Arizona found itself at the center of national attention on Election Day thanks to a number of controversies.
Specifically, state election officials were criticized for what appeared to be widespread mismanagement of election processes in Maricopa County. According to election officials, 20 percent of voting locations in the county had malfunctioning vote tabulators.
Because of this, lines at voting locations were incredibly long. In some cases, wait times reached well over an hour. Some voters were even turned away from voting locations and told to find another. The Western Journal received over 20 exclusive videos featuring Arizona voters explaining how difficult it was for them to cast their ballots. One voter had to wait in line for seven hours.
These same-day votes were expected to lean Republican. Red State’s Arizona-based journalist Cameron Arcand said several experts indicated as much.
The governor’s race between Republican firebrand Kari Lake and the not-quite-so-energetic Democrat Katie Hobbs — the current secretary of state responsible for running Arizona elections — was a tight one. On Monday, The Associated Press called the race for Hobbs, who holds a roughly 20,000-vote advantage over Lake.
Despite this, an inside source tells The Western Journal that Lake will not be conceding. The Western Journal founder Floyd Brown also suggested as much in a tweet.
Spent hours last night working with Lake team on a continuing war for Arizona. She will not go quietly into the night. She intends to stand and fight. She knew when she entered this race that it would be tough. Her opponents lack her courage. She is fighting for us. @KariLake
— Floyd Brown (@floydbrown) November 15, 2022
Now, of course, you know exactly how the Democrats are going to respond to this news. They’ll call Lake an election denier (despite the fact that Democrats are notorious election deniers themselves) and claim she is a threat to democracy. They’ll say the only responsible action for her to take would be to concede.
But conceding this race wouldn’t be responsible; it would be exactly the opposite.
Given what went down in Maricopa County on Election Day, there’s so much we still don’t know.
For example, how many Republicans were discouraged from casting a ballot thanks to long lines and being turned away from voting locations? How many hard-working men and women have seven hours to spare waiting in line on a Tuesday? How many have even an hour to wait or drive to another voting location if turned away?
All of this happened in an election run by Lake’s opponent. And that was far from the only conflict of interest.
As noted by the Post Millennial, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates started a PAC together aimed at combating MAGA candidates like Lake.
Hobbs, Richer and Gates ran the 2022 election in Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county. None of them wanted Kari Lake to win.
After an Election Day filled with malfunctions and barriers for same-day voters and well over a week of counting votes, all three got the outcome they were hoping for.
It doesn’t make you an “election denier” to admit something feels off here.
Lake shouldn’t concede until we have some answers.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
