UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT KARI LAKE; MARK FINCHEM, No. 23-16022

Plaintiffs, D.C. No. 2:22-cv- and 00677-JJT ANDREW D. PARKER; PARKER DANIELS KIBORT, LLC; KURT B. OPINION OLSEN; OLSEN LAW, PC, Counsel for Plaintiffs,

Appellants, v. BILL GATES, as a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; CLINT HICKMAN, as a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; JACK SELLERS, as a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; THOMAS GALVIN, as a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; STEVE GALLARDO, as a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors,

Defendants-Appellees, 2 LAKE V. GATES

and ADRIAN FONTES, Arizona Secretary of State; MARICOPA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS; REX SCOTT, as a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors; MATT HEINZ, as a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors; SHARON BRONSON, as a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors; STEVE CHRISTY, as a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors; ADELITA GRIJALVA, as a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors; PIMA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS,

Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona John Joseph Tuchi, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted September 11, 2024 San Francisco, California

Filed March 14, 2025

Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw, Ronald M. Gould, and Patrick J. Bumatay, Circuit Judges. LAKE V. GATES 3

Opinion by Judge Gould; Dissent by Judge Bumatay

SUMMARY *

Attorney Sanctions

The panel affirmed the district court’s imposition of sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(c) and 28 U.S.C. § 1927 on plaintiffs’ lead attorneys Andrew J. Parker and Kurt Olsen (collectively “Lead Attorneys”) in an action concerning Arizona’s voting system. Plaintiffs filed a complaint in Arizona district court alleging that Arizona’s current voting system, which relies upon electronic elements, insufficiently protects the rights of Arizona voters and must be replaced by a system using exclusively hand-counted paper ballots. The district court dismissed the operative complaint for lack of Article III standing, and this court affirmed. Lake v. Fontes, 83 F.4th 1199, 1204 (9th Cir. 2023) (per curiam). The district court subsequently granted defendants’ motion for sanctions and held Lead Attorneys and their law firms liable for $122,200.00 in fees. The panel held the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding attorneys’ fees under Rule 11(c) because Lead Attorneys made false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions in their first amended

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. 4 LAKE V. GATES

complaint (“FAC”) and motion for preliminary injunction, and did not undertake a reasonable pre-filing inquiry. Central among the false and misleading allegations identified by the district court were the claims that Arizona does not use paper ballots and that Arizona voting machines are not tested. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that these factually misleading statements rendered the FAC factually insufficient and open to sanction. Further, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Lead Attorneys did not conduct a reasonable inquiry. Facts about the Arizona voting system are widely available, and the current voting system in which paper ballots are tabulated electronically has been in place for many years. The panel further held that the d