Kari Lake v. Adrian Fontes, 83 F.4th 1199

Plaintiffs Kari Lake and Mark Finchem, the Republican nominees for Arizona governor and secretary of state, sued before the 2022 general election claiming Arizona's electronic tabulation systems risked hacking and violated the federal Constitution.
Arizona uses paper ballots that are machine-tabulated; machines undergo laboratory certification, pre-election logic and accuracy testing, are offline, and paper ballots are retained for audits and recounts.
Plaintiffs alleged only the risk of future hacking; they did not allege any Arizona machine had been hacked or that their past votes were altered.
The district court dismissed the operative complaint for lack of Article III standing, finding plaintiffs alleged speculative, conjectural future injuries rather than a concrete, particularized, and imminent harm.
On appeal plaintiffs sought relief to bar future use of electronic tabulation systems rather than relief tied to the 2022 election; the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal for lack of standing.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Article III standing: injury in fact	Electronic tabulation is hackable and thus threatens plaintiffs' right to vote	Speculative future hacking is not a concrete, particularized, or imminent injury	No standing; speculative allegations insufficient
Candidate status standing	As 2022 nominees, plaintiffs had personal stake to challenge machines	Plaintiffs lost nominations and no longer seek 2022 relief; candidate standing likely lapsed	Plaintiffs likely lack candidate standing for 2022 claims
Particularized injury vs generalized grievance	Use of vulnerable machines personally harms plaintiffs as voters	Plaintiffs assert only a generalized interest in lawful elections, not an individualized harm	No particularized injury shown; generalized grievances insufficient
Imminence/probability of future harm	Risk of future hacking makes injury imminent or substantially likely	Plaintiffs rely on a chain of hypothetical contingences and Arizona safeguards reduce plausibility	Future harm not certainly impending or substantially likely; claims speculative

Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016) (concrete and particularized injury requirement)
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992) (standing requires concrete, particularized, and imminent injury)
Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U.S. 398 (2013) (injury must be certainly impending to establish standing)
Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149 (2014) (substantial risk of harm can support standing if plausible)
TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2021) (plaintiffs must maintain personal interest throughout litigation)
City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95 (1983) (no standing for conjectural future injuries)
Lance v. Coffman, 549 U.S. 437 (2007) (voters lack standing when only injury alleged is that law has not been followed)
Weber v. Shelley, 347 F.3d 1101 (9th Cir. 2003) (no constitutional right to a perfect balloting system; legislatures choose systems)
Pierce v. Ducey, 965 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. 2020) (abstract theoretical concerns insufficient for standing)
Curling v. Kemp, 334 F. Supp. 3d 1303 (N.D. Ga. 2018) (contrasting decision where plaintiffs alleged past access and systems lacking paper trail)