An Arizona judge rejected Democratic Governor-elect Katie Hobbs's request to sanction defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake over her failed attempt to overturn the state's election results.
Lake had filed a lawsuit alleging voter fraud and challenging the counting and certification of the November election in a bid to be declared the winner despite lack of evidence. The suit was rejected by the Superior Court in Maricopa County on Saturday.
On Monday, Hobbs and Maricopa County deputy attorney asked the court to sanction Lake and her attorneys, alleging that Lake had filed a groundless lawsuit for a frivolous pursuit. Sanctions are usually in the form of a financial penalty imposed by a judge for a violation of a court rule or misconduct. Hobbs had asked the court to award her over $600,000 to compensate for the fees and expenses incurred in defending against Lake's lawsuit.
Judge Peter Thompson, a judge of Maricopa County Superior Court, said in Tuesday he found no groundless in his ruling that Lake's claims in the lawsuit were not groundless.
The fact that plaintiff Lake failed to meet the burden of clear and convincing evidence does not equate to a finding that her claims were or were not groundless and presented in bad faith, Thomson wrote in the judgment.
Hobbs, who is currently Arizona s secretary of state and will become governor next week, along with top officials in Maricopa County, was targeted by the lawsuit. Lake s suit claimed hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election in Maricopa, the state's most populous county.
Lake, a former television news anchor, was one of the most prominent Republican candidates in the midterm elections to embrace former Republican President Donald Trump's false claims of voter fraud in 2020.
She lost the race to Hobbs but refused to concede and made unconfirmed claims about election improprieties on her Twitter feed.
Lake was one of the most prominent Trump-aligned Republican candidates who lost battleground state races in the midterm elections.