Arizona court again rejects Kari Lake's legal challenge to election loss

May 23 (UPI) -- An Arizona county judge has again affirmed that Gov. Katie Hobbs won November's gubernatorial race, thwarting Republican Kari Lake's last legal claim challenging the election.

Hobbs, a Democrat, beat Lake by 17,117 votes but the former TV anchor and election denier has since been litigating the results on accusations that they were tainted by misconduct.

Of her initial 10 claims, eight were dismissed, leaving her only two to be tested in court -- that an official interfered with ballot printers, which led to tabulators rejecting misprinted ballots that cost her votes; and that illegal votes were counted due to the handling of early ballots submitted on election day.

On Christmas Eve, a lower court ruled against her, stating she failed to prove any of her claims.

In February, an Arizona Court of Appeals rejected her challenge to the lower court's decision, and in March, the Arizona Supreme Court denied a review of six of her seven claims, but sent the last allegation of misconduct concerning a failure to verify signatures on early ballots back to the county court.

On Monday night, following three days of hearings that ended Friday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled against Lake, saying the evidence does not support her case.

Lake had to prove that the county failed to perform any signature verification, and Thompson, in his six-page ruling, points to three witnesses who testified that the signature review did occur.

One witness told that court that two levels of signature review "did take place in some fashion" though she expressed concern that they were "done hastily and possibly not as thoroughly as she would have liked."

A second witness similarly verified that signature review occurred while a third witness "testified that four levels of signature verification took place."

"As he testified, the human element of signature review consisted of 153 level one reviewers, 43 level two reviewers and two ongoing audits," Thompson wrote.

"There is clear and convincing evidence that the elections process for the Nov. 8, 2022, General Election did comply" with the law "and that there was no misconduct in the process" to support Lake's claim, he continued.

"It is ordered: confirming the election of Katie Hobbs as Arizona governor."

Lake didn't respond directly to the court decision, but said on social media that there would be a "big announcement tomorrow!"

Her official campaign tweeted a similar cryptic message.

"If you had something precious taken from you. How hard would you fight to save? Goodnight, Arizona. Big news coming tomorrow."