Kari Lake's goose is cooked (again) as a judge tells her to move on from fairy tales

A Maricopa County judge on Thursday rejected Kari Lake’s demand that the county supply her with the names, addresses, phone numbers and signatures of 1.3 million early voters.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah said the voters’ right to privacy, freedom from harassment and fear of identity theft outweighs Lake’s right to continue her yearlong temper tantrum. (My words, not the judge’s.)

The judge’s 12-page ruling was brutal, noting that Lake, who lost her trial(s) to overturn the election, can’t keep inventing new claims as she searches for her fairy tale ending.

“Ms. Lake regards the electoral process much like the villagers in the famous fable regarded the goose that laid the golden egg, except that her goose failed to lay the egg she expected,” he wrote.

“She insists that something must have gone wrong. If only she could cut open the electoral process and examine each of its 1.3 million pieces, she says, she would be able to figure out what happened and show that the prize has been there waiting for her all along.”

Lake's supporters say the fix was in

Well, ouch.

Kari Lake is now 0-3 in her ongoing, never-ending efforts to try to prove that she was robbed of the Governor’s Office.

Naturally, the America First crowd is screaming, as it always does, that the fix was in.

This is what happens: When suckers ignore election law

(Add Judge Hannah now to the trial court judge who rejected Lake’s election challenge, the Republican Maricopa County supervisors who certified the election results, Recorder Stephen Richer who supposedly sabotaged the race and possibly the Court of Appeals … it’s hard to keep up with how vast the cabal of co-conspirators has grown.)

In response to Hannah’s ruling, Lake’s “war room” account on X (formerly Twitter) mischaracterized the ruling and noted that the records are being hidden for nefarious reasons.

“The judge ruled that while these records are public. The public has no right to see them,” it grumbled in a post.

Actually, the judge ruled that the records are not public. But back to the grumbling.

“We can no longer trust or verify,” the post continued. “Corrupt election officials are allowed to handle the peoples’s business in back rooms knowing the judiciary will not hold them accountable.”

Kari Lake remains silent on her loss

Curiously, there was no cry of conspiracy from Lake herself, other than a meek retweet of the “war room” post.

But then, she was busy trying to ease the stake out from the hearts of the McCain Republicans and independents and such as she now runs for the U.S. Senate.

“I am always reaching out to every voter,” Lake said in a quote released by her “war room.”

“I want every single vote. I want the independents, I want the Republicans, & I even want the disaffected Democrats who are kind of lifting their head up, going, ‘Whoa, this is not the Democratic Party we thought it was.’ ”

Given that Lake (now) wants every single vote from those previously despised RINOs and others who roll their eyes at her stolen election obsession, it’ll be interesting to see how far she presses forward in her demand to obtain those 1.3 million early ballot envelopes from last year’s election.

She’s been advised by national Senate Republicans to move on from the election conspiracy theories that have become her signature grievance.

My guess? She won’t be able to help herself.

Give the last word to Chicken Little

Lake’s latest loss comes in her lawsuit claiming those early ballots are public record and that she needs access to the ballot signatures in order to pursue her election challenge.

Her attorneys insisted there is no privacy interest because people’s signatures and addresses are listed on other public documents.

But the judge disagreed, saying that the records — which contain not only the voters’ signatures but their names, addresses and phone numbers — are shielded by state law to protect voters’ privacy.

And besides that, it’s too late, he says, to bring new claims. (Thus, the golden egg analogy.)

“The broad right of electoral participation outweighs the narrow interests of those who would continue to pick at the machinery of democracy,” Hannah said, in what clearly will not be the last word on the 2022 election.

Clearly, the last word in this debacle of an election challenge should come not from underproducing geese but from a different character entirely.

I’m thinking … Chicken Little?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake loses (again) as yet another judge sends her packing