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Trump says Kari Lake herself was disenfranchised, couldn’t even vote in her own district

November 25, 2022 | | Print Article

Former President Donald Trump has called for either the midterm elections in all of Arizona to be redone on account of the Election Day issues that occurred or for all the GOP candidates to automatically be declared the winners.

In a Truth Social post published Wednesday, he drew attention specifically to all the “broken” machines that’d allegedly prevented “thousands of voters” from voting.

“What are they doing in Arizona about the large number of voting machines in Republican areas that just happened to be ‘BROKEN’ on Election Day, with tens of thousands of voters, standing in line for hours, unable to vote,” he wrote.

“They left the voting lines in complete exasperation, unable to return. When ‘mechanics’ went in to fix the machines, they got worse. Kari Lake couldn’t even vote in her own district. Voter fraud – DO THE ELECTION OVER, or declare Kari, Blake, Abe the winners. Act Fast!!!” he added.

Look:

It’s true that some of the machines “broke” on Election Day, as previously reported.

“Just a few hours into Election Day, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer told reporters that about 20% of electronic vote tabulation machines in the state’s most populous county were malfunctioning, and technicians were being deployed to fix them,” according to a Reuters report filed after Election Day.

“The problem was that ballots were not lining up properly inside the machines and were not being read, Richer said, adding that despite the problems all votes would be counted. Richer called the malfunctions ‘disappointing,’” the report continued.

The problems reportedly affected 60 machines, and by 2:00 pm, only 17 of the 60 had been fixed. Worried that voters might turn up to vote, be unable to vote, and be forced to return home until later, Republicans decided to file suit demanding that voting hours be extended so that the voters who weren’t able to vote had a chance to try again.

“The widespread malfunctions with tabulation machines and printers in Maricopa County, affecting over 25% of the polling places in the county at times today, were absolutely unacceptable, an embarrassment to the state of Arizona, and a violation of the civil rights of Arizona citizens,” Lake’s attorney, Harmeet K. Dhillon, said in a statement at the time.

“Kari Lake has said from Day One of this campaign that she will not stop fighting for free and fair elections to ensure every legal vote is counted. We joined this lawsuit to ensure that every single voter has a chance to have their vote legally counted and that no Arizona voter is disenfranchised because of Maricopa County’s incompetence,” she added.

The Republican National Committee also joined the suit.

However, the suit was ultimately rejected by a judge.

“Five minutes before polls closed in Maricopa County, a judge on Tuesday denied an emergency request by Republicans to allow voters to keep casting ballots for an extra three hours. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Tim Ryan rejected arguments that voters were denied their right to cast ballots because of glitches with equipment at 30% of voting centers,” as reported by The Arizona Republic.

It’s also true that Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a Republican, didn’t vote in her own district, though this was reportedly by choice.

“We switched from a Republican area to vote, we came into the heart of liberal Phoenix to vote because we wanted to make sure we had good machines,” Lake told reporters on Election Day.

WATCH: Kari Lake Casts Her Vote, Talks with Press

WATCH: Kari Lake Casts Her Vote, Talks with Press

LIVE from Phoenix, AZ

Posted by The Kari Lake on Tuesday, November 8, 2022

All this said, Arizona election officials have claimed that nobody was disenfranchised on Election Day and that every vote was properly counted.

Local station KPNX noted that although the tabulation machines stopped working, “[t]he error didn’t cause ballots to be misread, and other methods were made available for voters to return their ballots.”

Axios further noted that “[v]oters whose ballots were rejected were instructed to deposit their ballots in a box so they could be transported to the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC)” and that “[t]he affected ballots will be counted by the central tabulators at MCTEC on Wednesday.”

Trump clearly disagrees with this premise. So does Lake, who filed her own suit Thursday accusing officials “of breaking election laws” and demanding that “they provide information about voters whose ballots were impacted by Election Day printer issues,” according to The Arizona Republic.

Others have filed suit as well.

“Her legal challenge comes within days of an election lawsuit from Abe Hamadeh, the Republican nominee for state attorney general; a letter from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office requesting a formal response from the county about its Election Day printer woes; and a subpoena from state Sen. Kelly Townsend seeking information and records related to the same problems,” the Republic notes.

Vivek Saxena
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