Supreme Court Dismisses Kari Lake's Lawsuit Over Electronic Voting Machines

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake challenging the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona. Lake, who initially filed the lawsuit during her unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2022, questioned whether the state's electronic voting machines ensured "a fair and accurate vote." Two lower courts dismissed the suit, stating that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not suffered harm that would allow them to sue. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals described the precise nature of Lake's claim as "not clear," stating that the lawsuit was based on speculative concerns about potential hacking of the machines. Although Lake and Finchem referenced "opinions by purported experts on manipulation risk" in the lawsuit, they did not claim that any electronic tabulation machine in Arizona had been hacked. During the appeal, Lake's lawyers admitted that their arguments were limited to potential future hacking and were not based on any past harm.

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on Monday without comment, which is a common practice. Lake had sued the Arizona Secretary of State and the boards of supervisors of Maricopa and Pima Counties. All three parties waived their right to respond to the Supreme Court appeal, indicating that they considered the litigation frivolous. Lake accused the Supreme Court of showing "institutional inertia" on election issues, citing its intervention in the 2000 election in the Bush v. Gore case. She made this accusation despite the court's heavy involvement in several appeals involving former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, during this term.