The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought forth by Kari Lake, the Republican Senate candidate, who had contested the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona. Lake had initiated the lawsuit during her unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2022, questioning the ability of the state’s electronic voting machines to guarantee “a fair and accurate vote.”
Two lower courts had previously dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Lake and her co-plaintiff, former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem, had not suffered any harm that would grant them the right to sue. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, while dismissing the lawsuit, noted that the exact nature of Lake’s claim was “not clear.” The court stated that the lawsuit was rooted in speculative fears that the machines could be susceptible to hacking.
Despite citing “opinions by purported experts on manipulation risk” in their lawsuit, Lake and Finchem did not assert that any electronic tabulation machine in Arizona had ever been compromised, the appeals court highlighted. On appeal, the court added, Lake’s legal team “conceded that their arguments were limited to potential future hacking, and not based on any past harm.”
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on Monday without any comment, a common practice. Lake had filed the lawsuit against 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 their belief that the litigation was without merit.
Lake criticized the Supreme Court for its “institutional inertia” on election issues, citing its intervention in the 2000 election in the Bush v. Gore case. This criticism comes despite the court’s active involvement in several appeals related to former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, during this term.