PHOENIX (NEWSnet/AP) — U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider a request by U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake to ban the use of electronic vote-counting machines in Arizona.

In 2022, Lake and former secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem filed a suit repeating allegations about the security of such devices.

U.S. District Judge John Tuchi ruled Lake and Finchem lacked standing to sue, because they failed to show realistic likelihood of harm. He  later sanctioned their attorneys for bringing a claim based on frivolous information.

When the lawsuit was filed, Lake was a candidate for governor and Finchem was running for secretary of state. Lake now is  the GOP front-runner for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. Finchem is running for state Senate.

Lawyers for Lake and Finchem had argued that hand counts are the most efficient method for totaling election results. Election administrators testified that hand-counting dozens of races on millions of ballots would require an extraordinary amount of time, space and manpower, and would be less accurate.

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