Donald Trump is continuing to push unsubstantiated claims that a "criminal" voting operation in Arizona cost Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake the election.
Two weeks after Lake lost her midterm race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, the former president suggested the election was rigged against his endorsed candidate, saying it was "almost as bad" as the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump suggested that Lake should be installed as Arizona governor over the victorious Hobbs, while making claims about the voting machines in the state.
"Massive numbers of 'BROKEN' voting machines in Republican Districts on Election Day. Mechanics sent in to 'FIX' them made them worse. Kari had to be taken to a Democrat area, which was working perfectly, to vote. Her opponent ran the Election. This is yet another criminal voting operation—SO OBVIOUS," Trump wrote.
"Kari Lake should be installed [as] Governor of Arizona. This is almost as bad as the 2020 Presidential Election, which the Unselect Committee refuses to touch because they know it was Fraudulent!"
There were a number of technical issues with voting machines in Arizona's Maricopa County on November 8, which affected ballot tabulation machines in about 60 of the county's 223 voting centers.
The issue was that printers weren't producing dark enough markings on the ballots, meaning some ballots could not be read by the machines. The issue is believed to have affected around 17,000 election day ballots.
In a joint statement, Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County board of supervisors, and the vice chairman, Clint Hickman, said that voters impacted by the printer issue were still able to cast their ballot by other methods.
"None of this indicates any fraud," Gates, who is a Republican, told The New York Times. "This is a technical issue."
Hobbs ended up beating Lake by more than 17,000 votes in the gubernatorial election.
Trump's comment was in reply to a social media post from Lake, who has still not conceded her midterm election defeat.
"Arizonans have no Faith & Trust in our Elections. Our Election Officials are incompetent (...or worse) They have failed us. The Fake News ignores our Fake Elections and expect us to just 'move on.' We won't. America will NOT survive if we don't demand Election Reform NOW," Lake wrote.
Lake, one of the staunchest of Trump supporters who backs the claim the 2020 election was "stolen" from him, had frequently cast doubt on the integrity of Arizona's election system even before the midterm results were declared.
Last week, Lake filed a public records lawsuit demanding Maricopa County hand over a series of documents related to the midterm election, including the identity of voters who may have had trouble casting a ballot and information regarding counted and uncounted ballots that were accidentally mixed.
The Maricopa County board of supervisors has been contacted for comment.
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About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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