Boyd Carter
In her lengthy lawsuit first filed in December, Lake argued that based on “information and belief,” “a material number” of votes with signatures that were not properly verified were counted and could have altered the outcome of the 2022 election.
To back up her claim, she cited an evaluation of signatures from the 2020 election — two years earlier — done by activist Shelby Busch of the political action committee We The People AZ Alliance that alleged tens of thousands of ballots had signature mismatches. That review was debunked by Maricopa County, which rejected only 587 ballots in 2020 for mismatched signatures. In a different report, the county addressed concerns that the number was suspiciously low, noting changes in law and practice, like hiring additional staff and adding another shift to cure ballots.
Without reviewing any signatures from the 2022 election, Lake’s lawsuit argued that the court should suspect problems with signatures in 2022 as Busch claimed to find in 2020.
Quoting from the article:
“Lake also filed declarations from three election workers who were involved in the first round of the signature verification process. They claimed they rejected large numbers of ballots, which Lake argues validates the findings in Busch’s report and show “deep flaws” in the county process.”