Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Rejects Kari Lake’s and Mark Finchem’s Appeal Alleging Arizona Officials Lied to the Court, No Sanctions Granted

Kari Lake and Mark Finchem

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal from Kari Lake and Mark Finchem alleging that Arizona officials made false statements to the courts regarding their lawsuit to stop the use of electronic voting machine tabulators. The panel of three justices, two who were appointed to the bench by Democratic presidents, gave no reason for their dismissal on June 20, and also denied a motion for sanctions by defendant Maricopa County, which was filed three days prior. 

Lake’s and Finchem’s Motion to Recall Mandate, drafted by attorney Kurt Olsen, stated, “Maricopa’s violations of Arizona law mean its elections have not been shown to be any more reliable than a Ouija board.” The motion said the officials’ alleged lies and perjury, which involved lying about committing misdemeanors, were discovered after obtaining Maricopa County’s tabulator system log (SLOG) files, which the pair maintained contradicted the statements of officials. 

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Maricopa County Employee Who Allegedly Stole Tabulator Programming FOB/Key Has Ties to Soros Deleted, Had Vowed to Stop Election Day Attorneys

Walter Ringfield

A LinkedIn account belonging to Maricopa County Elections temporary employee Walter Ringfield, Jr., who was arrested last Friday for allegedly stealing a digital magnetic key used to program Election Day voting machine tabulators, was deleted sometime after his arrest. This erased his connection to a radical group with ties to progressive billionaire George Soros, One Voice, One Vote.

When investigators looked through Ringfield’s social media that wasn’t deleted, they discovered a post he’d made vowing to thwart Republican lawyers combating wrongdoing on Election Day.

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Maricopa County Elections Worker Arrested for Stealing Tabulator Programming FOB/Key Also Allegedly Broke into AZ Senate

Walter Ringfield

An Arizona State Capitol insider with knowledge of recent incidents there told The Arizona Sun Times that progressive activist Walter Ringfield, Jr. – the same man who was arrested for allegedly stealing an election machine tabulator key fob – was caught breaking and entering into the Arizona Senate recently. Video surveillance footage allegedly caught him stealing collectible coins from the security area and walking around on the third floor unauthorized. When apprehended by security, he was asked to leave. The insiders said that Ringfield told security he was there to deliver some documents to State Senator Juan Mendez (D-Tempe).

News reports about the election key fob theft broke a Monday. According to a police report obtained by The Sun Times, surveillance video shows Ringfield putting the set into his pocket.

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Trump’s Former DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark Files Post-Hearing Brief Poking Holes in the D.C. Bar’s Disciplinary Panel Findings

Jeffrey Clark

Donald Trump’s former DOJ official, Jeffrey Clark, is fighting a recommendation from the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel to discipline him over his concerns about illegalities in the 2020 election. Last month, he filed a Post-Hearing Brief challenging a nonbinding preliminary finding of culpability for drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials advising them of their options in dealing with the irregularities.

The hearing panel found that Clark engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation and conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice, Rules 8.4(c) and (d) of the Rules of Professional Conduct. Those ethics rules have been accused of being broad, vague, and unconstitutional. State bars frequently use them to target conservative attorneys.

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Arizona Appeals Court Ignores Evidence to Throw Out Kari Lake’s Second Election Appeal

Kari Lake Speaking

An Arizona Court of Appeals panel of three judges issued a 23-page unpublished decision last week, affirming a trial court’s dismissal of Kari Lake’s Rule 60(b) second election lawsuit. The court claimed that Lake’s Rule 60(b)(3) motion, which means requesting a second trial based on newly found evidence, constituted merely relitigating her first election lawsuit.

The court said that instead, “The focus must rather be on the fraud or misconduct that prevents a litigant from trying otherwise meritorious claims.” However, the court ignored Lake’s evidence of misconduct and affirmed the high standard the trial court judge set for election contests, which is not found in Arizona case law.

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Judge Hears Arguments in Trial over Election Illegalities, Malconduct Alleged by Candidate in Shasta County Supervisor Race

Laura Hobbs

Shasta County Superior Court Judge Stephen H. Baker heard arguments on Tuesday in an election contest brought by Laura Hobbs, who ran for Shasta County Supervisor earlier this year. Hobbs lost the District 2 race to Allen Long by 14 votes. Hobbs alleged numerous election irregularities, including malconduct by election officials. Baker is expected to conclude the trial on Wednesday.

Hobbs’ attorney Alex Haberbush, who is also an attorney for Donald Trump’s former attorney John Eastman, told The Arizona Sun Times after the first day of trial concluded, “Walking into today’s hearing, we were facing at least half a dozen arguments from our opponents as to why our case should be dismissed, and today we left with only one, whether malconduct by election workers must be intentional.” He said, “Intentionality is not the standard, and the misconduct by Deputy Registrar of Voters Joanna Francescut easily surpassed the actual standard.”

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State Bar of Arizona’s Disciplinary Panel Suspends Law License of Kari Lake’s Attorney Bryan Blehm for Challenging Election Illegalities

Bryan Blehm

The State Bar of Arizona’s (SBA) disciplinary panel, led by Democratic Judge Margaret Downie, suspended the law license of Kari Lake’s attorney Bryan Blehm for 60 days over his efforts to combat election corruption. The order was issued last Friday and the suspension goes into effect on July 7. 

“What they’re going to do is they’re going to sanction the f*** out of me with costs and fees to try to prevent me from practicing law again.” Blehm said in a video posted on X. “That’s what the end result is going to be.” Blehm was disciplined for stating in a pleading that 35,563 ballots were inserted into the 2022 election. The Arizona Supreme Court sanctioned him $2,000 for the statement.

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Second Texas Court Rules That Texas Bar Has No Evidence Sidney Powell Violated Ethics Rules with 2020 Election Lawsuits

Former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, who brought four lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election, was cleared of charges from the State Bar of Texas by the Texas Court of Appeals this month. The court ruled in a 24-page opinion upholding the trial court that the Texas Bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline failed to show how she engaged in “dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation” in lawsuits she filed challenging Donald Trump’s presidential loss.

The lower trial court found that the evidence against Powell was so lacking that it granted no-evidence summary judgment for her against the Texas bar, which the Texas bar appealed. The higher court criticized the Texas bar, “The Bar employed a ‘scattershot’ approach to the case, which left this court and the trial court ‘with the task of sorting through the argument to determine what issue ha[d] actually been raised.’”

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Secretary of State Urges Tennesseans to Become Poll Workers for Upcoming 2024 Elections

Poll Workers

Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett is urging those eligible across the Volunteer State to become poll workers for the upcoming August 1 primary elections and the November 5 general election.

The job of poll workers is to help polling sites run smoothly during early voting and on Election Day by conducting various tasks, including greeting voters, answering questions, explaining how to cast a ballot, and counting votes at their community locations.

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Secretaries of State from Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia Claim AI ‘Disinformation’ Top Threat in 2024

Arizona Sec State Adrian Fontes

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes on Sunday joined a number of his counterparts from other states for a Meet the Press panel discussion, and the top state election official claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) will pose new “mis- and disinformation” threats during the 2024 elections.

Fontes told Meet the Press host Kristen Walker, “AI is not a new weapon. It’s an amplifier and a magnifier of mis- and disinformation,” and revealed that his office held a “tabletop exercise” that apparently involved both election officials and members of the media.

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Election Integrity Experts Talks About 2020 Election Irregularities at Virtual ‘Get Trump’ Lawfare Conference

The Arizona civic organization Davos in the Desert hosted a “Get Trump” virtual conference on lawfare Tuesday featuring various experts. Some speakers, such as Arizona attorney Mark Sonnenklar and Louisiana attorney Daniel R. Street, focused heavily on election fraud and other illegalities in the 2020 election.

Sonnenklar, who worked as a roving attorney during the 2022 election, began his presentation by going over a precinct analysis from Army intelligence veteran and analytics guru Seth Keshel. Keshel contrasted the numbers of votes for the Republican versus Democratic candidates for president in numerous small precincts from the 2012, 2016 and 2020 elections. Each of the precincts he examined showed similar differences in numbers between the Republican and Democrat candidates in 2012 and 2016.

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‘Get Trump’ Virtual Conference on Lawfare Speakers Poke Holes in January 6 and Trump Legal Cases

January Six

The Arizona civic organization Davos in the Desert hosted a “Get Trump” virtual conference on lawfare Tuesday, featuring some of the country’s top lawfare experts.

Linda Denno, an associate dean and associate professor at the University of Arizona who hosts a podcast with Berkeley constitutional law professor John Yoo, spoke about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump for taking home documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence. Brian Lupo, an investigative journalist who runs a podcast focusing on election corruption and lawfare, spoke about the unfair prosecutions of the January 6 protesters.

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GOP State Senator May Be Holding Up Arizona Legislature from Sending Election Integrity Measure to Ballot

Ken Bennett

The Arizona Legislature is considering sending an election integrity measure to the ballot this fall.

HCR 2056 was debated in the Senate Elections Committee last week. The bill would require voters to show photo ID when dropping ballots off. All early ballots dropped off will be tabulated at the voting location where they were submitted. Seven counties already do that. The bill also prohibits election officials from accepting funds from foreign entities to help administer an election.

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U.S. Supreme Court Allows State Officials to Ban January 6 Protesters from Holding State and Local Offices for ‘Insurrection’

Couy Griffin

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a former New Mexico county commissioner who was removed from office by a state court for his role in the January 6 protest. This left in place a lower court’s decision to remove and bar Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, founder of Cowboys for Trump, from office for “aid[ing] the insurrection even though he did not personally engage in violence.” Griffin was convicted of a misdemeanor for trespassing on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. Griffin never entered the Capitol building.

His attorney Peter Ticktin stated in court filings submitting to the Supreme Court, “If the decision … is to stand, at least in New Mexico, it is now the crime of insurrection to gather people to pray together for the United States of America on the unmarked restricted grounds of the Capitol building.” He argued that Griffin was “fundamentally exercising his Constitutional rights to free speech and assembly.”

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Commentary: Threat of Illegal Votes in the 2024 Election Results

Joe Biden and Donald Trump

Washington Post columnist Philip Bump had a hissy fit the other day about immigration, writing an article in his column titled “The 2020-was-stolen crew is here to stoke fears of noncitizen voters”—by which he probably meant “The 2020-election-was-stolen crew.”

That must be rule one, or perhaps six, of column writing at the Washington Post: If you’re not sure your column will be successful in making your case, stuff your basic message into the title. It’s also true that often it’s the editors who supply the titles, sometimes to beef up a column that hasn’t quite made the point the writer seemed to have wanted to make.

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Trump’s Former Attorney John Eastman Arrested in Phoenix over His 2020 Election Legal Work

John Eastman

Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman was arrested, booked, and arraigned Friday in Phoenix over his role in the 2020 election. Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes brought charges and secured indictments in April against him, Arizona’s alternate Republican slate of electors, and a few others including Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator.

Mayes is accused by her Republican opponent for attorney general, Abe Hamadeh, of illegally holding office due to the election malfeasance in 2022. Hamadeh is still challenging his loss to her by 280 votes in the 2022 election, and has filed multiple lawsuits seeking to overturn the election, alleging among other things that 9,000 provisional ballots were never counted.

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Democrat Appointed Judge Throws Out Abe Hamadeh’s Petition for Writ of Quo Warranto to Remove AZ AG Mayes from Office, Suggests Sanctions

Abe Hamadeh

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Susanna Pineda, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano, granted a Motion to Dismiss filed by Maricopa County officials in response to Abe Hamadeh’s Petition for Writ of Quo Warranto. She also suggested she would award sanctions against Hamadeh, other plaintiffs, and their attorney. Hamadeh had asked to remove Attorney General Kris Mayes from office and fix the 2022 election problems, including up to redoing it.

Ryan Heath, Hamadeh’s attorney, told The Arizona Sun Times, “I worked in judicial chambers as an intern in law school. Before this ruling, I’d never seen a case where a judge blatantly ignores arguments and allegations in order to impose sanctions. The appeal is already drafted, and I’m looking forward to overturning the trial court’s ruling on appeal.”

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Increasing Number of Illegal Immigrants Expected to Vote for Democrats in the 2024 Election

Illegal migrants in small boat

Illegal immigrants may legally vote in U.S. elections, thanks to a loophole in federal law that provides an escape from any penalties and have their votes counted if they believe they are legally eligible to participate in an election.

Analysis by The Washington Times found that illegal immigrants are three times more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, and due to increasing numbers coming illegally across the border under the Biden administration, are expected to increase their votes for Democrats this fall.

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Maricopa County Republican Leadership Unanimously Censures Arizona Supreme Court for ‘Injustice’ and ‘Bias’ in Handling Election-Related Lawsuits

The Maricopa County Republican Committee’s Executive Guidance Committee unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday censuring the Arizona Supreme Court (ASC) for its handling of election lawsuits. The censure came after the state’s highest court issued two relatively favorable rulings for Republicans: reversing sanctions against the Arizona Republican Party for an election-related case and upholding Arizona’s old 1864 law restricting abortion.

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‘Unacceptable:’ Georgia State Election Board Votes to Reprimand Fulton County for Violations During 2020 Election and Recount, Establish Monitor for 2024

Georgia Election board

The Georgia State Election Board voted 2-1 on Tuesday to send a Letter of Reprimand to Fulton County for numerous violations of state law during the 2020 election and recount and direct the establishment of a monitor for the November 2024 general election, which, if not completed by July, would require referral to the Georgia Attorney General.

State Election Board (SEB) Member Edward Lindsey proposed the Letter of Reprimand due to the “clear evidence that in 2020 there were numerous violations of regulations and statutes” in Fulton County.

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Republican Party Files to Intervene in Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballot Case over Curing of Votes with No Security Sleeve

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Republican Party of Pennsylvania (PAGOP) have filed to intervene in a Butler County lawsuit brought by two voters who want to enable the curing of mail-in ballots returned to election officials without a security sleeve.

The lawsuit was brought by two Pennsylvania voters who submitted mail-in ballots without the required security sleeve. According to their lawsuit, the voters apparently later sought to cure their ballots, but were instead allowed to cast provisional ballots that were ultimately not counted. They filed suit against the Butler County Board of Elections on April 29.

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Navajo County Officials Stonewall Precinct Committeemens’ Request to Create Election Integrity Task Force and Conduct Hand Counts

Celia Laughlin

Concerned Republican precinct committeemen and citizens in Navajo County, a small Republican-leaning county located in the northeastern part of the state, asked the Navajo County Board of Supervisors (NCBOS) recently to take election integrity measures, but are being stonewalled. 

Celia Laughlin told The Arizona Sun Times that in place of addressing their questions and requests at the last board meeting on April 23, Navajo County Manager Bryan Layton “gave a poll worker’s civics class instruction instead.” Layton was appointed county manager less than a year ago, and prior to that he worked in Texas for 10 years. 

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During Oral Arguments at the Arizona Court of Appeals in Kari Lake’s Election Lawsuit, Her Attorney Alleged Numerous Lies by Election Official

Kari Lake Hearing

A panel of three Arizona Court of Appeals judges heard oral arguments on Thursday in Kari Lake’s Rule 60(b) appeal of her election lawsuit. Lake’s attorney, Kurt Olsen, alleged that Maricopa County Co-Elections Director Scott Jarrett told numerous lies.

Lake’s team filed the Rule 60(b) motion requesting a second trial based on newly found evidence, but the trial court judge, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, greatly limited the scope of her second trial and then ruled against her.

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Arizona Supreme Court Unanimously Reverses Sanctions Against AZGOP for Its Lawsuit Challenging Maricopa County’s Hand Count

The Arizona Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling on Thursday reversing an award of sanctions against the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) and its attorneys for bringing an election integrity lawsuit. The AZGOP sued Maricopa County election officials over how they conducted the mandatory hand count audit after the 2020 election. The state’s highest court said there is some merit to election lawsuits, even if a “long shot,” and ruling against them for questioning an “election’s legitimacy” would have a “chilling effect.”

The AZGOP issued a statement after the state Supreme Court’s decision.

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Republicans’ Voter Registration Edge over Democrats Almost Doubles in Maricopa County, Statewide Increases to Almost Six Percent

Voter Registration

Despite the Democratic wins in Arizona in 2020 and 2022, Republicans have been widening their voter registration edge over Democrats over the past four years. According to data from the Arizona Secretary of State earlier this year, between 2020 and 2024, Republicans increased their lead from approximately three percent to 5.77 percent. In Maricopa County, Republicans increased their lead even more, from four percent to seven percent. 

The change has occurred primarily with Democratic voter registrations; Republican voter registration has remained steady at 35 percent of voters. Statewide, Republicans constitute 35.07 percent of voters, followed by independents at 34.10 percent, then Democrats with 29.30 percent. While Republicans outnumber independents at the state level by almost 40,000 voters, independents outnumber Republicans in Maricopa County by 2,631 voters. 

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While Condemning ‘Dark Money,’ Democrats Funnel Huge Amounts of Anonymous Cash into 2024 Election, Outpacing Republicans

A new review of financial documents shows Democrats are pouring more money than ever into 2024 political campaigns, especially in close races.

Since 2018, that amount has steadily increased in comparison to Republican spending. By 2020, the parts of the country that supported Joe Biden for president constituted 71 percent of the country’s GDP.

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Arizona Green Party Accuses Democratic Party of Interfering with ‘Fake’ Candidate and ‘Fraud’ in Their Primary Race for U.S. Senate

Mike Norton

The Arizona Green Party (AZGP) accused Democrats of running Mike Norton as a sham candidate in their primary race for the U.S. Senate. The AZGP said a detailed thread posted on X earlier this month, that the scheme by the state Democratic Party was to have Norton drop out at the last minute before ballots were printed and endorse the Democratic candidate, Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03). The third party group noted that a candidate did that in the 2018 U.S. Senate race to allegedly benefit then-Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema – who later switched to an independent and is not running for reelection.

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Attorney General Kris Mayes Explains Why She is Prosecuting Arizona’s 2020 Alternate Slate of Electors for Trump, Gets Law Wrong

Kris Mayes

Attorney General Kris Mayes held a press conference on Wednesday to announce the indictment of Arizona’s alternate slate of electors for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, along with other named and unnamed co-conspirators and unindicted co-conspirators including Trump.

Mayes made several incorrect assertions about the law.

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Arizona A.G. Kris Mayes Secures Indictments of Alternate Electors for Donald Trump and Others Likely Soon to be Named Including John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, with Trump Himself an Unindicted Co-Conspirator

Arizona A.G. Kris Mayes

Attorney General Kris Mayes persuaded a grand jury to indict the 11 Arizonans who agreed to serve as a slate of alternate electors for Donald Trump had he won the 2020 election, along with others involved in the effort to resolve election illegalities in that election. They are charged with conspiracy, fraud and forgery.

According to multiple media sources, while only the 11 alternate electors are named, the other unindicted co-conspirators are considered likely to be Trump, his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Christina Bobb, and Jenna Ellis, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman. Their names are redacted since they have not been served yet.

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Candidate Running Against Rep. David Schweikert Drops Out After Four People Say They Never Signed Her Petition, Progressives Implicated

David Schweikert

Michelle Martin, a Libertarian candidate running against Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ-01), has dropped out of the race after at least four voters said someone illegally signed her petition with their signatures. Martin’s paperwork revealed that a registered Democrat named Jeremy Garrett was one of the petition signature gatherers, along with four other registered Democrats. Someone named Jeremy Garrett works as an Electoral Campaign Manager at the progressive group Our Voice Our Vote (OVOV). 

Schweikert told The Arizona Sun Times that this is clearly fraud and needs to be prosecuted. He said it has been referred to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

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California Judge Who Disbarred Trump’s Former Attorney John Eastman Funneled Money to Super PAC Fighting Election Integrity

Judge Yvette Roland

California disciplinary court judge Yvette Roland, who disbarred Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman last month, contributed to a Democratic PAC last year which funneled all of the contributions to a Super PAC that seeks to stop “undermining the most basic tenet of our democracy, the right to vote.” Despite the fact that the charges against Eastman were all related to his efforts investigating and stopping election corruption in the 2020 election, Roland did not recuse herself. 

While serving on the bench, Roland donated $250 twice on March 30, 2023 to Newsom for California Governor 2022 (NCG). Just 18 days later, NCG then contributed everything it had raised, about $23 million, to Campaign for Democracy Group (CDG), an independent expenditure Super PAC. CDG is primarily supporting Newsom. Its website states, “Across the country, extremist Republicans are systematically attacking the very foundations of a free society — bullying and criminalizing the most vulnerable, denying women equality and reproductive healthcare, attacking communities of color, dehumanizing immigrants seeking the American Dream, banning books and restricting speech, and undermining the most basic tenet of our democracy, the right to vote.”

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Kari Lake’s Attorneys Send Letter to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer Regarding Settling His Defamation Lawsuit

Kari Lake and Stephen Richer

Kari Lake agreed earlier this month to settle the defamation lawsuit against her filed by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, citing the enormous cost it would take to go through a full trial. Her attorneys sent a letter on Monday to Richer’s attorneys regarding Richer’s proposed meet and confer terms, rejecting all three proposals from him, at times sarcastically. 

Lake is running for the U.S. Senate and still fighting two election lawsuits, one over her loss in the gubernatorial race and another challenging the use of voting machine tabulators in elections. Richer filed a defamation lawsuit against her for stating that he intentionally sabotaged the 2022 election. Approximately 300,000 ballots in the 2022 election lacked a chain of custody, a class 2 misdemeanor, but the county has strenuously fought litigation efforts to allow Lake to inspect the ballot affidavit envelopes and other requests from her and voter integrity groups related to the election anomalies.

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Ohio Secretary of State’s Office Launches Initiative to Prepare Election Officials for the November Election

Frank LaRose

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced a new statewide initiative his office will facilitate to ensure election officials are “trained and prepared” for the November general election.

The Ready for November initiative will “offer a series of collaborative training opportunities between Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections and the Secretary of State’s elections, public integrity and communications staff,” according to LaRose’s office.

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Trump’s Former Attorney John Eastman Relays His Disbarment Story at Davos in the Desert’s Lawfare Event in Phoenix

Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional scholar, John Eastman, spoke to the civic organization Davos in the Desert Wednesday about the lawfare he experienced, which resulted in disbarment and prosecution. The event was part of a larger conference the organization will broadcast all day on May 21, featuring legal experts discussing the lawfare against Trump.

Eastman, who was disbarred for advising Trump and representing him in challenging election illegalities in the 2020 election, began his talk by discussing how judges dismissed many of the 2020 election lawsuits for lack of standing. A judge in Pennsylvania dismissed one of their lawsuits, claiming that only the state legislature can challenge the election illegalities. However, other judges handling the 2020 election lawsuits ruled that political parties and candidates have standing.

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Illegals Instructed to Vote Biden for Border NGO to ‘Stay Open’

Group photo of Resource Center Matamoros staff

An advocacy group based in Northeastern Mexico that lobbies U.S. lawmakers has distributed and posted flyers encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

Translated from Spanish, the Oversight Project notes, the flyers posted by the organization Resource Center Matamoros say: “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

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Arizona Republican Party Joins Two Other State GOPs Filing an Amicus Curiae Brief in Kari Lake’s and Mark Finchem’s Voting Machine Tabulator Lawsuit

Attorney William Olson

The Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) submitted a joint Amicus Curiae brief on Thursday with the Georgia Republican Party and the Republican State Committee of Delaware supporting Kari Lake’s and Mark Finchem’s Petition for Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. The pair are appealing the lower courts’ decisions against their lawsuit challenging the use of electronic voting machine tabulators in elections. Under the new leadership of AZGOP Chair Gina Swoboda, who has a lengthy history in election integrity work including heading the Voter Reference Foundation, the AZGOP is heavily focused on election integrity. 

Authored by attorney William J. Olson, the brief argues that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals erred by dismissing the case claiming Lake and Finchem lacked standing. The court affirmed the trial court’s granting of the defendants’ motion to dismiss, asserting that the pair lacked standing because “speculative allegations that voting machines may be hackable are insufficient to establish an injury in fact under Article III.” The complaint emphasized that the lower courts “conflated standing with merits, twisting the standing rules to require much more — that the complaint prove facts sufficient to grant relief.” 

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Conservative Candidate Brad Miller Running Against Election Fraud Denying Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkner

Brad Miller

Republican Brad Miller, a longtime prosecutor who served as Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marines, where he still works as a prosecutor, is challenging incumbent Pinal County Attorney Republican Kent Volkmer, an election fraud denier, for the office. Miller points to a long list of problems with the office, including mishandling criminal issues and election integrity, as reasons change is needed. 

Miller, who also practices civil law, states his principles on his website, “We must protect our borders, we must stand by and support our police, and we must safeguard our way of life.” He champions the Second Amendment, “I will protect your right to own a gun!” He said he will keep “woke policies” like ESG, “anti-American indoctrination,” and “dubious sexual education” pushed by “extreme leftist ideologies” out of education. He will “stand tall and provide a voice for parents and elected officials, allowing them to make informed decisions based on unbiased information.”

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Wisconsin Election Integrity Journalist Who Exposed Allegedly Illegal Democratic ‘Smurfing’ Donations Arrested

Peter Bernegger

Peter Bernegger, president of Election Watch in Wisconsin, was arrested last week after filing complaints against officials and candidates he exposed for accepting donations allegedly facilitated by progressive activists in the names of people who were unaware of them. He was charged with a felony, simulating a legal process.

Bernegger posted on X after posting bail and being released, “This is politically motivated where they are trying to shut me up, to shut us all up. For those who don’t know, this is the second time they have come after me; the first time was dismissed in 15 minutes when the judge learned the truth of the matter.”

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Election Integrity Investigator Releases New Information About Likely Manipulation of Maricopa County’s Voting Machine Tabulators in the 2020 and 2022 Elections

Ben Cotton, an IT expert proficient in forensics and digital systems analysis, issued a declaration last month about flaws with Maricopa County’s voting machine tabulators. It was included in Kari Lake’s and Mark Finchem’s latest pleadings in their complaint challenging the use of voting machine tabulators in elections. One of those findings was that unauthorized executable programs were installed on the machines at least three times during the 2020 election, which could be used to alter election results without detection.

Cotton, whose firm CyFIR was hired by the Arizona Senate in 2021 to audit the 2020 election, summarized his findings, “It is clear, based on my findings, that unauthorized programs, databases, configuration settings and actions were present on the voting systems in Maricopa County for the elections in both 2020 and 2022.”

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Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs Appoints Former Task Force Member to Citizens Clean Elections Commission

Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission member Christina Estes-Werther

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs announced her appointment of Christina Estes-Werther to the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission on Friday, confirming the former member of her Elections Task Force will be the first new member of the commission since 2017.

Hobbs confirmed the appointment in a press release, with her office noting Estes-Werther “served as deputy general counsel for Governor Jan Brewer, state elections director under Secretary of State Ken Bennett, and as a member of the Bipartisan Elections Task Force established by Governor Hobbs in 2023.”

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Kari Lake and Mark Finchem File New Brief with U.S. Supreme Court in Voting Machine Tabulator Case After Defendants Fail to Respond

Kari Lake Mark Finchem

Kari Lake and Mark Finchem filed a Supplemental Brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, adding support for their Petition for Writ of Certiorari and Motion to Expedite asking the court to hear an appeal of the dismissal of their lawsuit to stop the use of electronic voting machine tabulators in elections. The defendant Arizona officials failed to file a response to the pair’s petition, boosting the chances SCOTUS might accept the case and implying they did not object to the statements in the petition. 

The new brief added more allegations of false representations by Maricopa County officials. It said the courts relied on their false representations when they dismissed and affirmed their case, sanctioning the pair’s lawyers. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the plaintiffs’ injuries were “too speculative” for Article III, which requires showing of an injury. The brief said the court based this determination “in part on false representations that Maricopa County performed required preelection logic and accuracy (‘L&A’) testing and used certified and approved voting system software.” The court “expressly relied on false representations that Maricopa’s elections were protected from manipulation.”

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D.C. Bar Disciplinary Panel Makes Nonbinding Preliminary Determination of Culpability for a ‘Thought Crime’ in Disbarment Trial of Trump’s Former DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark

Jeffrey Clark

The disciplinary trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark wrapped up on Thursday with the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel making a nonbinding preliminary determination that Clark was culpable on at least one of the two counts against him.

For drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials advising them of their options in dealing with the 2020 election illegalities, he was charged with engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, and engaging in conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice, Rules 8.4(c) and (d) of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

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During Jeffrey Clark’s Disbarment Trial, Cyber Security Expert Says Georgia’s 2020 Election Was Not ‘Conducted According to the Law’

Harry Haury

The second and final week of the disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official began to wind down on Wednesday with more testimony from operations security expert Harry Haury. Clark, who is also a defendant in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO prosecution, is being disciplined for drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials after the 2020 election advising them of their options for dealing with the election illegalities.

The trial is expected to wrap up on Thursday with closing statements.

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Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon Asks Party Official to Resign Following Illegal Voting Ruling

Brian Pritchard Georgia

Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP) Chair Josh McKoon on Wednesday confirmed rumors he requested the resignation of the party’s 1st vice chairman, Brian Pritchard, following the revelation he violated the state’s election laws by illegally voting despite being on probation for forgery.

McKoon wrote in a post to the social media platform X that he requested Pritchard’s resignation before making the request public.

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Arizona GOP Chair Gina Swoboda Secures Favorable Court Ruling Allowing Election Integrity Group to Review Voter Rolls

Gina Swoboda Courtroom

Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) Chairwoman Gina Swoboda secured a favorable court ruling for her election integrity group, the Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), and will gain access to New Mexico voter roll data.

U.S. District Court Judge James Browning in New Mexico made a ruling on Friday in the case brought against that state by the VRF that was largely favorable to Swoboda’s group, with reports indicating VRF was given permission to post voter rolls online and was given access to voter information previously withheld by the New Mexico Secretary of State.

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Georgia Election Integrity Expert Lists Significant Fraud in State’s 2020 Election at Jeffrey Clark’s Disbarment Trial

Garland Favorito

The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official, Jeffrey Clark, continued into its second and final week on Tuesday, featuring testimony from three witnesses for him.

Clark, a defendant in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO prosecution, is being disciplined for drafting a letter never sent to Georgia officials after the 2020 election advising them of their options for dealing with the election illegalities.

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