Republican Kari Lake on Thursday refused to concede her loss in the Arizona gubernatorial race and suggested she plans to challenge the result, The Hill reports.
The Associated Press this week projected Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs as the winner of the election after Lake failed to make up enough ground to catch up.
Lake, who complained about voting machine issues in Maricopa County on Election Day, stayed silent most of the week as her allies, including former President Donald Trump, stoked conspiracy theories about her loss.
“Arizonans know BS when they see it,” Lake tweeted after the election was called.
Lake, a former TV news anchor, was one of the Republican Party’s top prospects and one of its most prominent election deniers.
Lake speaks:
Lake finally broke her silence on Thursday in a video.
"Our election officials failed us miserably," Lake said. "What happened to Arizonans on Election Day is unforgivable. Tens of thousands of Maricopa County voters were disenfranchised. Now, I'm busy here collecting evidence and data. Rest assured I have assembled the best and brightest legal team and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week."
Officials push back:
Bill Gates, the Republican Maricopa County Board of Supervisors chair, and vice-chair Clint Hickman pushed back on claims that Maricopa voters were disenfranchised.
“The good news is election administration has built in redundancies — backup plans when things don’t go as planned,” they said in a joint statement.
“This enables all valid votes to count even if technology, on occasion, fails,” the statement continued. “Voters impacted by the printer issue had several ways to cast their ballot yesterday, including dropping their completed ballot into a secure box (door 3) on site. Those ballots will be verified as legitimate and then tabulated.”
