Monday was the deadline for election certification.
QUICK FACTS:
- Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is threatening to sue Arizona’s Cochise County over their refusal to certify its midterm election results.
- Hobbs’ office requested that the Cochise County Superior Court be urged to issue a directive requiring certification by Thursday.
- In a letter last week, State Elections Director Kori Lorick stated that Hobbs must legally approve the statewide canvass by the following week.
- If Cochise County votes are not counted in time, they will be rejected, which could cause at least two close races to be decided differently.
- Two additional races in contention are the U.S. Senate race that could determine who controls the upper chamber of Congress, and the gubernatorial race where Democrat candidate Hobbs is still considered to have a slight lead over Republican Kari Lake.
STATE INVESTIGATION INTO VOTING MACHINE ERROR:
- Arizona’s Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich has indicated they are concerned about potential problems with the election.
- Brnovich has demanded that at least one county’s officials provide a statement on voting machine issues that caused delays in the battleground state during midterm elections.
- A letter from the AG’s office requested a report on the problems with printers on voting machines as details on how poll workers were trained.
- Around 20% of electronic voting machines were found to have malfunctioned in Maricopa county on election day.
BACKGROUND:
- Republican Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has continued to promise that she will become Arizona’s governor, despite mainstream news orgs calling the race for Hobbs.
- Lake doubled down on her assertion that she won the governor’s race in a statement just before Thanksgiving, days after Hobbs declared victory.
- “I believe at the end of the day that this will be turned around, and I don’t know what the solution will be, but I still believe I will become governor, and we are going to restore honesty to our elections,” Lake said.
