Thousands came out for a Kari Lake “Save Arizona Rally” Sunday night as the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s legal team prepares to argue her election challenge before the state Court of Appeals this week of Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ win.
“I didn’t think we’d have this many people show up. We would have gotten a bigger room. You know what this shows everyone? We are so powerful when we are together,” Lake told her supporters at the Scottsdale event.
“We have four times the capacity of this room. I’m so sorry to the people outside. I didn’t realize that everybody would show up tonight,” she added.
Lake also apologized on Twitter for those who were removed from the room by the fire marshal, and later spoke to hundreds who remained outside until it was over.
Tonight’s #SaveArizona Rally proves that our Movement has never been stronger. I’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that joined & a heartfelt apology to anyone that was removed by the Fire Marshal. We had no idea we’d have such a massive crowd. I love you all so much! pic.twitter.com/kDktpoteIw
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 30, 2023
Video of the line of those seeking to get in the venue gives a sense of just how many people showed up.
Wow!!!! There is no stopping @KariLake??? Thousands of everyday people are standing up and fighting back!
We will not falter, we will not fail and we will NEVER GIVE UP pic.twitter.com/qohTlK6As7— Anthony DeWitt (@AnthonyDeWitt7) January 30, 2023
Moments after Lake took the stage, former President Donald Trump called into the meeting.
“It’s a shame what happened,” Trump told the enthusiastic audience. “They had the machines ‘broken.’ A lot of these Republican area machines were broken. It’s a disgrace. And ultimately she’s going to be victorious.”
Thank you President @realDonaldTrump for calling into our #SaveArizona Rally tonight! pic.twitter.com/pA6YjcHDFa
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 30, 2023
Lake spent a good portion of her 50-minute or so remarks discussing the chaos that happened on Election Day in Maricopa County (the metro Phoenix area).
“They stole our election in broad daylight, right in front of our eyes. They stomped on our right to vote,” she said, referring to county officials, particularly County Record Stephen Richer and Maricopa County board of supervisors Chairman Bill Gates.
Lake noted that 75 percent of voters on Election Day voted for her.
#Karizona couldn’t even be contained by the largest room at the Orange Tree Golf resort!
Going outside & addressing the overflow crowd is a memory I will never forget.
This journey has given me a lot of incredible memories. I can’t wait to make more of them with all of you. pic.twitter.com/61eMXyF98W
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 30, 2023
On the morning of Election Day, Gates, with Richer by his side, said “about 20 percent” of 223 polling locations were experiencing ballot tabulator problems.
The county later reported nearly one-third of the polling sites, 70 in all, had the issue.
Republican National Committee lawyer Mark Sonnenklar testified at Lake’s election challenge trial last month that his team of roving lawyers on Election Day found these problems at 132 locations, or 59 percent in all.
It was later determined that the ballot printers at these locations were configured incorrectly, so the tabulators could not read the ballots.
Cybersecurity expert Clay Parikh testified at Lake’s trial that the configuration error could not have been made by accident.
Lake showed a graphic at Sunday’s rally illustrating that a large percentage of those voting centers experiencing the ballot printer problem fell in Republican areas of Maricopa County.
She stated that the Republican “heat map” was reportedly hanging at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) on Election Day.
Her campaign tweeted an image of that map Monday.
?Breaking?
Maricopa County Tabulation & Election Center had a “heat map” in their central count showing “Republican Voter Dot Density.
Our team compared it with the locations where tabulator failures occurred on Election Day
This was a targeted attack on Republican voters pic.twitter.com/mB0JE8a7e4
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) January 30, 2023
“Now, I’m starting to figure out why they needed that heat map. Isn’t that something? I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” Lake said.
Lake recounted that she chose not to vote in her regular polling station on Election Day because of the tabulator problem, but asked her campaign staff to “find the most Democrat voting center in the most Democrat part of town.”
“No line. No wait. They said the machines were working fine,” the candidate reported was her experience at the polling location they chose.
I witnessed the chaos firsthand at the Anthem polling location on the north side of Phoenix, where the line was two hours at about 1:15 p.m. and again at 6 p.m.
Here is the problem w/ what happened in Maricopa County on Election Day. This is Anthem, north of Phoenix at about 1:15 pm. Ruby red district of about 30K people. Only one polling location. Ballot tabulators not working in the morning. 2 hr wait to vote midday and still at 6 pm. pic.twitter.com/CY35yQWwq5
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) November 14, 2022
The same problem of hours-long lines fueled by ballot printer problems occurred throughout the county.
“Richer and Gates intentionally printed the wrong image on the ballot on Election Day so that those ballots would intentionally be spit out of the tabulators. And then they lied and said the problem was fixed early in the day,” Lake said.
In testimony before the Arizona Senate Committee on Elections last week, Shelby Busch, with We the People AZ Alliance, said that based on log files her group obtained, there were nearly a quarter of a million ballot-reading errors on Election Day.
Shelby Busch just told the AZ Senate Election Committee that of 464,926 ballots fed into tabulators on Election Day in Maricopa County, 217,305 failed, which is nearly a 50% failure rate. How can you not order a new election?????
— Rachel Alexander (@Rach_IC) January 23, 2023
At her rally, Lake said those system logs showed that the problem persisted all day long.
The Republican showed a chart indicating that on average over 7,000 ballots were being rejected at polling locations per half an hour.
An employee with The Western Journal went to the Anthem polling location in the mid-afternoon to vote and waited two hours. He needed to feed his ballot five times before it was accepted.
Richer and Gates noted on Election Day that those who couldn’t get the tabulator to accept their ballots could put them in the notorious “door 3” to be counted at MCTEC after the polls closed.
Now, if one were concerned about the integrity of the election, taking ballots to MCTEC downtown to be counted instead of locally at the polling site could raise a red flag, especially when the reason that was happening was because the printers were wrongly configured.
At her rally, Lake also cited a lack of chain of custody paperwork for 300,000 ballots as another issue that casts the election in doubt.
Chain of custody is “basically the law that ensures illegal ballots don’t get counted and don’t infect our elections,” she explained.
She further stated that whistleblowers had come forward with information causing Lake’s legal team to conclude that at a minimum 140,000 ballots were counted with bad signatures with no attempt to “cure” them by contacting the voter to verify his or her identity.
“We have the strongest election lawsuit of our lifetime in the court of appeals right now,” Lake asserted. “We are going to win this legal battle.”
“I have a message for the twice-convicted racist Katie Hobbs is a squatter in the governor’s office. Don’t get too comfortable, sweetie,” she said.
.@KariLake: “I have a message for the twice-convicted racist Katie Hobbs is a squatter in the governor’s office. Don’t get too comfortable, sweetie.” pic.twitter.com/J1f6t5PqRZ
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 30, 2023
Last month, a trial court judge ruled in Hobbs’ favor finding that Lake’s legal team did not provide “clear and convincing” evidence of intentional misconduct by Maricopa County officials to impact the result of the race.
Lake argues in her appeal that the judge used the wrong standard, saying, based on court precedent, the misconduct that invalidates an election can be much broader than intentional action taken in favor of a particular candidate.
Oral arguments are set for Wednesday.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
