‘Major ethical problem’: Kari Lake’s Dem opponent is the election chief, won’t recuse herself – press shrugs

As the counting drags on into week two in Maricopa County, the chances that Republican candidate Kari Lake will become the next governor of Arizona remain in limbo with some suspecting foul play due to the obvious conflict of interest of her Democrat opponent being in charge of elections.

Not only did Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs decline to debate her conservative adversary, she also refused to recuse herself as the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse in what has now become yet another election that has been conducted under a cloud of suspicion that does little to instill voter confidence that she doesn’t have her thumb on the scale of democracy.

Lake joined Fox News host Maria Bartiromo to discuss the problems with the election as well as the “major ethical problem” of Hobbs not recusing herself as election chief on “Sunday Morning Futures,” with her political fate now dependent on a process overseen by her opponent.

(Video: Fox News)

After updating Bartiromo’s viewers on the glacial rate of progress and vowing to fix the process if she prevails, Lake said, “It’s embarrassing, it’s wrong, and we need people who are competent running our elections. This incompetency or maladministration is outrageous and I think the good thing is more people are waking up to the fact that Arizona has real troubles when it comes to elections. But I’m willing to wait until every vote is counted. I think every candidate should wait until every vote is counted.”

She also told the host that she had no idea of when the counting would be completed and that “wishy-washy” officials were unable to provide a definite date for a process that could drag on for a good while with the goalposts being moved. One of them, the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates left the door open for counting to extend into the week during an interview with CNN.

Later in the segment, the topic turned to Hobbs and her unethical insistence to not step away from an election that she was running in.

“Is it true that your opponent, Katie Hobbs, is actually in charge of elections?” Bartiromo asked. “I mean, she’s the secretary of state, right? So is she, at the end of the day, the one who’s in charge of an election that involves her?”

“Partially, yes,” Lake responded. “She has — she will be the one that would certify the election. She has a lot to do with registration, voter registration, all kinds of things, the voter rolls, and advising counties on how many ballots they’ll need and such.”

“Why didn’t she recuse herself? Why didn’t she recuse herself? She’s part of the election,” asked Bartiromo.

“That’s a very good question,” Lake replied. “And we called for her to recuse herself July of last year, of 2021, right after we got into the race recognizing that there’s a major ethical problem there. Obviously, just the optics of it looks bad, and she didn’t do that even though many people have been calling for her to recuse herself. It creates problems, to say the least.”

As of early Monday morning, Fox News’ election tracker has Hobbs with a 26,011 vote lead over Lake with 93 percent reported in.

(Image: Screengrab/Fox News)

If Lake eventually manages to prevail despite the obstacles, one of her top priorities needs to be fixing an elections system that is more befitting of a third-world country than the United States of America before 2024 when the whole enchilada will be in play.

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Chris Donaldson

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