Kari Lake: defeated governor candidate challenges Arizona election result

The lawsuit filed late on Friday by Lake centers on long lines and other difficulties that people experienced while voting on election day in Maricopa county. The challenge filed in Maricopa county superior court also alleges hundreds of thousands of ballots were illegally cast, but there is no evidence that is true.

Lake has refused to acknowledge that she lost to Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes. The Donald Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate has bombarded Maricopa county with complaints, largely related to a problem with printers at some vote centers that led to ballots being printed with markings that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators.

Lines backed up in some polling places, fueling Republican suspicions that some supporters were unable to cast a ballot, though there is no evidence it affected the outcome. County officials say everyone was able to vote and all legal ballots were counted.

In late November, Lake filed a public records lawsuit demanding Maricopa county hand over documents related to the election. She was seeking to identify voters who may have had trouble casting a ballot, such as people who checked in at more than one vote center or those who returned a mail ballot and also checked in at a polling place.

During the summer, a federal judge also rejected a request by Lake and Mark Finchem, the defeated Republican candidate for secretary of state, to require hand counting of all ballots during the November election.

Hobbs in her role as secretary of state has petitioned a court to begin an automatic statewide recount required by law in three races decided by less than half a percentage point.

The race for attorney general was one of the closest contests in state history, with Democrat Kris Mayes leading Republican Abe Hamadeh by just 510 votes out of 2.5m cast.

The races for superintendent of public instruction and a state legislative seat in the Phoenix suburbs will also be recounted, but the margins are much larger.