The Arizona court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and compelling evidence, said Thompson, who also upheld the victory of election winner Katie Hobbs. Lake announced on Twitter on Saturday that it would appeal the decision.

The 53-year-old lost the gubernatorial election to Democrat Hobbs, who defeated her Republican rival, a fervent Trump supporter, by a margin of 17,117 votes.

Lake, who said she believed "100 percent" that she would win the election, tried persistently after the vote to raise doubts about the proper course of the election. Among other things, she referred to problems with voting machines in the administrative district of Maricopa, where queues had formed in front of some polling stations on election day. According to the responsible authorities, no one was prevented from voting.

The district, which includes Arizona's capital Phoenix, was already under intense scrutiny for unsubstantiated allegations of vote-rigging in the 2020 presidential election. At that time, Biden had won in Arizona by a razor-thin margin of 10,000 votes over Trump - which Lake continued to doubt in her election campaign in November.

Despite her defeat in the election, insiders from the Republican Party as well as media experts believe that the former TV presenter has a good chance in the race for the White House in the future.

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