On Day 2 of her trial, Kari Lake's big reveal is a big bust
Thursday was Kari Lake’s big reveal.
That long-awaited moment when she would pull out the smoking gun to show America that Maricopa County stole her election.
Turns out she couldn’t even locate a lukewarm pop gun.
After six months, two trials and too many Twitter tirades to count, Lake is asking a judge to overturn last year’s election because the county worked too quickly to review signatures on early ballots.
Funny, just six months ago she was lambasting the county for working too slowly to finish the count and announce a winner.
Kari Lake's star witness was light on evidence
Lake’s (latest) case centers around her $600-an-hour expert witness, a self-described forensic documents analyst who also put in a cameo appearance during the Cyber Ninjas audit of the 2020 election.
Erich Speckin on Thursday testified that county workers reviewed 274,000 voter signatures in less than three seconds each.
“I don’t believe it can be done ... ,” he told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson.
The fact that Speckin doesn’t believe it can be done isn’t likely to convince Thompson to overturn a 6-month-old election.
But then, I doubt Lake really expects to win.
This is about keeping the base riled and ready — and those contributions pouring in — as she prepares to run for the Senate next year.
The goal: To prove no signatures were verified
Earlier this week, Thompson laid out what Lake needs to do to win her lawsuit, based on the challenge brought by her lawyers.
Simply put, she must show “that no signature verification was conducted” on the 1.3 million early ballots cast in the November election.
That’s a tall order.
Especially when you consider that even Lake’s own “whistleblowers” testified on Wednesday about the lengths to which they and other county workers went to verify signatures.
Maricopa County Elections Director Rey Valenzuela, who has been verifying signatures for 20 years, took Thompson for a walk in the weeds about the hows and whys that a two- or three-second review isn’t cause for alarm.
What's next: In Kari Lake's election challenge
Valenzuela said a level one reviewer compares the signature to the most recent signature in the voter’s file and if it’s consistent, he sends it straight to a level three review, where a percentage of the signatures are audited.
If it’s deemed inconsistent, it’s sent for a deeper, level 2 review.
Lake’s lawyers are hoping to convince Thompson that those two- and three-second signature reviews constitute a mathematical basis on which to overturn the election she lost by 17,117 votes.
But they never offered any actual math to prove their point.
The key question that sunk Lake's case
Naturally, Lake took to Twitter to announce that funny business was afoot in the quick approval of so many signatures.
“This is rubber stamping bad ballots to alter the outcome of our election,” she tweeted.
Never mind that the courts have already rejected her claim that tens of thousands of phony ballots were injected into the count. (I believe sanctions were even involved.)
Never mind that early ballots are sent to verified voters and there’s been no showing that thousands upon thousands of them were hijacked by imposters intent on denying Lake her victory.
Never mind even that Lake’s own expert couldn't point to so much as a single ballot that shouldn’t have counted.
“I can’t say one way or another,” Speckin testified.
Did I mention a pop gun?
More like one of those clown pistols that shoots out a flag … one that says Oops.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake's trial is an even bigger bust on Day 2
