'BROKEN' RECORD ELEX CLAIM
Don says overturn ‘fraudulent’ Ariz. vote
Former President Donald Trump again rejected the result of Arizona’s gubernatorial election Monday, calling for Republican Kari Lake to be declared the winner due to a supposed “criminal voting operation.”
“Massive numbers of ‘BROKEN’ voting machines in Republican Districts on Election Day. Mechanics sent in to ‘FIX’ them made them worse,” Trump said in a Truth Social post without offering evidence. “Kari had to be taken to a Democrat area, which was working perfectly, to vote. Her opponent ran the Election.”
Trump added it was “SO OBVIOUS” that Lake should have bested Democratic rival Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state.
Hobbs defeated Lake by a little more than 17,000 votes out of more than 2.5 million ballots cast.
The 45th president also referenced his own failed re-election bid, saying: “This is almost as bad as the 2020 Presidential Election, which . . . was Fraudulent!”
Trump’s latest diatribe came in response to a Truth Social post by Lake that said: “Arizonans have no Faith & Trust in our Elections.”
“The Fake News ignores our Fake Elections and expect us to just ‘move on.’ We won’t,” she said.
Lake has refused to concede to Hobbs, blaming her projected loss on voting issues in Maricopa County, home to about half of all Arizona voters.
The county had problems counting votes on Election Day morning after ballots at roughly one-third of its 223 polling sites were printed with ink too light to be read by vote tabulation machines.
Affected voters had to wait in longer lines, go to another polling site or place their ballots in a box to be read later by hand. Technicians resolved the issue by about 11:30 a.m, about five-and-a-half hours after voting began.
Maricopa counting
The Maricopa County Elections Department issued a report Monday saying: “While Maricopa County’s printer issue in 2022 impacted more Vote Centers than normal, every voter was afforded the ability to legally and securely cast their ballot.”
The report found that about 51% of vote centers had a longest reported wait time of less than 15 minutes; 21% between 16 and 30; 13% from 31 to 45 minutes, and 8% saw wait times of up to an hour. About 7% saw wait times creep past the hour mark.
Lake’s team filed a lawsuit in state court on Wednesday against Maricopa County, demanding information on ballots affected by voting machine problems. Republican Abe Hamadeh, who ran for attorney general and lost by 510 votes, has filed a lawsuit against his opponent and officials, seeking to overturn his defeat.
Arizona counties had until Monday to certify their vote totals. Maricopa County’s board of supervisors voted unanimously to certify their results, while two GOPled counties held off on doing so.
In Cochise County, two Republican board members voted to delay certification amid claims that the county’s voting machines weren’t properly accredited — despite state election officials saying they provided proof that they were.
A spokeswoman for Arizona Secretary of State and Gov.-elect Hobbs said her office will sue Cochise County over the delay.
In Mohave County, Republicans postponed a certification vote until Thursday after the board chairman said officials were waiting to see Maricopa’s explanations of their voting issues.