Republican Arizona Election Official Sues Kari Lake for Defamation

A top Arizona election official filed a defamation lawsuit on Thursday against Kari Lake, the Republican who lost the state’s gubernatorial race last year and has spent the ensuing months blaming, without evidence, widespread election fraud for her loss. Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County recorder, accused Lake and her allies of “engaging in a concerted campaign to defame, threaten and isolate me” in an op-ed for The Arizona Republic published Thursday. In his complaint, Richer alleges that Lake took to rallies and online platforms to falsely claim that he had “sabotaged the election” by intentionally printing ballots of the wrong size—to jam the tabulators—and inserting 300,000 illegal early-vote ballots into the system. In a tweet announcing his suit, Richer said he’d “waited” for the defamation to end before realizing that it wouldn’t. “I AM the job,” he wrote. “Defaming me is her path to campaign donations, speaking opportunities, and national trips.”