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Embattled Maricopa County’s election processes in Arizona are under intensified scrutiny as GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake continues to challenge the results of the November election.
Lake is set to appeal her lawsuit against her Democrat opponent, Katie Hobbs, and Maricopa County election officials on Feb. 1, with the Arizona Court of Appeals ordering an expedited conference, per The Gateway Pundit.
As Lake continues to duke it out through the legal system, Runbeck Election Services has become a focal point of her appeal, which alleges violations of the law via “misconduct” and “astounding” improbabilities that arose surrounding mechanical failures with printers and tabulators on Election Day.
According to the appeal, “The margin between Kari Lake and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the Arizona gubernatorial race is approximately 0.67% (17,117 votes out of about 2,559,485 votes cast). The number of votes affected by the clear and massive violations of law and maladministration by Maricopa County officials described below, at minimum, render the outcome of the Arizona gubernatorial contest uncertain. The election in Maricopa County must be set aside.”
Per a report from Just the News, Runbeck is aimed at helping local county election processes, including election printing, ballot printing on-demand, ballot software, and voting center equipment.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer apparently testified that EDDB (Election Day Drop Box) ballots were counted at the MCTEC (Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center) before transferring them to Runbeck and claimed that chain of custody forms were created prior to that transfer. Lake’s appeal counters his claim: “Richer’s statement was false. No documents for EDDB ballot retrieval counts exist.”
Per the case, Richer allegedly estimated that the count of EDDB ballots was around 270,000 on Nov. 9, 2022.
“County officials did not count EDDB ballots and did not create any documents to record the number of ballots transferred to Runbeck,” the appeal continued in its allegations.
In other words, Lake is alleging that Election Day ballots were not counted at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center at all and that nearly 300,000 ballots did not have proper chain of custody documentation.
“Absent valid, legally required CoC that there are multiple opportunities for insertion, removal, or substitution of ballots,” the appeal went on. “Unrebutted evidence showed that Runbeck allowed employees to insert ballots into the system…Richer’s failure to maintain CoC makes it impossible to know how many ballots were injected into the system.”