the small number of ballots at issue wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
A judge dismissed a lawsuit in which the Arizona Republican Party tried to determine whether voting machines had been hacked. Then a separate challenge by Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward was tossed out by a judge who concluded the Republican leader failed to prove fraud and that the evidence presented at trial wouldn’t reverse Trump’s defeat.
And a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by conservative lawyer Sidney Powell, who alleged widespread election fraud through the manipulation of voting equipment. Burk’s lawsuit repeated some of Powell’s allegations word-for-word.
Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
