The Democratic governor-elect of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, asked a court on Monday to sanction her defeated Republican rival, Kari Lake, over her failed effort to overturn the election result.
On Saturday, a judge rejected Lake’s lawsuit challenging the counting and certification of the November election in a bid to be declared the winner despite a lack of evidence of voter fraud.
Hobbs has now joined a motion by Maricopa county for sanctions on Lake and her attorneys, in which the county deputy attorney, Thomas P Liddy, said Lake filed a “groundless” lawsuit for a “frivolous pursuit”.
“Enough really is enough,” Liddy wrote in the motion, which was filed on Monday. “It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against elections officials.”
The motion had “no basis in law or fact”, lawyers for Lake responded on Monday evening, asking the court to deny the request.
“Trust in the election process is not furthered by punishing those who bring legitimate claims as plaintiff did here,” the lawyers said. “In fact, sanctioning plaintiff would have the opposite effect.”
Sanctions would be in the form of a financial penalty imposed by a judge for violation of a court rule or misconduct.
Lake targeted Hobbs, currently Arizona’s secretary of state and governor from next week, along with top officials in Maricopa county. The Republican’s suit claimed “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election” in the state’s most populous county.
In a separate filing, Hobbs asked the superior court in Maricopa county to award her more than $600,000 to compensate for fees and expenses accrued in defending Lake’s lawsuit.
Lake, a former TV news anchor, was one of the most high-profile Republicans in the midterm elections to embrace Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud in 2020. She lost but refused to concede and continued making unconfirmed claims about election improprieties.
Lake was one of the most prominent Trump-aligned Republicans to lose battleground-state races.