Just days after Arizona Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs certified all but two contests in the November 8 midterm elections — including her own race for the governor’s seat — her Republican opponent, Kari Lake, has filed a second lawsuit challenging the outcome, claiming that thousands of illegal votes cast “far exceed” the 17,117-vote margin of victory for Hobbs.
Lake earlier this week guest-hosted Sebastian Gorka’s radio talk show America First, telling listeners, “We have a lot to fix here in Arizona. And that’s why our movement is so powerful.” The former TV anchor has repeatedly called out the mainstream media’s slanted coverage of the voting issues on November 8 as the reason why these issues are not known or understood on a national scale:
Maricopa County is the second largest when it comes to the number of people living in it, and electoral power. 62% of our state lives in Maricopa County, and the Republican [Bill Gates] who ran the Maricopa County elections’ number one goal was to stop MAGA candidates such as myself. He even started up a PAC raising money to bring down candidates who spoke out against the 2020 election.
… We’re now seeing with Twitter and what’s coming out on Twitter, how indeed the social media giants and the tech tyrants were working to help Joe Biden lie about his influence with folks like the Ukrainians and the CCP, taking money. His son Hunter Biden, and the laptop, they were trying to keep that away from the voters to try to influence the election. And they did influence the election. So fast forward to 2022. Nothing is done to repair and fix our elections here in Arizona. The people running them are anti-America first.
On December 5, Secretary of State Hobbs, alongside Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, and state Supreme Court Justice Robert Brutinel, certified some 2.5 million votes cast in the Copper State on November 8, with Hobbs emphasizing the high voter turnout of more than 60 percent participation across the state.
“Preparing for an election is an immense undertaking,” opened Hobbs. “And while this one was not without challenges, we saw extremely high participation for a midterm election.”
Those “challenges,” however, were not small or quickly resolved. Widespread voting issues occurred throughout Election Day, November 8, resulting in the potential disenfranchisement of thousands of Arizonans. Many aired their grievances before the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors during a four-hour “election review” meeting, after which the board unanimously voted to certify the results anyway.
In her lawsuit, Lake accuses Maricopa County officials of “misconduct in connection with the widespread tabulator or printer failures at 59 percent of the 223 vote centers,” resulting in the disenfranchisement of thousands of Republican voters.
The document also states that “witnesses who were present at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center … as well as other facts meticulously gathered, show hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election in Maricopa County.”
Maricopa County, where roughly half of the state’s 2.5 million votes were cast, saw inexplicable malfunctions in tabulation machines in roughly 60 percent of its 223 voting centers. Printer issues began at 7:00 a.m. and continued into the evening. Numerous reports of extraordinarily long wait times and shoddy check-out processes by uninformed election workers frustrated voters.
When Attorney General Mark Brnovich forced the county to respond to the issues, the county defended its actions, though it acknowledged there were significant errors.
“This election was safe, secure, and accurate. That’s the bottom line,” said County Supervisor Steve Gallardo from District 5. “The rhetoric suggesting otherwise is the true threat to our democracy, and a disservice to the hard-working election employees and officials who ensured voters had the ability to cast their vote. We will push past the noise, focus on what matters, and continue to follow the law. That’s what we’re doing today with this canvass, moving Arizona forward and respecting the will of 1.56 million Maricopa County voters.”
Lake has also moved forward, vowing to stand with the people of Arizona, many of whom are on her side. In addition to outlining the “bad facts” of the “botched” election, Lake’s lawsuit also blasts Hobbs’ performance as secretary of state and asserts that gross federal violations were committed by her office and the Maricopa County Recorder and Elections Department.
“This case is about restoring trust in the election process — a trust that Maricopa County election officials and Hobbs have shattered. The judicial system is now the only vehicle by which that trust can be restored,” reads the lawsuit.
Lake further accuses Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Secretary Hobbs of participating in an act of “unconstitutional government censorship” in which the federal government also played a role, partnering with social-media companies such as Twitter and Facebook to “remove speech they didn’t like from public view.”
Lake’s lawsuit is being reviewed by the secretary of state’s office, according to spokeswoman Sophia Solis. Maricopa County officials offered no comment to Lake’s request for an overturning of the current election results and a re-vote, but Jason Berry, a Maricopa County spokesperson, did state that the county “respects the election contest process and looks forward to sharing facts about the administration of the 2022 general election and our work to ensure every legal voter had an opportunity to cast their ballot.”
In a response posted on her Twitter account, Hobbs called the lawsuit “Kari Lake’s latest desperate attempt to undermine our democracy and throw out the will of the voters.” A statement from Hobbs’ campaign called the lawsuit a “sham,” and reminded Arizonans that Hobbs remained “laser-focused” on “getting ready to hit the ground running on Day One of Katie Hobbs’ administration.”
Lake ally and former Fox News host Lara Logan was one of the few to take aim at the GOP on Friday, tweeting: “Why is Kari Lake standing alone? Where is the GOP? There should be an army around her — we know the people are.”
