Arizona’s Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has asked Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes to investigate Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake over potential campaign violations involving the disclosure of voter signatures. Lake is accused of committing a class 6 felony, which can result in fines, probation or a prison sentence from four months to 5 3/4 years.
Lake lost her bid for governor in 2022 to then-Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs amid blatant and widespread voting machine issues that caused long lines and delays in Maricopa County on Election Day.
Lake, who lost by approximately 17,000 votes, did not concede, and promptly filed a lawsuit challenging the botched 2022 election.
Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson dismissed Lake’s election lawsuit last month, ruling that her team did not prove that misconduct caused the election day chaos, and did not prove it resulted in “identifiable lost votes” affecting the outcome of the election.
Lake immediately filed a petition to transfer her appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court, alleging “evidence put forward in this case, including the changing and conflicting testimony of Maricopa officials, and sworn testimony by whistleblowers employed by Maricopa, will show that Maricopa County failed to verify mail-in ballot signatures, failed to keep chain of custody for 300,000 ballots, and caused massive chaos on election day causing tabulators to reject tens of thousands of ballots, disproportionally targeting Republican voters.”
While awaiting a ruling from the Arizona Court of Appeals, Lake last week provided evidence of fraud in a Twitter post that included 16 photocopies of voters’ mismatched ballot signatures.
“Today’s Senate Testimony CONFIRMS nearly 40,000 ballots illegally counted (10% of the signatures reviewed),” Lake tweeted. “I think all the ‘Election Deniers’ out there deserve an apology.”
🚨 BOMBSHELL DISCOVERY 🚨
Today’s Senate Testimony CONFIRMS nearly 40,000 ballots illegally counted (10% of the signatures reviewed).
I think all the “Election Deniers” out there deserve an apology. pic.twitter.com/3g2x5zgd2c
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 23, 2023
On January 23, the Arizona Senate Committee on Elections heard testimony from election experts about the various irregularities that took place on Election Day.
We The People AZ Alliance co-founder and chairman Shelby Busch detailed the group’s investigative work into the potential voter fraud that occurred while election officials were “verifying” ballot signatures, along with the voting machine and ballot printer failures.
Busch testified that “tabulators failed at 235 times the Election Assistance Commission’s regulated failure rates.”
MCRC Vice Chair Shelby Busch testifies in front of the Arizona Senate that on Election Day, tabulators failed at 235 TIMES the Election Assistance Commission’s regulated failure rates.
Incredible. And we’re supposed to believe the election was legitimate? pic.twitter.com/NTrmzDbFAr
— Clinton Gordon (@ClintonGordon77) January 28, 2023
Maricopa County officials had previously claimed that less than 18,000 ballots were affected by machine failures at just over 30 percent of vote centers.
Busch’s team also determined that over 127,000 ballot affidavit signatures were egregiously different than the signature on file, and over 163,000 signatures failed the Arizona Secretary of State’s standards for signature verification in 2022.
During her massive Save Arizona rally on Sunday, Lake said that a minimum of 140,000 fraudulent mail-in ballots with bad signatures were counted.
.@KariLake: "Our experts actually testified, with 99.99% accuracy and certainty, that a minimum of 140,000 fraudulent mail-in ballots with bad signatures were counted in our election. It's outrageous." pic.twitter.com/Oau0CfMzPq
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) January 31, 2023
Fontes’ criminal referral to Arizona’s Attorney General alleged that Lake’s tweet displaying photos of voters’ signatures could be in violation of a state law prohibiting “records containing a voter’s signature” from being “accessible or reproduced by any person other than the voter.”
NEW IN ARIZONA: Secretary of State @Adrian_Fontes, D, asks Attorney General @AZAGMayes, D, to investigate @KariLake, R, over potential violations of state law involving the public airing of voter signatures. The @washingtonpost obtained Fontes’ referral. pic.twitter.com/6HL7YOsAZz
— Yvonne Wingett Sanchez (@yvonnewingett) January 31, 2023
“The protections afforded by this subsection prohibit posting any information derived from voter registration forms or precinct registers to the internet, and under no circumstance may a person other than the voter or [a] statutorily authorized person reproduce a voter’s signature,” said Fontes, a former Maricopa County election official himself.
When he was the Maricopa County Recorder in 2018, Fontes was accused of destroying evidence to cover up “voting irregularities” to help then-Democrat, now-Independent Kyrsten Sinema beat Republican Martha McSally.
Years earlier, Fontes represented Manuel Celis-Acosta following his 2011 arrest in corrupt Obama-era Operation Fast and Furious investigation, in which federal officers encouraged gun stores to sell firearms to Mexican drug cartels. Acosta allegedly transferred around 2,000 weapons to the Sinaloa Cartel, including those that were allegedly used to kill Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, Fox News reported.
Kari Lake’s legal team responded to Fontes’ allegations in a statement Tuesday.
“This is becoming all too common in politics,” said Lake’s attorney Tim LaSota. “It is another partisan political witchhunt targeting a Trump-aligned figure.”
LaSota said Fontes’ letter asking the Attorney General’s office to prosecute Lake, “selectively quotes the statute in an attempt to distort the law and smear Kari Lake in the process.”
The attorney argued that “Kari Lake has an absolute right under the First Amendment to republish the information presented to the Senate” and called on Mayes, to “immediately say that she will have no part in this shameful, disgusting effort.”
Lake vowed to keep fighting, telling reporters that “stolen elections have consequences” such as the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, more than $100 billion sent to Ukraine, the crisis on the border, homelessness, and woke public schools brainwashing children.
“We’re going to win this in court,” Lake said. “We’re going to save Arizona.”
STOLEN Elections Have Consequences:
How many people must suffer & even die because of Corrupt Elections? My resolve to fight has NEVER been stronger. We have the greatest Election Lawsuit in history.Keep the faith, guys.
We're just getting started.
Please SHARE this post! pic.twitter.com/8N7bfox0KY— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 31, 2023