While the mainstream media has called every other state in the country for Donald Trump and almost all other candidates, Maricopa County and some other Arizona counties are still tabulating ballots several days after the election, leaving the results of the U.S. Senate race between Kari Lake and Ruben Gallego up in the air. In response, Turning Point USA and Lake supporters launched a massive ballot curing effort, and Lake sent a stern letter to Pima County about anomalies.
Arizona has not announced its presidential results even though Trump is leading by 6 points over Kamala Harris with 99 percent of precincts reporting. When Joe Biden ostensibly won the state in 2020 by 10,457 votes, or 49.4 percent to 49.1 percent, Fox News called the election for Biden on election night.
Two very reputable polls taken immediately prior to the election showed Lake ahead of Gallego; Data Orbital with 1 point and AtlasIntel with 2 points. AtlasIntel showed Trump leading in all battleground states, some by only 1 point, ultimately proving correct.
Fears are arising that there could be fraud in Lake’s race similar to what happened in her race for governor in 2022. An exit poll by Rasmussen Reports, also considered a very accurate pollster, found that Lake really won that race over Democrat Katie Hobbs by 8 points. Lake is still embroiled in litigation over her loss.
Turning Point USA launched a massive ballot curing effort immediately after Election Day to fix ballots for Lake that could not be tabulated due to some mistake, such as missing a signature. The Arizona Legislature recently passed a law limiting the ballot curing process to five days, so it will end Sunday at 5 p.m. MST.
We have hundreds of full-time staff and hundreds more volunteers curing every last ballot in Arizona for Kari Lake.
We are relentless. pic.twitter.com/nWy0RYQu0t
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 8, 2024
As of midday on Saturday, there were still an estimated 350,000 ballots left to be counted in Maricopa County.
Political journalist Garrett Archer said that the rate of ballots coming in don’t look good for Lake to catch up. He posted on Saturday, “Lake needed to hit +6 to remain competitive.”
Many pointed to Gallego’s large number of votes over Kamala Harris as a reason for concern there was fraud. By Saturday afternoon, he had 76,357 more votes than her statewide. In Maricopa County, he had 53,564 more votes than her. They also questioned how Arizona’s Secure the Border Proposition 314 passed with 61 percent, considering Gallego’s open borders record.
Lake was nicknamed “Trump in heels” by the mainstream media, and frequently campaigned with him, so many are questioning why Gallego massively outperformed Harris yet Lake massively underperformed Trump. By Saturday afternoon, Trump had 140,934 more votes than Lake.
Almost every race and ballot proposition in Maricopa County and much of the state favored Republicans, with the exception of the U.S. Senate race and Proposition 139, the pro-abortion constitutional amendment legalizing abortion until birth. Fraud is suspected in the latter too, considering there was fraud involved getting it on the ballot.
Pima County, a Democratic stronghold in southern Arizona which has long been suspected of extensive election fraud, was one of the counties lagging in results. Archer posted a purported explanation on X on Saturday, “Two page ballot needs to be organized in certain ways so it can be hand audited properly.”
When Pima County started reporting fluctuating numbers of ballots left to tabulate, Lake’s attorney Jennifer Wright, who served as the Election Integrity Unit civil attorney under Attorney General Mark Brnovich, sent them a letter. It asked for “complete transparency as to the ballots tabulated and the ballots awaiting tabulation.” Wright demanded “a complete accounting as to discrepancies that have been identified in the publicly reported data.” She pointed at the number of uncounted ballots increasing by 14,666.
Previous reports from the Pima Integrity Project found that numerous laws were violated in the county’s 2020 and 2022 elections, declaring that there was “malfeasance, incompetence, and possible criminal activity.”
Independent journalist Jamie Kranich observed that the percentage of ballots reported tabulated by Yuma County decreased between Friday and Saturday. On Friday, the county reported 60.1 percent counted. On Saturday, that decreased to 55.75 percent.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen posted on X that progressives were attempting to extend the ballot curing deadline, but he would fight it in court. “The left is suing to extend the time to determine the election,” he said. “I just authorized the AZ Senate to intervene and defend existing law so we can determine the outcome as soon as possible. It has already taken too much time! And next session will re-introduce bills to get election results, night of.” The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU and the Campaign Legal Center.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said during a press conference, “People with entire trash bags full of voter registration forms” dropped off 97,000 voter registration forms on the day of the deadline, October 7, and 40,000 of them were potentially “fraudulent,” “damaged,” “torn,” or “written illegibly.” He added that some “tried to register Mickey Mouse, Jerry Seinfeld, Donald Duck, among others…” He said it was the largest drop of registration forms ever in Maricopa County’s history.
Many are questioning why Richer, who was soundly defeated in the Republican primary for reelection by election integrity stalwart legislator Justin Heap, didn’t recuse himself from overseeing the election considering his hostility towards Lake.
Funded by the left-leaning Protect Democracy Project, Richer sued Lake for defamation for stating that he intentionally sabotaged the election, including by inserting 300,000 ballots. Those ballots lacked a chain of custody, a class 2 misdemeanor, but the county strenuously fought litigation efforts to allow Lake to inspect the ballot affidavit envelopes and other requests from her and voter integrity groups related to the election anomalies.
The Gateway Pundit obtained transcripts from Richer’s trial deposition, and released hostile statements he made about Lake. Richer said he wanted to “make life hell for Kari Lake.” The outlet also reported that he sent a text message stating that he was “anti-MAGA.”
Richer deleted his personal X account immediately after the election. He started a PAC for GOP fraud deniers shortly after taking office. He announced earlier this year, while running in the GOP primary, that he was voting for Biden.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Sorting Ballots” by Joe Hall CC2.0.
