Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah on Monday partially denied Maricopa County’s Motion to Dismiss Kari Lake’s lawsuit against Maricopa County for 2022 mail-in ballot affidavit envelopes.
These records were not provided to Kari Lake and her attorneys before the recent trial with Judge Peter Thompson. As The Gateway Pundit reported, Thompson dismissed Lake’s case despite evidence that hundreds of thousands of signatures were “verified” by Maricopa County in less than three seconds each.
Maricopa County Attorney Joe LaRue argued at the hearing Monday that public records law does not apply to voter registration records and ballot affidavit signatures. Despite exemptions provided in ARS 16-168(F) for access to voter signatures, LaRue claimed that the statute prohibits disclosure of these records. He went on to say that “privacy exceptions to public record law would preclude disclosure of these documents.”
LaRue also admitted, “If actual signatures that appear in the voter’s voter registration record were obtainable by anyone, then if someone wanted to do so, they might be able to forge these signatures on early ballot affidavit envelopes that they stole.”
“That’s not the case the way we use signatures in society,” said Kari Lake attorney Bryan Blehm. “I can go to the Maricopa County Clerk and Recorder’s office today and download hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of signatures if I wanted to because we put deeds, we put mortgages, we put trusts. Every document I sign and file, Your Honor… is available to the public online. That’s how we use signatures, Your Honor. They are our identity.”
Blehm further called the county’s refusal to comply with their public records request “an effort to conceal voter identity theft and election fraud.” He later told the Judge, “they’re not verifying signatures, and what they’re doing is they’re putting those signatures into the voter registration records,” while referencing The Gateway Pundit’s exclusive reporting on Maricopa County’s fraudulent mail-in ballot signatures. Blehm showed the Judge an image of one voter’s signature record with ten mismatched signatures.
The Gateway Pundit recently reported on Maricopa County’s sham signature verification in 2022 after receiving access to 2022 ballot envelopes and historical signatures through a legal public records request. See the obviously mismatched signatures here:
La Rue later claimed, “these early ballot affidavit envelopes are public records in the sense that a public official uses these envelopes to do the public officials duty under the law, signature comparison. But the public records law has certain exceptions, and we believe that even if these records do not fit within 16 168(f), they are subject to, at the very least, the best interest of the state exception to the public records law and the privacy exception to the public records law.”
In response, Judge Hannah told the Defendants, “I am not convinced that the ballot affidavit is a voter registration record. It is a record from which the election officials derive information that becomes part of the voter registration record, but that doesn’t mean the ballot affidavit itself is a voter registration record.” This could exonerate TGP correspondent Jordan Conradson of alleged criminal wrongdoing after leftist hack reporters claimed that he violated the law and called for his arrest after publishing fraudulent voter signatures.
Judge Hannah granted Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss in regards to all Defendants except Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who is responsible for comparing mail-in ballot affidavit signatures. “I’m inclined to think that there might be the need to take some evidence here,” the Judge said. Hannah also indicated he would set a status hearing and asked the attorneys to file a proposed scheduling order for future proceedings on the matter.
We The People AZ Alliance social media director Jeannette Garcia shared the big news on Twitter.
‼️‼️‼️‼️BIG WIN‼️‼️‼️‼️
“IT IS ORDERED Maricopa County Defendants {sic} Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs [sic] Verified Complaint for Statutory Special [sic] Action to Secure Access to Public Recorders [sic] for Defendants is granted as to all defendants other then Stephen Richer.… pic.twitter.com/WMr3snmFPM
— Jeannette Garcia (@Jnet_margarita) June 29, 2023
Read the full Minute Entry from Monday here.
Watch the full hearing below: