Former Arizona secretary of state hopeful Mark Finchem’s lawsuit to challenge his 2022 midterm election defeat was tossed out with prejudice by a judge Friday, affirming his rival Adrian Fontes’s victory.
Finchem argued that current Secretary of State Katie Hobbs should have excused herself from overseeing the election and rattled off a slew of concerns with election procedures — some of which Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian spurned as “fatally flawed.”
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“None of these alleged acts constitutes ‘misconduct’ sufficient to survive dismissal,” Julian wrote in a 13-page opinion. “In summary, the misconduct allegations also fail to state a claim for relief. Dismissal of the Amended Statement is appropriate.”
Under the prejudice dismissal, Finchem will be prohibited from bringing his misconduct allegations back to another court. Finchem filed the suit earlier this month alongside Republican congressional hopeful Jeff Zink to scrap the certification of their election loss at the hands of Fontes and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), respectively. They effectively called for a new election without electronic tabulation or mail-in ballots.
Finchem gained the backing of former President Donald Trump for his repeated insistence that the 2020 election was stolen from him. During his time in the state legislature, Finchem backed multiple resolutions to decertify the 2020 election results in several Arizona counties.
“Mark was willing to say what few others had the courage to say,” Trump said in an endorsement of Finchem ahead of his midterm election.
Within 10 days of Julian’s ruling, Hobbs and Fontes may pursue sanctions against Finchem, according to the opinion. Both Hobbs and Fontes filed a motion to dismiss his challenge. Finchem ultimately lost his race to Fontes by about 120,000 votes.
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Earlier this month, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake brought forth a civil complaint to overturn her election defeat and declare her the winner. She ran a tight race with Hobbs to be Arizona governor, but she ultimately came up short.
In her lawsuit, Lake echoed many of Finchem’s concerns about alleged malfeasance in the election. Local officials from places such as Maricopa County, which has been a hotbed of election denialism featured in Lake’s and Finchem’s lawsuits, have vehemently denied allegations that malfeasance transpired in the 2020 or 2022 elections.
