Kari Lake’s election lawsuits over her 2022 Arizona gubernatorial loss ended the same way at every level: she lost. Across a state election contest, a federal challenge to electronic voting machines, and a public-records suit seeking access to 1.3 million ballot envelopes, no court found evidence that the printer problems in Maricopa County or anything else had changed the outcome of a race Katie Hobbs won by 17,117 votes. The Arizona Supreme Court denied Lake’s final appeal without comment on November 6, 2024, two years and a day after the election.1AZ Capitol Times. Arizona Supreme Court Blocks Kari Lake’s Final Appeal to Overturn 2022 Governor’s Race
Along the way the litigation produced sanctions against Lake’s attorneys, a 60-day law-license suspension for one of them, and a separate defamation suit filed against Lake by the Maricopa County Recorder that she settled in November 2024.
What the Printer Problems Actually Were
Every one of Lake’s cases traces back to the same Election Day facts. About 70 of Maricopa County’s 229 voting centers had trouble with ballot-on-demand printers, and roughly 17,000 ballots could not be read by on-site tabulators. Those ballots were transported to the county’s central elections facility and counted there.2Votebeat. Maricopa County Election Day Investigation OKI Printers
An independent investigation led by former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor concluded that the county’s OKI B432 printers could not reliably print 20-inch ballots on 100-pound paper under Election Day conditions. The fusers cooled between print jobs and failed to bond toner properly to the heavier, longer paper the county had adopted for the general election. The investigators found no evidence of intentional tampering.3Arizona Mirror. Maricopa County Election Investigation Ballots Were Too Long Paper Too Heavy for Printers
The State Election Contest: Lake v. Hobbs
Lake filed her formal election contest on December 9, 2022, in Maricopa County Superior Court, Case No. CV2022-095403, assigned to Judge Peter A. Thompson.4States United. Lake v. Hobbs Election Her complaint alleged that the printer malfunctions were the product of intentional interference, that Maricopa County had failed to maintain chain of custody for mail-in ballots, and that its signature-verification process was inadequate.5AZ Central. Kari Lake Files Lawsuit Against Maricopa County Over Elections
Arizona election contests for state office are brought under A.R.S. § 16-672, which allows challenges based on official misconduct, illegal votes, or erroneous counts.6Arizona Legislature. A.R.S. § 16-672 Contest of State Election Arizona courts require clear and convincing evidence, a high bar rooted in a strong public policy favoring the finality of election results.7Arizona Courts. Lake v. Hobbs, No. 1 CA-CV 22-0779
Trial Court Ruling
Judge Thompson rejected the contest on December 24, 2022, finding that Lake “failed to prove any element of either claim” and that every witness disclaimed personal knowledge of intentional misconduct.8FactCheck.org. No Evidence for Kari Lake’s Claim That Maricopa County Ballots Lacked Chain of Custody Records Lake’s central disenfranchisement estimate — that 16% of Election Day voters had been prevented from casting ballots — rested on an assumption drawn from about 50 people who declined an exit poll, which the judge called “sheer speculation.” A chain-of-custody affidavit from a vendor employee claiming she saw roughly 50 improperly inserted ballots was, the court noted, “orders of magnitude short” of the 17,000-vote margin.7Arizona Courts. Lake v. Hobbs, No. 1 CA-CV 22-0779 Thompson ordered Lake to pay $33,040 in witness fees to Hobbs.
Appeals and Partial Remand
The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed on February 16, 2023, finding no evidence any voter whose ballot was rejected by an on-site tabulator had actually been unable to vote, and dismissing the pollster’s testimony as “baseless.”9KCRA. Kari Lake Loses Appeal in Arizona Governor Race
In March 2023, the Arizona Supreme Court dismissed six of Lake’s seven claims, writing that courts “at all levels have rejected those claims and said there is no proof to support them.” The justices sent only the signature-verification claim back for trial — Lake had argued workers spent an average of eight seconds per signature — and singled out as false her petition’s assertion that 35,563 “unaccounted ballots” had been added to the count, opening the door to sanctions.10Arizona Mirror. Supreme Court Dismisses All but One of Kari Lake’s Election Claims
Second Trial and Final Loss
The remanded signature-verification claim went to trial in May 2023 before Judge Thompson, who again ruled against Lake, finding she “failed to prove misconduct by county election officials.”4States United. Lake v. Hobbs Election In June 2024, the Court of Appeals affirmed, noting that even accepting Lake’s arguments they were “insufficient to overcome” the 17,000-vote margin.11Democracy Docket. Arizona Court of Appeals Rejects Kari Lake’s 2022 Election Contest Again The Arizona Supreme Court denied her final petition for review on November 6, 2024, ending the contest.1AZ Capitol Times. Arizona Supreme Court Blocks Kari Lake’s Final Appeal to Overturn 2022 Governor’s Race
The Federal Voting-Machine Lawsuit
Before the election, in April 2022, Lake and Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem filed a federal suit seeking to ban electronic voting tabulators in Arizona, alleging the machines were vulnerable to hacking. At trial in July 2022, the plaintiffs offered no evidence of actual malware. In August 2022, U.S. District Judge John Tuchi dismissed the case for lack of standing, calling the claims “too speculative.”12Courthouse News. Ninth Circuit Delivers Another Blow to Kari Lake’s Election Fraud Claims
The Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed on October 16, 2023, holding that speculative allegations of future hacking were “insufficient to establish an injury in fact” and that the complaint amounted to a “generalized interest in seeing that the law is obeyed,” which does not confer Article III standing.13Vlex. Lake v. Fontes, 83 F.4th 1199 The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to hear the case.11Democracy Docket. Arizona Court of Appeals Rejects Kari Lake’s 2022 Election Contest Again
The Ballot-Envelope Public Records Suit
In a separate proceeding, Lake sought public-records access to the signed ballot envelopes of roughly 1.3 million early voters in Maricopa County, planning to run her own signature audit. After a two-day bench trial in September 2023, Superior Court Judge John Hannah Jr. denied the request in November 2023.
Hannah classified the ballot affidavit envelopes as part of voter registration records, which are not subject to public disclosure under Arizona law, and ruled that releasing envelopes containing voters’ names, addresses, phone numbers, and signatures would “undermine the process of verifying those voters’ ballots in future elections” and expose them to harassment or identity theft. He wrote that “the broad right of electoral participation outweighs the narrow interests of those who would continue to pick at the machinery of democracy,” and noted that the underlying signature-verification claim had already been litigated and rejected.14Courthouse News. Kari Lake Handed Another Loss in Long-Running Election Challenge
Sanctions and Discipline Against Lake’s Lawyers
The litigation produced an unusual volume of sanctions and bar-discipline proceedings.
In May 2023, the Arizona Supreme Court ordered attorneys Bryan Blehm and Kurt Olsen to pay $2,000 for making “false factual statements” — the same claim about 35,000-plus illegal ballots that the court had already found unsupported by the record.15WSLS. Kari Lake’s Lawyers Fined in Failed Arizona Election Lawsuit
The State Bar of Arizona then pursued Blehm separately. A disciplinary panel suspended him from practicing law for 60 days, imposed one year of probation, and required five hours of ethics education. The panel wrote that his conduct brought “disrepute to and fosters mistrust of the legal profession” but declined a longer suspension because he had no prior record and the falsity of his statements was “blatantly obvious.”16News From the States. Lake Attorney Suspended From Practicing Law 60 Days for Lying to Supreme Court
Olsen, licensed in Maryland and admitted to Arizona only for specific cases, faced parallel discipline. A presiding disciplinary judge granted partial summary judgment in April 2024 finding rule violations, and after a September 2024 hearing the panel admonished him and ordered $2,000 in costs — the harshest sanction available given his out-of-state status.17Arizona Courts. Olsen PDJ 2024-9004
The federal voting-machine case produced heavier financial penalties. Judge Tuchi sanctioned lead attorneys Andrew Parker and Kurt Olsen (and their firms) $122,200 in attorneys’ fees, finding they had made “false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions” and failed to conduct a reasonable pre-filing inquiry. Alan Dershowitz, who served as “of counsel,” was initially ordered to pay $12,220.18Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Lake v. Gates, No. 23-16022 In March 2025 the Ninth Circuit affirmed the sanctions against Parker and Olsen, finding they had “acted in bad faith,” and reversed the sanction against Dershowitz on narrow grounds because no prior Ninth Circuit precedent had established that an “of counsel” attorney could be personally liable for signing such pleadings; the panel said it would apply that liability rule going forward.19Courthouse News. Ninth Circuit Dismisses Sanctions Against Alan Dershowitz for Kari Lake Election Suit The Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc in August 2025.20Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Lake v. Gates, No. 23-16022 Rehearing Order
Separate State Bar ethics charges against Parker and Olsen over the voting-machine case were dismissed in August 2024, with a disciplinary panel finding the Bar had not proven violations by clear and convincing evidence. The panel wrote that “retrospective scrutiny of any complex litigation may reveal some measure of imprecision” and “legal arguments fairly characterized as long shots” without amounting to ethical violations. The State Bar filed a notice of appeal.21KJZZ. Disciplinary Panel Dismisses Complaints Against Lake and Finchem’s Attorneys22News From the States. State Bar Plans Appeal of Dismissal of Ethics Charges Against Attorneys for Lake and Finchem
The Defamation Case Filed Against Lake
One major piece of litigation ran in the opposite direction. In June 2023, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer sued Lake, her campaign, and her political fundraising group for defamation, alleging her public claims that he had rigged the 2022 election and injected fraudulent ballots produced harassment, threats, and reputational harm.23The Hill. Kari Lake Settles Election Defamation Lawsuit In March 2024, Lake defaulted, which under defamation law amounted to a legal concession that her statements were false.24Arizona Mirror. Kari Lake Settles Defamation Suit With Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer Before the damages phase concluded, the parties settled in November 2024 on confidential terms.25KTAR. Defamation Lawsuit Kari Lake Settlement
Lake ran for the U.S. Senate in Arizona in 2024, losing to Ruben Gallego by roughly 81,000 votes, and filed no election-related litigation over that race.26Arizona Public Media. This Time Under Oath Kari Lake Refuses to Concede Losses in Elections for Governor and Senate in Arizona