No matter what she says, Kari Lake lost the Arizona governor’s race.
While the Republican is pulling a Donald Trump and alleging that election officials in Maricopa County rigged the election against her, that claim doesn’t make much sense. Maricopa County election officials have little incentive to rig elections against her, Trump, and other losing Republican candidates.
“Arizonans know BS when they see it,” Lake tweeted in response to media outlets calling the governor’s race for her Democratic opponent last week.
And on Sunday, her campaign account Kari Lake War Room tweeted, “Our mistake was assuming we were running against @katiehobbs for Governor. It turns out we were running against the Secretary of State & @maricopacounty.”
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the Maricopa County recorder oversee elections. But there is no indication that they hate Republicans and want liberal Democrats such as Joe Biden and Governor-elect Katie Hobbs to win. There is a 4-1 Republican majority on the Board of Supervisors, while the county recorder is also a Republican. Given that the purpose of the Republican Party is to elect Republicans, odds are they want to see Republicans win elections, including themselves.
And rigging elections for one party or another is a no-win situation for them. It’s a great way to lose an elected seat and end up in prison. After all, we live in a country where people go to prison for double voting. Imagine what would happen to elected officials who changed the outcomes of elections by tens of thousands of votes.
Problems exist with the vote-counting process in Maricopa County and other parts of the country. Any place that consistently has voting problems and generally fails to provide people with election results on the night of the election needs to improve its processes for a couple of reasons.
One is perceived election integrity. That’s not to say there is any evidence that longer wait times for election results mean that fraud or anything nefarious is happening. However, states and counties should want people to trust election results. If the results come promptly, people may have more trust in these systems.
And knowing the winners of elections gives winning politicians more time to prepare for entering their specific offices. That gives governors more time to work with transition teams and better understand the job. Plus, it helps many politicians to have time to decide which bills they want to file (for legislative positions) and who they want to hire as their staff.
So while Maricopa County should improve its voting processes, no evidence exists that these problems mean the county is trying to rig elections in favor of Democrats. After all, the Republicans running these elections likely don’t want to see Democrats elected, either.
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Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.
