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Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s lawsuit against Maricopa County will go to trial, a judge ruled late Monday.

Lake filed the lawsuit December 9, alleging that “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected” the Nov. 8 election and led to Hobbs being declared the winner, and “contains more than 270 exhibits of evidence.” Lake’s suit also relies on expert witness testimony.

Last week Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson agreed to allow Lake’s legal team to “inspect a small number of printed and early ballots from the election, including 50 that were marked ‘spoiled’ on Election Day.” That inspection has not occurred yet; it is scheduled to begin Tuesday, December 20.

Then, after a hearing Monday:

…Thompson tossed eight of the claims in Lake’s lawsuit, but allowed two to remain that alleged an intentional plot by officials to manipulate the election in favor of Lake’s Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. In two separate orders, he ruled that a two-day trial will take place before Jan. 2, and that Hobbs and County Recorder Stephen Richer would be required to testify as Lake wished.

Order your popcorn now.

The ruling stated that Lake has “alleged intentional misconduct sufficient to affect the outcome of the election and thus has stated an issue of fact that requires going beyond the pleadings,” and that at trial Lake must show that the county’s printer malfunctions were intentional and designed to affect the election results, and that the actions “did actually affect the outcome.”

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While Hobbs’ attorneys argued that “Lake’s case should be thrown out because it doesn’t adhere to state standards for a valid election complaint” and asked for sanctions against Lake and her attorneys:

Kurt Olsen, one of Lake’s attorneys, meanwhile portrayed the lawsuit as an expose of systemic problems, failures and possible illegal acts by election officials that led to “massive failure” at the polling stations and “tens of thousands” of disenfranchised voters.

Lake’s attorneys for the suit include Bryan Blehm, who was a lawyer for Cyber Ninjas, the contractor hired by the state Senate for its review of the 2020 election, and Olsen, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who recently was ordered to pay sanctions in a federal suit brought by Lake and Finchem that a judge said contained frivolous and baseless claims.

Olsen, who spoke after the county lawyers, said the judge should put stock in the affidavit of “top cyber expert” Clay Parikh, whose analysis concluded that the county’s “system-wide” failures could only be explained by intentional manipulation of county officials. An analysis “based on science” also showed that 15,000 to 29,000 votes were disenfranchised, Olsen said. He also claimed the county mysteriously “found” 25,000 “extra voters” two days after the polls closed.

Former RNC chair Michael Steele’s December 17 tweet to Lake didn’t age well.

Lake will update the crowd at Turning Point USA’s AMFEST in Phoenix Tuesday, she announced.

RedState will be there to cover those remarks.

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