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Following Republican Kari Lake<\/strong>\u2019s loss in Arizona\u2019s gubernatorial race, her seemingly dead-end quest to overturn the contest\u2019s results took one step forward and two steps backward Monday, after a judge allowed a slim section of her election lawsuit to proceed. The ruling came just over a month after the election\u2019s delayed results<\/a> were called in favor of Democrat Katie Hobbs,<\/strong> prompting Lake, a former local news anchor who is adamantly pro-Trump, to launch<\/a> her own quasi\u2013\u201cStop the Steal\u201d effort by filing<\/a> a 70-page lawsuit listing a number of dubious objections earlier this month.<\/p>\n While Maricopa County Superior Court judge Peter Thompson<\/strong> dismissed 8 out of the 10 claims filed by Lake\u2019s attorneys, two allegations are now headed to a trial.\u00a0One approved claim alleges that a Maricopa County election employee tilted the race by tampering with ballot printers, causing<\/a> \u201cidentifiable\u201d votes to go missing. The other alleges<\/a> that Maricopa County, the most populous county in Arizona, violated its stated election procedures regarding the chain of custody for mail-in ballots\u2014an issue, she claims, that led to illegal ballots being tallied. Thompson has given Lake approval to provide evidence backing this latter claim, which the judge described<\/a> as a dispute of fact, not law.<\/p>\n \u201cEvidence is not before the Court at the motion to dismiss stage\u2014pleadings, made under the auspices of Rule 11 (the rule governing sanctions) are,\u201d the judge explained, according to<\/a> the Arizona Republic.<\/em> \u201cAccordingly, Plaintiff must show at trial that the BOD printer malfunctions were intentional, and directed to affect the results of the election, and that such actions did actually affect the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the stipulations outlined by Thompson, attorney Marc Elias,<\/strong> whose team is representing Hobbs, is confident that the suit will go nowhere. \u201cProving intentional wrongdoing and that it affected the outcome of the election will be impossible for Lake,\u201d Elias tweeted Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Lake seems assured that she will come out victorious in court. \u201cThey have built a house of cards here in Maricopa County,\u201d she said<\/a> during a Turning Point USA conference over the weekend. \u201cI think they\u2019re all wondering what I\u2019m gonna do. I\u2019ll tell you what, I\u2019m not just gonna knock that house of cards over. We\u2019re going to burn it to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n