Oops! I guess she needs to file this under unintended consequences?
Failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake put forward a "star witness" at Wednesday's trial in which she is seeking to throw Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who defeated her in the 2022 midterm election, out of office on grounds of supposed election fraud.
The only problem, wrote Laurie Roberts for The Arizona Republic, is that her witness actually torpedoed her case.
"Her attorney, Kurt Olsen, told the judge he’d be presenting evidence that Maricopa County didn’t verify the voter signatures on 'hundreds of thousands' of early ballots, instead hiring signature reviewers who just went through the motions while the county looked on," wrote Roberts. As proof, he called signature reviewer Jacqueline Onigkeit, who "spent more than an hour explaining the lengths to which county went to verify signatures — the weeklong training of workers, the two shifts of level one reviewers, three levels of signature review, the admonition to get it right."
"'They (supervisors) told us, ‘You need to be very cautious. You need to pay attention to what you’re doing and remember that whatever you reject or approve, you can be called in to testify,’' Onigkeit testified," said the report. "As a witness for the defense, Onigkeit was dynamite. The problem is, she was supposed to be the star witness for Lake."
Olsen also showed a video of an election worker who appeared to be rushing through ballot verifications as proof that they weren't seriously vetting the ballots — except it turned out that that worker was actually fired from the job, indicating the supervisors were in fact demanding real verification of ballots.
Just as Lake’s “whistleblower” bolstered the county’s case.
Onigkeit told Thompson that signature reviewers were “bombarded” with ballots the day after the election but that they were repeatedly warned about moving too quickly.
Any signatures they rejected were kicked up to level two reviewers, who would sometimes kick them back for a second look.
But even then, she said, there was no pressure on level one reviewers to accept those signatures. Meanwhile, there was a third level of people auditing their work every day for quality control.
“I don’t know who worked level 3,” she testified. “I just know we were informed … that we were being audited every day and if we were approving too many signatures or rejecting too many signatures we’d be called into an office and talked to and if it happened again, we’d be let go.”
Failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake put forward a "star witness" at Wednesday's trial in which she is seeking to throw Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who defeated her in the 2022 midterm election, out of office on grounds of supposed election fraud.
The only problem, wrote Laurie Roberts for The Arizona Republic, is that her witness actually torpedoed her case.
"Her attorney, Kurt Olsen, told the judge he’d be presenting evidence that Maricopa County didn’t verify the voter signatures on 'hundreds of thousands' of early ballots, instead hiring signature reviewers who just went through the motions while the county looked on," wrote Roberts. As proof, he called signature reviewer Jacqueline Onigkeit, who "spent more than an hour explaining the lengths to which county went to verify signatures — the weeklong training of workers, the two shifts of level one reviewers, three levels of signature review, the admonition to get it right."
"'They (supervisors) told us, ‘You need to be very cautious. You need to pay attention to what you’re doing and remember that whatever you reject or approve, you can be called in to testify,’' Onigkeit testified," said the report. "As a witness for the defense, Onigkeit was dynamite. The problem is, she was supposed to be the star witness for Lake."
Olsen also showed a video of an election worker who appeared to be rushing through ballot verifications as proof that they weren't seriously vetting the ballots — except it turned out that that worker was actually fired from the job, indicating the supervisors were in fact demanding real verification of ballots.
A few hours in and Kari Lake's trial is already over (or it should be)
Kari Lake's 'whistleblower' just annihilated her last gasp challenge of the 2022 election.
www.azcentral.com
Just as Lake’s “whistleblower” bolstered the county’s case.
Onigkeit told Thompson that signature reviewers were “bombarded” with ballots the day after the election but that they were repeatedly warned about moving too quickly.
Any signatures they rejected were kicked up to level two reviewers, who would sometimes kick them back for a second look.
But even then, she said, there was no pressure on level one reviewers to accept those signatures. Meanwhile, there was a third level of people auditing their work every day for quality control.
“I don’t know who worked level 3,” she testified. “I just know we were informed … that we were being audited every day and if we were approving too many signatures or rejecting too many signatures we’d be called into an office and talked to and if it happened again, we’d be let go.”
