Lake loses election. Rinse and repeat

The verdict is in. Kari Lake lost. Again.

Is there anybody left on the planet surprised by this?

The Arizona Court of Appeals on Thursday rejected every one of her claims of the many ways she was robbed in last year’s election.

“The evidence presented to the superior court ultimately supports the court’s conclusion that voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results,” Judge Kent Cattani wrote, in affirming that Gov. Katie Hobbs is, in fact, Gov. Katie Hobbs.

I’d like to say that the ruling of the three-judge appellate panel – which followed the ruling of a Maricopa County Superior Court judge, which followed a two-day bench trial – would put an end to the incessant moaning and groaning and stomping of feet and outright slander of a good and decent state.

But, of course, Lake has already vowed to appeal. Of course, she will, if only to keep the rubes sending in those donations to her nonprofit — the one she claims is all about saving Arizona but I suspect is more about building her bank account and keeping herself politically relevant.

And so, to Lake’s reaction of her latest defeat:

“BREAKING: I told you we would take this case all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. Buckle up, America!” she tweeted, along with a helpful link to her nonprofit.

Election denial, after all, is a lucrative business and Lake is not about to disembark from this particular gravy train.

Here in the real world, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson bent over backwards to give Lake her day in court in December.

Two days, actually, in which the judge afforded her every opportunity to prove that a Maricopa County elections officer intentionally rigged the Nov. 8 election and that as a result, Lake lost.

Instead, Lake presented a parade of witnesses who offered up opinions, speculation and a sizable amount of wishful thinking to convince the judge that the Republican nominee was the victim of a fiendish plot by the Republican-run county.

In a 10-page ruling issued on Christmas Eve, Judge Thompson eviscerated the testimony of each of Lake’s witnesses ... from the partisan pollster who testified that his exit poll showed she should have won ... to the cyber expert who claimed the county shrunk ballots so they couldn’t be counted, before conceding that those ballots

still would have been counted.

In a 12-page ruling issued late Thursday, the Court of Appeals agreed with Thompson on every point.

For example, on Lake’s claim that a plot was afoot to shrink ballots or otherwise make them unreadable to tabulators:

“Lake presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by on-site tabulators were not able to vote,” Judge Cattani wrote. “To the contrary, Lake’s cybersecurity expert confirmed that any misconfigured ballots (or ballots that on-site tabulators could not read for other reasons) could be submitted physically through secure ‘Door 3,’ duplicated onto a readable ballot by a bipartisan board at Maricopa County’s central tabulation facility, and ultimately counted.”

On her claim that long lines on Election Day resulted in tens of thousands of her voters not casting a ballot:

“But Lake’s only purported evidence that these issues had any potential effect on election results was, quite simply, sheer speculation,” he wrote.

And on her claim that Maricopa County slipped in 25,000 extra ballots because an election night estimate of “over 275,000” or “275,000+” early ballots dropped off on Election Day differed from the precise count of 291,890 given once all the ballots were scanned:

“Questionable mathematics aside, Lake does not explain (or offer any legal basis) for how the difference between an initial estimate and a final, precise figure invalidates any vote,” he wrote.

And so, Lake lost. Again.

“Voters were able to cast their ballots,” the appellate judges wrote. “Votes were counted correctly.”

After 100 days of stomping her foot and spreading disinformation and running around the country defaming the state’s election workers, I’d like to think the perpetually aggrieved Lake would just stop.

That’d she muster up some shred of class and dignity and at long last accept the verdict of the voters. And the judge. And the three appellate judges.

Forget this phony quest for “election integrity.” Go on a hunt for some personal integrity.