Mark Finchem
Appeals court rejects Lake & Finchem bid to force hand counts of ballots in AZ
A federal appeals court has reaffirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to bar the use of voting machines in Arizona that was filed last year by Kari Lake and Mark Finchem, two Republicans who lost their bids for statewide office in 2022. The ruling comes from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after the […]
Judge: Is the mere potential for hacking enough to ban voting machines?
A federal appeals court judge on Tuesday failed to buy into some of Kari Lake’s favorite talking points, including that she actually won the 2022 election for governor and that hand-counting ballots in elections is more accurate and less prone to error than counting with tabulators. A three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit Court of […]
Arizona pilot for secure ballot paper won’t move forward as planned
Cochise County will only be able to work with one company to test security features on ballots in Arizona as part of a state pilot this year — and it’s not the company with political connections that pushed for the work. Cochise County supervisors on Tuesday voted 1-2 against extending the time period for a […]
Arizona features prominently at Lindell’s election conspiracy forum
Arizona took the stage at Mike Lindell’s election conspiracy conference this week, as a former GOP legislator and a local election denialist made a litany of fact-free claims about supposed malfeasance in the state’s elections — all while the leader of the Maricopa County Republican Party watched from the crowd. Mark Finchem, a former state […]
Secure ballots or boondoggle? Arizona county tailors project to politically connected firm
As an Arizona county prepares to spend up to $1 million in state money to test anti-counterfeit features on ballots, it appears the project was tailored for one company in particular that has pushed the idea with the help of political allies in the state for more than two years. The idea of adding unique […]
Republicans’ weeklong monsoon of dumb rains over Arizona
So Kari Lake was in Tucson last week, playing the victim and reliving how she lost the governorship. Lake just keeps going and going. She’s the Energizer Bunny of defeat. She’s appealing a May ruling that she lost the 2022 election, and her case was automatically picked to be shipped to the state Appeals Court down here in […]
Lake to appeal again, she isn’t sanctioned but Finchem is
Kari Lake has, once again, filed her intent to appeal the outcome of her bid to overturn the results of Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election, after it failed in Maricopa County Superior Court. This was the second time that Lake, a Republican who lost by 17,000 votes to Democrat Katie Hobbs, challenged the results of the […]
Attorneys: Alan Dershowitz should have known better
Alan Dershowitz, the famed civil liberties attorney, is asking not to be sanctioned alongside other attorneys for Kari Lake and Mark Finchem after he signed onto a lawsuit that the judge called a “frivolous complaint.” Dershowitz claimed during a telephone hearing on Wednesday that he only participated in the case, which aimed to stop Arizona […]
Legislative election committees catered to conspiracy theorists
Republican-controlled committees in both chambers of the Arizona legislature that were charged with vetting election-reform bills used their time this year to cater to fringe right-wing conspiracy theorists and to approve a plethora of measures that would make big changes to how elections are run in this state. Few, if any, of the bills that […]
Fontes asks court to order Finchem to pay $75,000 for bringing ‘groundless’ election challenge
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes wants Mark Finchem, the Republican Fontes defeated in last year’s election, to pay nearly $75,000 in attorney’s fees for filing what a judge said was a “groundless” lawsuit to overturn the election. Finchem lost by more than 120,000 votes, but still filed an election contest in which the conspiracy-friendly former […]
Mayes is suing Cochise County to stop it from giving the recorder full authority over elections
Attorney General Kris Mayes has filed a lawsuit against Cochise County, the members of its board of supervisors and its county recorder over a plan approved last month that gives the recorder full authority over all election matters. Mayes’ office and the Cochise county attorney had both warned the board that the move was legally […]
Mark Finchem sanctioned in ‘groundless’ lawsuit to overturn the 2022 election
A trial court judge has said Republican secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem will be forced to pay attorney’s fees in what the judge called a “groundless” lawsuit that aimed to overturn his election loss. Finchem challenged his loss to Adrian Fontes, who won by about five percentage points — more than 120,000 votes. Finchem […]