The Associated Press called the Arizona gubernatorial race for Democrat Katie Hobbs at 9:30 pm Monday night. Hobbs, who stared down calls to recuse herself from overseeing her own election as Arizona’s secretary of state, is expected to certify her own election near the end of the month.
Hobbs’ opponent, Kari Lake, who had been widely expected to win, may not go quietly into the night. Shortly before the “vote dump” that preceded the call, Lake was on Fox News’s “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
(Video: Fox News)
“What’s going to happen when we hear about this vote dump?” asked Watters.
“I don’t know… We think we should be in good shape,” she said, the former confidence in her tone replaced by transparent chagrin.
She complained that in Maricopa County there were still 94,000 uncounted votes out of 158,000 total ballots that were presumably in the vote dump.
“They took our sacred vote and they just made a mockery of it,” she said.
She recounted interactions with people who had told her their stories of trying to vote, how it took hours and still left them with no confidence that their vote had been counted. “It was a half-day odyssey to cast my vote,” one voter told Lake.
“We are getting thousands of people reaching out saying the exact same thing,” said the frustrated candidate, adding, “We don’t know how many people just finally gave up because it was so hard to vote.”
As a result of the now-famous problem with the tabulators that weren’t reading votes, people were sometimes told to just put their ballot in a bin. Don’t worry, we’ll take it downtown and count it later, they were reportedly told.
“It’s an embarrassment, and I’m going to vote fight for the people of Arizona that everybody’s vote is counted. This is sacred. This is outrageous what they did here in Maricopa County,” said Lake.
Lake referred to Hobbs and her cadre of Democrat election officials who knew full well where and when Republicans were most likely to vote. They were going to show up on Election Day, and they were especially going to show up in force in Maricopa County. And shazam, whether by “malicious intent” or “complete ineptitude,” that is where the damage was done.
“The people that were supporting me they knew were showing up on Election Day. I don’t know if there is any malicious intent to the mockery they made of the people who showed up to cast their vote or if this is just complete ineptitude but either way, it’s got to stop,” Lake declared. “Third world countries run elections better.”
When she returned to this theme later in the interview, she said, “We had lines that were three and four hours long in retirement areas where people are old. And all of this happened in Republican areas.”
Watters had set this up perfectly before bringing Lake on, saying, “Was this the voter suppression that Democrats kept talking about?” At this point in the conversation, he seemed to anticipate that the Democrat machine in Arizona would produce the result they needed.
“If she comes out ahead at the end of this thing, how would you legally go about challenging this?”
In response, the former news anchor compared the situation to President Joe Biden’s 2020 “win” in Arizona.
“I can’t imagine our version of Joe Biden, Katie Hobbs, would win. She didn’t campaign, she hid in her basement.”
But then she got to the point.
“How do you certify an election that is this botched?” she asked rhetorically.
Many see corruption in the whole episode. If Katie Hobbs was interested in being seen as not being corrupt, contends Lake, she would have recused herself.
“She’s the one that would certify her own election where it was botched? Where the machines didn’t work in more than a third of the polling centers? I don’t know how we remedy this. But the people of Arizona are furious.”
Lake herself had trouble voting. She went to vote in a Republican area and was told the printer wasn’t working – not enough toner. So, she went elsewhere.
“I went to a liberal part of town and got right in and out in about 15 minutes. Funny how that works in Arizona,” she said.
Having said she didn’t know whether it was malicious intent or incompetence, Lake strongly implied which of the two she thought it was.
“[Hobbs] is in charge of certifying the machines and the two guys who are counting the ballots in Maricopa County formed a [political action committee] to try to bring down MAGA candidates such as myself. So, there’s all kind of unethical behavior going on in Arizona and the people are taking notice and they are not happy right now.”
Something this highly charged and suspicious, especially in a border state where nerves are already frayed, could cause unrest in the streets. But Democrats seem to have perfected the art of doing outlandish things and then tamping down the protest. This situation calls for more than a recount, but with Democrats controlling absolutely everything, this outrage is likely to stand, as if it were any other legitimate election.
Reactions are just now starting to be registered. We’ll see if it does anything more than simmer.
Now you know why Kati Hobbs didnt bother debating, no reason to debate when the “winner” is already chosen!
Doesnt matter the number of votes, all that matters is who does the counting!
— Free Speech (@UJGBMRIGT) November 13, 2022
Kati Hobbs was never in any lead what so ever. There is only one winner in this election and is Kari Lake. Everything else is clear fraud. As we have already seen with this tabulators not working.
— PUB_001 (@PUB_001) November 9, 2022
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