In a 30-page opinion, a federal judge ordered sanctions against the attorneys of the two people who sued over voting machines.
Lake and Finchem, Trump-endorsed Republicans who failed in their bids for governor and secretary of state, filed suit in April in an attempt to block the use of electronic devices to cast or count votes. They asked the court to order the counties to use paper ballots.
The judge dismissed the suit because it was full of allegations of potential injuries.
The five members of the Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors had asked for sanctions against the candidates and their attorneys for making false allegations about Arizona elections.
Tuchi delivered a strong blow to the arguments made by Lake, Finchem and their attorneys in his order granting sanctions on Thursday.
The judge wrote that the plaintiffs never had a factual basis or legal theory that came close to meeting the burden of changing the election system.
He added later in the order that he would not condone false narratives that undermine public trust.
The sanctions were a win for the rule of law and will serve as a consequence for those who file baseless and meritless lawsuits.
There are a lot of attorneys trying to weaponize the court for political purposes. If we are to protect our democracy, these attorneys must be held accountable.
An internationally famous lawyer, author and Harvard Law School professor is one of the attorneys used by Lake and Finchem.
The only one of the attorneys to reply to the email was the one who responded.
The results of any Arizona elections have never been challenged. I have given legal advice to companies that refuse to reveal the inner workings of their machines. In the case of Bush v Gore, I supported complete transparency in all vote counting.
Lake and Finchem didn't reply to questions about the article.
During this year's legislative session, Republican lawmakers failed to pass significant election-procedure changes. After Donald Trump lost the presidential election in 2020 to Joe Biden, his legal team put forth conspiracy theories about the voting machines.
In the lawsuit that Tuchi found worthy of sanctions, the defendants made false statements.
They said that Arizona voters don't use paper ballots.
The system is based on paper ballots and that is incorrect according to the pleadings. The lawsuit has an "overarching implication" that Arizona doesn't have an audited, paper-ballot based voting system.
The lawsuit attacks the county's use of ballot marking devices, even though most of the voters in the county marked their own ballots.
"A system that uses paper ballots for recording votes and electronic machines for tabulating them remains a 'paper-based voting system,'" Tuchi wrote.
Cyber Ninjas would not have been able to examine a portion of the paper ballots if it weren't paper-based.
The basis for the lawsuit was created by the false claim.
The equipment used by the county was accused of being improper. All of Arizona's election equipment is tested by experts and accredited by the Election Assistance Commission.
"Plaintiffs and their experts may be able to opine about the sufficiency of the testing that Arizona's machines undergo, but they are not able to say that no such testing takes place," Tuchi wrote.
Several of the allegations in the lawsuit were of concern but didn't meet the legal standard for sanctions.
The suit claimed that the voting machines in the county are connected to the internet in a way that is improper. The special master assigned by the state Senate found that the machines were not connected to the internet.
In March, Senate President Karen Fann said that Shadegg's finding should bring some answers.
The opinion states that there was a false allegation about the testing of tabulation machines.
The problems, along with the county's allegation that Lake and Finchem filed the lawsuit to further their political campaigns, did not merit sanctions.
No matter how much weight one assigns to Lake and Finchem's evidence, there is still a huge flaw in the case. They raised a lot of questions but didn't go further.
Lake and Finchem made false claims about the election. Lake filed a lawsuit against the county after she lost to her opponent in the election.
The sanctions must be limited to what is needed to deter conduct in the future according to the opinion. The lawyers who signed and filed the offending papers were the ones who did not act appropriately.
Tuchi wrote that the counsel should not be allowed to off the hook. It is to deter similar baseless filing initiated by anyone, whether an attorney or not.
Each person is legally responsible for paying the total amount of the attorneys' fees because they are "jointly and severally liable" according to the order.
The county didn't have an estimation of their attorneys' fees.
For at least a month, the final sanctions order will not come. The county was given two weeks to file the total amount of attorneys' fees. The response to the amount of fees has two more weeks to be filed.
The reporter can be reached at rstern@arizonarepublic.com You can follow him on the social networking site.
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The judge ordered sanctions in the Lake lawsuit.
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