The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Monday to certify the results of the 2022 election, meaning all but the yelling is over.
And, well, the protests, the lawsuits, and the general crying that the election was stolen directly from Kari Lake and company.
And the scammer.
To quote one of Lake’s recent funding requests: “With a contribution of $5, $10 or $35, I can reach every corner of the state and make sure Republicans know their ballot may NOT have been counted.”
Lake, others continue to launch an attack
For weeks, the leading Team MAGA candidates have been busy protesting the fact that they lost, filing lawsuits, demanding a new election, and generally doing everything they can to undermine confidence in the November 8 election in Arizona.
There was Kari Lake over the weekend, speaking out, without providing any evidence, of course, about “mass voter disenfranchisement” in Maricopa County.
“We know we WON this election and we will do everything in our power to make sure every disenfranchised Arizonan vote is counted,” he told Real America’s Voice on Saturday.
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There was Abe Hamadeh, who filed a lawsuit last week to block the state from certifying the vote or, alternatively, declare it the winner of the race for attorney general. Hamadeh lost to Democrat Kris Mayes by 510 votes, prompting an automatic recount to take place after the state certifies the Dec. 5 election.
“I’m not going to stop now. Let’s do this Arizona,” she said. he tweeted on saturday.
There was Mark Finchem, conjuring up a new and improved conspiracy theory as to why he lost to Democrat Adrian Fontes by more than 120,000 votes. “Soros controls Fontes. Soros controls the press. Soros controls Hobbs. Soros controls the affiliates. Soros controls the Sheriff. Soros controls the recorder. Soros controls the county supervisors. It is time for us to stand up to Soros and take back Arizona,” he said. he tweeted on sunday.
Naturally, Rep. Paul Gosar got in on the act. “Thousands, possibly tens of thousands of voters on Election Day in Arizona were disenfranchised and unable to cast their ballots due to Maricopa County’s unacceptable incompetence. This election needs a repeat,” he said. he tweeted on friday.
Or more likely… no one was disenfranchised.
But if some people did not, in fact, vote, perhaps the fault lies with the leaders of the America First movement, the ones who told them not to vote early and to be suspicious all along on Election Day.
Did he really disenfranchise voters?
Sure, there were problems on Election Day, as there always are. Maricopa County Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates said as much Monday.
“This was not a perfect election,” he said, shortly before the vote to certify the election. “But he was safe and secure, the votes were accurately counted.”
Interestingly, very few of the hundreds of people who showed up Monday to complain stayed long enough to hear the county debunk, in detail, its various claims about the many ways the election was stolen. But then, they have been trained not to believe anything election officials say anyway.
Clearly, the Arizona Republican Party was not interested in the facts.
“Voters in Arizona were disenfranchised. Period. we don’t care what @MaricopaVote says, “the party tweeted.
Maricopa County acknowledged Sunday problems with printers at 43 of the county’s 223 polling places on Election Day, but said no voters were disenfranchised and no laws were broken.
“Each voter was provided a ballot on which to record their votes, and all ballots cast by legal voters were tabulated, either at the vote center or at the Maricopa County Election and Tabulation Center,” he said. Maricopa County Assistant District Attorney Tom Liddy. , a lifelong Republican, wrote.
Let’s debunk those MAGA complaints with facts.
In its response to questions from the attorney general’s Election Integrity Unit, the county addressed some of the MAGA team’s biggest complaints:
MAGA COMPLAINT: Republican voters were forced to wait in line for hours, with potentially tens of thousands leaving before being able to vote.
IN FACT: The county says the average wait at the county’s 233 vote centers was 6 minutes. At 85% of polling places in the county, the longest wait was no more than 45 minutes. Seven vote centers had wait times of up to 115 minutes, but the county’s online posting of wait times showed nearby vote centers with waits ranging from one minute to 25 minutes.
MAGA COMPLAINT: Due to printer problems, voters were told to put their ballots in a ballot box to take downtown to be counted, but no one knows if those ballots were counted.
IN FACT: Since 1996, the county has used secure ballot boxes to collect ballots that the tabulators cannot read. They are then brought to the center and counted.
This year, printers at 43 polling places experienced problems on Election Day. Poll workers advised voters to deposit their ballots in those secure “Gate 3” drop boxes. Unfortunately, some voters, prepared for two years not to trust election officials, refused to do so.
“Despite the fact that this is a legal, secure, and reliable voting option, many high-profile and influential individuals have directed voters not to drop off their ballots at Gate 3,” the county reported.
Individuals like State GOP Chair Kelli Ward, who warned shortly after the polls opened on November 8, “DO NOT PUT YOUR BALLOT IN ‘BOX 3’ OR ‘BOX 3.’”
And Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, who warned: “DO NOT PUT YOUR BALLOT IN BOX 3 TO BE ‘CENTER TABULATED.’”
In the end, 16,724 voters chose to deposit their ballots in the Gate 3 drop box, either because of problems with the printer or because they used pens that the tabulators couldn’t read instead of the markers provided at the polls.
Of those 16,724 ballots, the county says 16,724 were counted.
MAGA COMPLAINT: Potentially thousands of voters left one polling place due to printer problems and went to another, but were not allowed to vote.
IN FACT: The county reports that 206 voters registered at one polling place and then left to cast their ballots at a second location. Of those, 84 successfully withdrew from the first polling place and received standard ballots that were immediately tabulated. The remaining 122 voters, those who did not withdraw from their first polling place, received provisional ballots. Of those 122, 109 were checked to make sure voters hadn’t already voted, and then counted.
Actually, Lake and company just lost
Bottom line: 193 of those 206 ballots were counted.
You wouldn’t know that, though, from the angry voters who lined up Monday morning to call supervisors “traitors” and “vote peddlers,” citing Bible passages that suggest county officials are forever doomed. and, in general, to complain about “We the People” because the vote did not go well for them.
“This is a clear disenfranchisement of voters,” said one voter.
“If you certify today, the only thing you will be certifying is your corruption,” said another, who acknowledged that both he and his wife were able to vote.
“We have absolutely no confidence in our electoral process,” said one woman.
I believe him. After all, Lake, Ward and many far-right leaders have told you for two years that our elections cannot be trusted.
Lake continued his tirade Monday, with his campaign announcing that monitors ignored “overwhelming evidence of voter disenfranchisement.”
“This”, the lake campaign tweeted“it’s far from over.”
After the state certification of the 2022 election next week, expect Lake and company to file their lawsuits challenging the election results, at which point they can present their “overwhelming evidence.” I suppose your complaints, just like in 2020, will be long on talk and light on actual evidence.
That’s because the actual bottom line is just this: Lake and his fellow America Firsters lost outright. And now he’ll spend the next two years screaming about it.
And raising money to “fight” it.
Contact Roberts at [email protected] Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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This article originally appeared on the Arizona Republic: The Maricopa County election has been certified. let the tapping begin
