Kari Lake is doubling down on allegations of a ‘botched’ Arizona election

Kari Lake, who lost the gubernatorial race in Arizona last week, vowed Monday to supporters that she would “keep fighting” what she called a “botched” midterm election.

in one videos posted On her Twitter account, Lake said that the “2022 Arizona general election was botched and broken beyond repair,” and went on to claim voters who went in person on Election Day were “disenfranchised” by broken machines and long lines.

“This isn’t about Republicans or Democrats,” Lake said in the video. “This is about our sacred right to vote, a right that was sadly denied to many voters on November 8.”

Lake also claimed that half of Arizona’s polling centers that were open on Election Day “were not operational or had significant outages,” adding that an “overwhelming majority of voters” who went in person “voted for Kari Lake.”

The candidate, backed by former President Donald Trump, has also contested the results of the 2020 presidential election and is yet to give way to Democrat and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is set to take over as governor in January. Instead, Lake has continued to make unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in the state, particularly criticizing the state’s largest county, Maricopa.

Lake’s claims include voting problems in Maricopa County, including problems with the tabulation machines, disenfranchised voters in multiple locations on the same day. Maricopa election officials were also some of the latest to release results in the week following the midterm elections, which Lake used to bolster her allegations of voter fraud.

According to a tweet from Maricopa County Electoral Board On Monday, Arizona’s final ballot count showed that over 1.56 million voters cast their ballots in the county this year, for a turnout of 64.17 percent. The number beats the average for the past five years, the board reported, and is almost a point behind the record 2018 election, which saw a turnout of 65.5 percent.

Lake’s campaign team also reportedly threatened Maricopa officials, according to District Attorney Todd Liddy news week reported, accused a Republican National Committee (RNC) attorney working on Lake’s campaign of threatening him in a phone call. A clip of the call was also posted by the Twitter account Kari Lake War Roomwhich shows Liddy raising his voice during the conversation.

An RNC spokesman said earlier news week that Liddy’s clip shows that “Maricopa County election officials are utterly incompetent,” adding that the county “should have spent two years preparing for these midterm elections, but they failed miserably before, during, and after Election Day.” “.

news week has reached out to the Hobbs office for comment.