Former Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has sued local election officials to demand the annulment of the legislative elections in the state, where she was defeated in a major setback to a career that had the personal backing of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Lake’s lawsuit, reported by the ‘New York Times’, was filed on Friday and is the latest episode of a counteroffensive by the former candidate to contest an election she lost by more than 17,000 votes to her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs.
Although Lake’s defeat was certified last Monday, the former candidate has not admitted her defeat and has dedicated herself to sowing doubts about the validity of the proceedings.
In fact, the same day she filed the lawsuit, directed against the election officials of Maricopa County, the largest in the state and which includes the city of Phoenix, she assured on her Twitter account that «if the process is illegitimate, so are the results».
Hobbs called Lake’s lawsuit «unfounded» and said, also via Twitter, that it is the «last desperate attempt to undermine our democracy and discard the will of the voters».
The county authorities have limited themselves to express to the ‘NYT’ their respect for the electoral process and to defend their work in the elections, in the words of spokesman Fields Moseley.
«Maricopa County looks forward to sharing data on the administration of the 2022 general election and our work to ensure that all legal voters had the opportunity to cast their ballots,» Moseley said.
