Politics

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, an anti-Trump Republican who easily won reelection four years ago, learned his earliest political lessons listening to his Democratic mother and Republican father hashing out the issues of the day.

“My parents were married for 60 years before my mom died and they never voted for the same person,” Baker, 66, told The Associated Press. “The dinner table was just a hilarious series of conversations about all kinds of things.”

Those listening skills — there was a reason he was given two ears and one mouth, his mother would say — proved critical as Baker, part of a tradition of socially moderate, fiscally conservative New England Republicans, took the helm of a liberal-leaning state dominated by Democrats in 2015.

Baker battled blizzards, a teetering public transit system and once-in-a-generation pandemic. He also drew the ire of former President Donald Trump by refusing to endorse or vote for the fellow Republican in 2016 and 2020. Trump in turn, laced into Baker, calling him a “RINO” or Republican In Name Only.

“Baker is bad on crime, disrespects our police, does nothing for our Veterans,” Trump said in a 2021 email.

Baker is still reluctant to engage Trump directly, saying the GOP “has to make a decision going forward about how they want to handle that message and I hope they make the right one.” By necessity, Baker forged a bipartisan path. He could do little without Democrats.

“I’ve always thought this is a team sport. I’ve never felt like it worked if we thought about it purely through the lens of win-lose,” said Baker. “The American public is nowhere as extreme as social media and the parties would lead you to believe.”

As he prepared to leave office next week, the 6-foot-6-inch (2-meter) former Harvard basketball player is looking ahead to his next job leading the NCAA. The country’s largest college sports governing body oversees some 500,000 athletes at more than 1,100 schools.

Baker steps into the job in March.

“It’s a huge part of how a lot of young people find themselves, build a foundation of their value systems and their belief in themselves and it is a way a lot of kids in the U.S. end up going to college,” said Baker.

Among Baker’s fans is his successor, Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey, who last month became the first woman and first member of the LGBTQ community elected Massachusetts governor. She takes office next week.

Healey has praised Baker, calling him “a valued partner” who focused on common ground in an era of divisiveness.

“Governor Baker should be proud of his record of service to Massachusetts and the country,” Healey said when Baker announced he wouldn’t seek a third term. “I am grateful to call him a friend.”

The state’s antiquated public transit system bedeviled Baker as governor.

Under Baker billions were poured into replacing tracks, fixing signals and updating electrical systems even as officials dealt with runaway trains, subway cars belching smoke, and rush hour trains running on weekend schedules.

Earlier this year an entire branch of the subway, the Orange Line, was closed for 30 days to let workers complete five years worth of repairs. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s troubles even drew the attention of the Federal Transit Authority.

One bit of good news came this month with the opening of a new extension of the Green Line subway from downtown Boston to nearby Medford.

“The thing people in elective office need to understand is that you will get credit for expansion because it’s visible. You will not get credit for all the stuff you do on the core system, which is the reason why a lot of people won’t do it,” Baker said.

Ironically, one of Baker’s harshest critics is the head of the Massachusetts Republican Party, a Trump loyalist.

GOP party chair Jim Lyons has sided with the former president, who lost by double digits in both elections in Massachusetts, against Baker.

“President Trump was 100 percent correct when he declared earlier this month that ‘RINO’ Gov. Charlie Baker ‘has done nothing for the Republican Party,’” Lyons said last year. “No Republican governor in America has done less to advocate for Republican principles than Gov. Baker.”

By far the biggest challenge Baker confronted was the coronavirus pandemic.

During the pandemic’s first 100 days or so Baker held daily, livestreamed news conferences as leaders tried to get their arms around the rapidly evolving public health nightmare.

One of the biggest lessons from those early months is the need for clear and constant communication in times of crisis, he said.

“When people are really anxious about something and when there is so much information, some of which is in direct conflict with each other flying around, it’s really important for public officials to be out and to be visible on a regular basis,” Baker said.

Baker has said he hopes Healey presses for the development of renewable energy, one of his priorities. Baker had pushed unsuccessfully to put $750 million into a clean energy innovation fund.

Although he doesn’t have any immediate plans to jump back into politics, Baker wouldn’t rule it out.

He said biggest unexpected lesson he’s learned as governor was how much he and his administration would be embraced by the public.

“When you spend as much time in front of the media as we do, people treat you like you’re their neighbor. You may be the good or the bad neighbor, but they treat you like a neighbor and they tell you all kinds of interesting things,” he said. “That has been incredibly important to me.”

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PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has ordered Kari Lake, the Republican who lost the Arizona governor’s race, to pay $33,000 in fees for witnesses who helped defend election officials against Lake’s failed challenge of her defeat to Democrat Katie Hobbs, but rejected a request for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for the attorneys who defended the officials.

In an order Tuesday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson declined to impose sanctions against Lake and her lawyers, saying Lake’s failure to prove her case doesn’t “equate to a finding that her claims were, or were not, groundless and presented in bad faith.”

Thompson, who was appointed by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, pointed to a statistical analysis by a pollster who had testified on behalf of Lake. The witness, who conducts public-opinion polls and is not an election worker, claimed technical problems at polling places on Election Day had disenfranchised enough voters that it would have changed the outcome of the race in Lake’s favor.

Although the analysis was never admitted into evidence at a two-day trial last week because of its unsupported assumptions, the judge said there was no case law to rule out using a statistical analysis as a way to prove a lawsuit that challenges election results.

Lawyers for Maricopa County and Hobbs, representing her in her roles as both the outgoing secretary of state and governor-elect, had requested about $695,000 in attorney fees and other legal costs, including the $33,000 in fees for witnesses. The attorneys argued Lake’s lawsuit was groundless and brought in bad faith.

Lake, who lost to Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 Republicans promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake has not.

On Saturday, Thompson dismissed Lake’s election challenge, rejecting her claim that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct. The judge concluded that the those failures didn’t affect the results of the election.

Lake, who had asked the court to either declare her the winner or order a revote in Maricopa County, plans to appeal the ruling.

Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona’s voters. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion.

County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted, since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters.

Lake faced extremely long odds in her challenge, needing to prove not only that misconduct occurred, but also that it was intended to deny her victory and did in fact result in the wrong woman being declared the winner.

In early December, a federal judge ordered lawyers representing Lake and Mark Finchem, the defeated Republican candidate for secretary of state, to pay the legal costs for defending election officials against Lake and Finchem’s lawsuit that unsuccessfully sought to require hand counting of all ballots in the November election.

The judge hasn’t yet set the amount of the sanction, but attorneys who represented Maricopa County officials are seeking $141,000 in fees. Lake wasn’t ordered to pay any financial penalties in the case.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is keeping pandemic-era limits on immigration in place indefinitely.

In a ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court extended a temporary stay that Chief Justice John Roberts issued last week. Under the court’s order, the case will be argued in February and the stay will be maintained until the justices decide the case.

The limits were put in place under then-President Donald Trump at the beginning of the pandemic. Under the restrictions, officials have expelled asylum-seekers inside the United States 2.5 million times and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The restrictions are often referred to as Title 42 in reference to a 1944 public health law.

Immigration advocates sued to end the use of Title 42.

A federal judge sided with them in November and set a Dec. 21 deadline to end the policy. Conservative-leaning states appealed to the Supreme Court, warning that an increase in migration would take a toll on public services and cause an “unprecedented calamity” that they said the federal government had no plan to deal with.

Roberts, who handles emergency matters that come from federal courts in the nation’s capital, issued a stay to give the court time to more fully consider both sides’ arguments.

The federal government asked the Supreme Court to reject the states’ effort while also acknowledging that ending the restrictions abruptly would likely lead to “disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings.”

The Supreme Court’s decision comes as thousands of migrants have gathered on the Mexican side of the border, filling shelters and worrying advocates who are scrambling to figure out how to care for them.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s top elections official fully certified results from the November vote late last week after recount petitions in some counties had delayed the process, the Department of State said Tuesday.

An agency spokesperson said acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman completed certification of all races in the 2022 midterm election on Thursday.

The final tally was issued less than two weeks before members of Congress and state lawmakers are due to be sworn in on Jan. 3. The inauguration of the state’s next governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, will be held Jan. 17.

Recount petitions in at least 27 of the state’s 67 counties, covering 172 voting precincts, caused delays as some county elections boards waited until litigation was resolved before sending in their own certifications to the state.

The Department of State said certificates of election and official results were shipped to Congress and arrived on Thursday — documents the agency had hoped to get to Washington by mid-December.

Conservatives voicing concerns about the accuracy and reliability of Pennsylvania’s voting machines and procedures filed most of the petitions. The majority were dismissed, but county judges did authorize at least 19 precinct recounts in six counties that moved vote totals barely or not at all.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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WASHINGTON (AP) — When he ran for the White House, Joe Biden told voters his presidency would be a bridge to the next generation. His first two years on the job have revealed it to be a much more ambitious venture.

As he nears the halfway mark on his first term, Biden is pointing to legacy-defining achievements on climate change, domestic manufacturing and progress on the COVID-19 pandemic — all accomplished with razor-thin majorities on Capitol Hill and rather dim views from the public.

Biden’s legislative accomplishments extend to nearly every aspect of American life -– although their impact may take years to be felt in some cases — and his marshaling of a global coalition to back Ukraine’s defenses and of democracies against China’s growing influence will echo for decades. He defied history in the midterm elections, persuading voters to stick with his vision of long-term gains despite immediate concerns about inflation and the economy.

It turns out his conception of the job is about far more than restoring democratic norms and passing the baton, as the 80-year-old president looks toward an announcement in early spring that he’ll run again despite his record-setting age.

The road ahead will be far tougher: Republicans take control of the House on Jan. 3, the threat of recession looms during stubbornly high inflation, and sustaining support for Ukraine will be harder as the conflict approaches the one-year mark.

The next two years also will be complicated by a heavy overlay of 2024 presidential politics. And whatever Biden’s accomplishments, his job approval rating remains underwater and voters have expressed doubts about his capacity to lead. Biden swats away questions about his ability to hold up with a dismissive “watch me.”

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, echoing a refrain among presidential aides from chief of staff Ron Klain on down, says Biden has been “frequently underestimated.”

“I don’t think he ever thought of himself as a caretaker,” she said. “He came in with an unbelievably ambitious agenda, and a core belief that he had to preside over many investments in America and American workers, American infrastructure, American manufacturing, that presidents had not done or not been able to get done for decades before him.”

In the 2020 campaign, Biden offered himself as an experienced hand ready to step in to stabilize a pandemic-weary nation, but who was also mindful of a clamoring for fresh leadership.

“Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said in March 2020, as he campaigned in Michigan with younger Democrats, including now-Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”

A week later, he swatted back at primary rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ agenda saying, “People are looking for results, not a revolution.”

Those statement have often been thrown back at Biden by Democratic critics of two minds: moderates who have wanted him to curb the ambition of his agenda as he’s navigated an often-rocky legislative path, and progressives urging him to step aside in 2024.

“Nobody elected him to be F.D.R.,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., told The New York Times pointedly last year as Biden’s agenda appeared at a stalemate, a line that was seized on by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy to critique Biden’s agenda.

Meanwhile, some prominent Democrats have publicly declined to endorse Biden’s reelection when confronted with the question, and the progressive group RootsAction is running ads in New Hampshire — recently unseated by Democrats as the first state on the primary calendar — calling on Biden to step aside for younger blood in 2024.

Biden aides and allies argue that such critics miss the point — that Biden never set out merely keep the seat warm for the whippersnappers to follow, nor does he believe he’s finished the job. His successes of late have quieted many doubters — though some in his party still harbor private doubts.

“He couldn’t have thought about it more differently,” said Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director and longtime Biden aide. “He’s leading with his experience, and the next generation is leading alongside him.”

Bedingfield pointed to Biden’s relatively youthful Cabinet and to Democratic candidates across the country who won election in the 2022 midterms by running on the president’s agenda.

Says Democratic political consultant Jesse Ferguson: “He’s not giving a hand-off; he’s really giving a leg up to the next generation and people are responding to that.”

For restive young voters who may have once gravitated toward the younger crop of Democrats, Biden pollster John Anzalone said the president is offering proof of “getting things done for the new generation.”

“You saw that in how they voted in the 2022 cycle and you’ll see that in 2024,” he added.

Yet while younger voters skewed toward Democrats in the 2022 midterms, their enthusiasm waned from 2020, when dislike for the chaotic presidency of Donald Trump drove them to the polls in greater numbers. It’s a potential warning sign for Biden, especially if the GOP nominates a fresh face.

Biden entered the White House almost two years ago with pent up expectations but long odds for delivering on them with the slimmest of margins in Congress. Right out of the gate, he secured passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. But then he quickly ran into hurdles with a series of even larger proposals first billed as the “American Families Plan” and later the “Build Back Better” package.

A tortuous period of on-again, off-again talks with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin pared back those proposals and weighed down Biden and his White House for months, even after passage of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law.

In the legislative morass and the fallout from the darkest moment yet of Biden’s presidency — the chaotic withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan last summer — Biden’s approval rating plummeted.

It wasn’t until mid-2022, as the midterm elections loomed, that Biden was able to break through the gridlock and secure legislation that would make for the most productive first-term Congress since President Lyndon Johnson, with bipartisan action on gun violence and rebooting domestic high-tech manufacturing, and Democrats-only investments in combating climate change and lowering drug costs.

“He had a big ambition for this presidency, in particular the need to make generationally important investments in the country, things that have been left undone, really for years, in many cases — the investment in the country itself,” said Biden senior adviser Steve Richetti. Biden, he said, set out to “restore the sense of what the presidency and what a president are capable of.”

Still, Biden fell short on some popular 2020 campaign promises, particularly on what his aides had billed as “human infrastructure” like free community college — a priority of first lady Jill Biden — expanding paid family leave and early childcare. And his fall pledge to forgive much of the nation’s publicly held student debt has been frozen pending Supreme Court arguments in February.

Biden’s next two years, aides say, will be necessarily constrained. Democrats lost unified control of Congress and his priorities will shift toward implementing new initiatives and reminding Americans of their impact as he heads into reelection. Biden, they said, will continue to look for areas of bipartisan cooperation, but little is expected on his biggest priorities like banning assault-style weapons and codifying a nationwide right to abortion.

Instead, he’ll look to highlight and build upon popular programs, like a $35 monthly cap on insulin costs for those on Medicare, that are set to take effect in January, while Cabinet agencies work to award and track hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending.

“The next two years are about those solutions impacting people’s daily lives and that starts with the insulin cap on Jan. 1,” Ferguson said.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Three buses of recent migrant families arrived from Texas near the home of Vice President Kamala Harris in record-setting cold on Christmas Eve.

Texas authorities have not confirmed their involvement, but the bus drop-offs are in line with previous actions by border-state governors calling attention to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

The buses that arrived late Saturday outside the vice president’s residence were carrying around 110 to 130 people, according to Tatiana Laborde, managing director of SAMU First Response, a relief agency working with the city of Washington to serve thousands of migrants who have been dropped off in recent months.

Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive Sunday but found out Saturday that the group would get to Washington early, Laborde said. The people on board included young children.

Some were wearing T-shirts despite temperatures hovering around 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9 degrees Celsius). It was the coldest Christmas Eve on record for Washington, according to the Washington Post.

Laborde said employees had blankets ready for the people who arrived on Christmas Eve and moved them quickly onto waiting buses for a ride to an area church. A local restaurant chain donated dinner and breakfast.

Most of the arrivals were headed to other destinations and expected to remain in Washington only briefly.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday morning. His office said last week that Texas has given bus rides to more than 15,000 people since April to Washington, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, are strong critics of President Joe Biden on his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, where thousands of people are trying to cross daily, many to seek asylum. Officials on both sides of the border are seeking emergency help in setting up shelters and services for migrants, some of whom are sleeping on streets.

Republicans argue Biden and Harris, designated the administration’s point person on the root causes of migration, have relaxed restrictions that induced many people to leave their countries of origin. Biden has ended some policies but kept others enacted by former President Donald Trump, whose administration also grappled with spikes in border crossings and at one point separated immigrant families and children as a deterrence initiative.

White House spokesperson Abdullah Hasan called the bus drop-offs a “cruel, dangerous, and shameful stunt.”

“As we have repeatedly said, we are willing to work with anyone – Republican or Democrat alike – on real solutions, like the comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures President Biden sent to Congress on his first day in office, but these political games accomplish nothing and only put lives in danger,” Hasan said in a statement Sunday.

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EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — As Republican Tyler Kistner’s closing ad aired last month in one of the most competitive congressional districts in the U.S., Vickie Klang felt that something was missing.

The 58-year-old veterinary technician and self-described independent voter watched as the 30-second spot showed grainy black-and-white images of President Joe Biden with two-term Democratic Rep. Angie Craig superimposed alongside him. The narrator ominously described life in America as “dangerous and unaffordable” because of an alliance between the two Democrats.

Absent from the ad, Klang thought, was anything close to a solution beyond electing Kistner.

“You’re never telling me what you’re going to do for the state or the country,” Klang recalled. “That’s a huge turnoff.”

Klang ultimately backed Craig, contributing to a 5 percentage point win for a Democratic incumbent whom Republicans spent more than $12 million to unseat. From Maine to California, Republicans faced similar unexpected setbacks with the small but crucial slice of voters who don’t identify with either major party, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping national survey of the electorate.

Republican House candidates nationwide won the support of 38% of independent voters in last month’s midterm elections, VoteCast showed. That’s far short of the 51% that Democrats scored with the same group in 2018 when they swept into power by picking up 41 seats. The GOP’s lackluster showing among independents helps explain why Republicans flipped just nine seats, securing a threadbare majority that has already raised questions about the party’s ability to govern.

Some Republican strategists say the finding is a sign that messages that resonate during party primaries, including searing critiques of Biden, were less effective in the general election campaign because independent voters were searching for more than just the opposition.

“You’ve got to tell them what you’re going to do,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster and senior adviser to House Republicans who had been critical of GOP candidates’ messaging strategy this year. “Somehow the Republican campaigns managed not to do that. And that’s a real serious problem.”

In the northern reaches of Minnesota’s 2nd congressional district, a swath of lakes and onetime farm country teeming with development near the Twin Cities, more than a dozen independent voters echo Winston’s assessment.

Unlike Klang, who grew up in a union Democratic household, Steve Stauff of Shakopee, 20 miles (32 kilometers) west, was raised in a rural, conservative Republican home. The two share a recent history of voting for Republican and Democratic statewide candidates, as well as for independent candidate for governor Jesse Ventura in 1998.

But Kistner’s message, like those of other losing Republican challengers in targeted races, appeared aimed more at Republicans than swing voters: simply linking Craig with Biden, whose job disapproval ratings had outpaced approval, and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, widely unpopular with Republicans.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came out with a campaign proposal in September titled “Commitment to America,” billed as a GOP agenda. However, the proposal, a collection of repackaged goals such as increased domestic petroleum production, was light on details and mentioned little during the campaign.

“We were just being told, ‘Pelosi bad, Biden bad, therefore Craig bad,’ instead of hearing ‘This is my plan to represent this district,’” said Stauff, a 42-year-old sales representative. “If you don’t bring me solutions to whatever problems you think we have, how can I take you seriously?”

VoteCast suggests that independent voters distinguished between the problems facing the U.S. and Biden’s culpability for them. While few independents said the economy is doing well and about two-thirds disapproved of Biden’s handling of it, independents were slightly more likely to say inflation is the result of factors outside Biden’s control than that Biden is to blame, 51% to 47%, according to the survey.

But that nuance was often missing from the GOP’s political message.

An October Kistner ad included the claim, “Feeling hopeless? Thank Joe Biden and Angie Craig,” a point that failed to land with Kathy Lewis, an independent voter from Lakeville, Minnesota.

“I understand how that is so hard on people,” said Lewis, a 71-year-old school board member in the Republican-leaning exurb southwest of St. Paul. “I’ve never really believed the president, no matter who it is … ever really controlled the inflation. They may have had an effect on it, but they didn’t really control it one way or the other.”

Democrats did significantly better among true independents and those who lean toward a party than they have in recent midterms when they have also held the White House, according to analysis of Pew Research Center post-election surveys of self-identified voters in 2014, 2010 and 1998.

While questions remained into the fall about the role the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning the 1973 landmark abortion rights precedent Roe v. Wade would play in the election, several 2nd District Minnesota independents cited it as a driving issue in their support for Craig.

About 7 in 10 independent voters who don’t side with either party think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to VoteCast, which also found many voters across party lines were hesitant to support candidates who were considered extreme.

Pamela Olson, an independent from rural Farmington, Minnesota, said she doesn’t typically vote on a single issue. Nor did she vote for Craig in 2020. That changed with the court’s decision, in light of Craig’s support for abortion rights and Kistner’s opposition in most cases.

“It’s about freedoms in this country. And I think it is completely up to a woman and her doctor,” said Olson, a 56-year-old engineer. “There needs to be a choice for those individuals, not for somebody else to tell you what to do.”

Besides the contention that GOP candidates did not focus on independents, Winston suggests that independent voters might be hesitating to lurch toward the alternative after the turmoil of Donald Trump’s presidency.

“Change has to be something they are willing to vote for, as opposed to just the kneejerk reaction that ‘this is bad so I’m just going to go another direction,’” Winston said.

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Fingerhut reported from Washington.

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Find the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. Learn more details about AP VoteCast’s methodology at https://www.ap.org/votecast.

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PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has thrown out Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, rejecting her claim that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct.

In a decision Saturday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who was appointed by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, found that the court did not find clear and convincing evidence of the widespread misconduct that Lake had alleged had affected the result of the 2022 general election. Lake will appeal the ruling, she said in a statement.

The judge said Lake’s witnesses didn’t have any personal knowledge of intentional misconduct.

“The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence,” Thompson said.

Lake, who lost to Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 Republicans promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake has not. Instead, she asked the judge to either declare her the winner or order a revote in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona’s voters.

In the ruling, the judge acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of voters who were inconvenienced in the election and noted that setting aside the results of an election “has never been done in the history of the United States.”

“But this Court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry,” the judge continued. “It is to subject Plaintiff’s claims and Defendants’ actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law.”

Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion.

County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted, since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters. They are in the process of investigating the root cause of the printer problems.

Lake’s attorneys also claimed the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where a contractor scans mail ballots to prepare them for processing. They claimed workers at the facility put their own mail ballots into the pile, rather than sending their ballots through normal channels, and also that paperwork documenting the transfer of ballots was missing. The county disputes the claim.

Lake faced extremely long odds in her challenge, needing to prove not only that misconduct occurred, but also that it was intended to deny her victory and did in fact result in the wrong woman being declared the winner.

Her attorneys pointed to a witness who examined ballots on behalf of her campaign and discovered 14 ballots that had 19-inch (48-centimeter) images of the ballot printed on 20-inch paper, meaning the ballots wouldn’t be read by a tabulator. The witness insisted someone changed those printer configurations, a claim disputed by elections officials.

County officials say the ballot images were slightly smaller as a result of a shrink-to-fit feature being selected on a printer by a tech employee who was looking for solutions to Election Day issues. They say about 1,200 ballots were affected by turning on the feature and that those ballots were duplicated so that they could be read by a tabulator. Ultimately, these ballots were counted, officials said.

A person who takes public opinion polls testified on behalf of Lake, claiming technical problems at polling places had disenfranchised enough voters that it would have changed the outcome of the race in Lake’s favor. But an expert who was called to testify by election officials said there was no evidence to back up the pollster’s claim that 25,000 to 40,000 people who would normally have voted actually didn’t cast ballots as a result of Election Day problems.

A witness called on behalf of Lake acknowledged that that people who had their vote rejected by tabulators or ballot-on-demand printers — an occurrence for many voters — could still cast a ballot and have it counted.

“The BOD printer failures did not actually affect the results of the election,” the judge said.

Thompson had previously dismissed eight of the 10 claims Lake raised in her lawsuit. Among those was Lake’s allegation that Hobbs, in her capacity as secretary of state, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer engaged in censorship by flagging social media posts with election misinformation for possible removal by Twitter. He also dismissed her claims of discrimination against Republicans and that mail-in voting procedures are illegal.

Hobbs takes office as governor on Jan. 2.

Earlier on Friday, another judge dismissed Republican Abraham Hamadeh’s challenge of results in his race against Democrat Kris Mayes for Arizona attorney general. The court concluded that Hamadeh, who finished 511 votes behind Mayes and hasn’t conceded the race, didn’t prove the errors in vote counting that he had alleged.

A court hearing is scheduled Thursday to present results of recounts in the races for attorney general, state superintendent and for a state legislative seat.

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A third case of a defendant who was arrested by an elections police unit created by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a Republican-controlled Florida Legislature has been thrown out.

Terry Hubbard, 63, was among 20 people arrested last August on criminal charges of illegal voting in 2020 in what was the first major action taken by the the Republican’s controversial new Office of Election Crimes and Security.

A judge in Broward County this week tossed out the case on the grounds that the Office of Statewide Prosecution does not have jurisdiction to prosecute since it can only prosecute crimes that occurred in two or more counties. Two other cases were dismissed on similar grounds.

The elections police unit drew widespread criticism from Democrats and voting rights groups who feared it would serve as a political tool for the governor.

The arrests of the 20 defendants last August targeted people who were convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense and therefore exempt from a constitutional amendment that restores voting rights to some felons. Most of those charged were from Broward, Miami-Dade or Palm Beach counties, all Democratic strongholds.

DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, pushed the state legislature to create the election police unit to address voter fraud concerns that have proliferated in the GOP following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that his reelection was stolen.

Voter fraud is rare, typically occurs in isolated instances and is generally detected. An Associated Press investigation of the 2020 presidential election found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in the six states where Trump and his allies disputed his loss to Democratic President Joe Biden. DeSantis has previously praised Florida for carrying out a smooth election in 2020.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Federal proposals that would have significantly boosted security funding for election offices and heightened penalties for threatening their staff failed to advance this year, leaving state officials looking to their legislatures for support.

The massive budget bill that passed Congress on Friday will send $75 million in election security grants to states, an amount that falls far short of what many officials had sought as state and local election workers have been targeted with harassment and even death threats since the 2020 presidential election. They also were disappointed that proposals to make such threats a federal crime with more severe penalties fizzled.

Absent federal action, several state election officials — many of whom have faced an unrelenting wave of attacks for two years — say they plan to push their lawmakers to increase protections for themselves, their staffs and those who run elections at the local level. Some of them were confronted by angry protesters in public and even outside their homes who were motivated by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that his reelection had been stolen.

“We need to take care of the people that work in elections,” said Cisco Aguilar, shortly after he won his midterms race to be Nevada’s next secretary of state. “They shouldn’t feel intimidated or harassed going to the car at the end of the day.” He added: “We have to have their back.”

Aguilar, a Democrat, said he plans to work with Nevada lawmakers to pass a bill making it a felony to harass or intimidate an election worker or volunteer. While Democrats kept control of the state Legislature, Republican Joe Lombardo was elected governor and his office declined to say whether he would support such an effort.

In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who faced an onslaught of threats as he withstood pressure from Trump to “find” enough votes to cancel President Joe Biden’s win in the state, said he also would like to see penalties increased on those who threaten election workers. It’s not clear whether that will be a priority for the Legislature, where Republicans control both chambers.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, has said she plans to call on the newly elected Democratic majority in the Legislature to allocate $100 million annually to local election offices after clerks complained about being underfunded. She also wants to make it a felony to threaten election workers and heighten penalties for those who spread misinformation, especially related to voting rights.

She said tactics used in the 2020 election could be attempted again during the next presidential election unless lawmakers enact tougher countermeasures.

“We are looking to turn back the tide on misinformation and the violence that’s come into our political discourse,” said Jake Rollow, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of State. “We need that era to be put behind us, both in Michigan and as a country, because it’s not safe. It’s not what America’s about.”

Conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election prompted a surge in threats and harassment of state and local election officials that persists two years later. The threats have contributed to an exodus of election officials across the country, particularly at the local level, raising concerns about a loss of expertise in running elections heading into the 2024 presidential cycle.

The threats have drawn the attention of federal law enforcement, which established a task force in mid-2021 to review cases for possible prosecution. Last October, one of the cases resulted in an 18-month prison sentence for a Nebraska man who made online threats against Colorado’s top state election official. A federal grand jury on Dec. 14 indicted an Ohio man for making recent threats against an official in the Arizona secretary of state’s office.

But the number of prosecutions remains small overall as federal authorities must meet a legal standard of proving a “serious expression of intent to commit an act of unlawful violence,” which can be a challenge.

Experts say it’s critical that those making threats are held accountable and that strong protections are in place to deter future attacks. A survey of local election officials commissioned by the Brennan Center for Justice in 2021 found one in three felt unsafe because of their job and one in six said they had been threatened.

“Many have cited this as an important contributor to why they are leaving office,” said Liz Howard, a former Virginia state election official now with the Brennan Center. “We don’t have to guess why — they are telling us.”

Various proposals introduced by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Jon Ossoff and Republican Sen. Susan Collins to boost protections did not gain enough support to pass the chamber and were not in the $1.7 trillion government spending bill. Klobuchar said she would continue to seek money for election offices and noted that she and Republican Sen. Roy Blunt had pushed to allow election officials to use previous federal funding for security upgrades.

Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat who previously served as California’s secretary of state, called election workers the “backbone of our democracy” and said more must be done to ensure their safety.

“In the wake of escalating attacks on our electoral institutions, I’m disappointed that my Republican colleagues did not come to the table this year to protect the thousands of election workers who safeguard our democracy,” he said in a statement.

Some states have acted on their own. Since 2020, California, Colorado and Maine have passed legislation increasing protections for election workers. In California, this meant allowing them to keep their home addresses confidential.

In Colorado, Secretary of State Jena Griswold worked with state lawmakers on legislation known as the Election Official Protection Act, which establishes election workers as a protected class against doxing — the release online of someone’s personal information. It makes the practice a misdemeanor and allows election workers to remove their personal information from online records. It also makes threatening an election official a misdemeanor under state law.

“Congress must act to protect election officials and workers who are critical to administering free and fair elections,” Griswold said. “But in the absence of federal action, states should pass laws like the Election Official Protection Act.”

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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Gabe Stern in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report.

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