Judge dismisses Arizona election deniers’ lawsuit demanding a hand count of Nov. ballots: report

Federal Judge John Tuchi ruled on Friday that November's midterm election in Arizona will not be required to be conducted by a hand count.

The lawsuit was filed by GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem, the Tuscon Starreported.

The judge said the two only offered "vague" allegations in a 21-page ruling.

"Not only do plaintiffs fail to produce any evidence that a full hand count would be more accurate, but a hand count would also require Maricopa County to hire 25,000 temporary staff and find two million square feet of space,'' Tuchi ruled. "In fact, with the county's current employees it would be an impossibility to have the ballots counted in order to perform a canvass by the 20th day after the election, as required by law.''

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The judge also said that neither of the election deniers could show they were harmed by the current system.

"The lawsuit was a direct outgrowth of claims by both Lake and Finchem that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Joe Biden got 10,457 more votes in Arizona than Trump," the newspaper reported. "The lawsuit also relied heavily on discredited claims by Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, whose firm was hired by the state Senate to "audit'' the 2020 election, and Ben Cotton, founder of CyFir, who also was involved in the audit and made misleading claims that records had been purged."

Lake is facing Democrat Katie Hobs, the current secretary of state, to succeed Gov. Doug Ducey. Finchem is facing Democrat Adrian Fontes to be the state's top election official.

Read the full report.

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