Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was not having it when reporters wanted her to address whether she is a 2020 election denier.
“If you’re going to start throwing around terms like election denier, let’s remember who the other election deniers were: Hillary Clinton and all the Democrats,” Lake said at a Monday campaign event in Phoenix.
“Let’s talk about election deniers. Here’s 150 examples of Democrats denying election results,” Lake said holding up a handful of documents.
Two of the most prominent she identified were 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and 2018 Democratic Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams.
“So it’s ok for Democrats to question elections, but it’s not ok for Republicans. It’s a crock of BS. Every one of you knows it. We have our freedom of speech, as we’re not going to relinquish it to a bunch of fake news propagandists,” Lake said.
Let’s talk about “Election Deniers.”
I brought receipts. ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/0vzg0ecdx3— Kari Lake (@KariLake) October 18, 2022
After President Joe Biden delivered a controversial Independence Hall speech last month accusing MAGA Republicans of undermining democracy by not accepting the 2020 election results, the Republican National Committee released a 10-minute-long video of Democrats denying or casting doubt on the 2016, 2004 and 2000 elections.
Clinton appeared multiple times in the video claiming that Trump is not the legitimate president.
“You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee and you can have the election stolen from you,” she said in 2019.
Here is ten straight minutes of Democrats denying election results.pic.twitter.com/bJRbzEcIO2
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 4, 2022
The current White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, tweeted in December 2016 following Trump’s win, “Stolen emails, stolen drone, stolen election …..welcome to the world of #unpresidented Trump.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted a few months after Trump took office in 2016: “Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.”
Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) May 16, 2017
In January 2005, then-House Minority Leader Pelosi supported Democrats rising to object to the Electoral College votes of Ohio being counted in the 2004 race between George W. Bush and John Kerry. The outcome in Ohio was decisive in 2004.
“Mr. Speaker, today we are witnessing democracy at work,” Pelosi said. “This debate is fundamental to our democracy.”
She added, “Constantly shifting vote tallies in Ohio and malfunctioning electronic machines, which may not have paper receipts, have led to additional loss of confidence by the public.”
These were the kinds of things Lake and Republicans had concerns about regarding the 2020 election.
The GOP also highlighted the media’s double standard when it comes to labeling Abrams an election denier versus Republican candidates and office holders.
The party assembled a list of 35 times it found the Democrat denied the 2018 governor’s election result in Georgia.
In a Sunday interview with Lake, CNN’s Dana Bash spent over half the approximately 12-minute interchange asking the candidate multiple questions about her views regarding the 2020 election.
Bash noted that Lake has called the election rigged and stolen, but the CNN host said no evidence had been presented “anywhere” of such things.
Lake responded that there was plenty of evidence offering that there were 740,000 ballots with no chain of custody and therefore should not have been counted.
Do you think Lake won this exchange with the media?
Bash countered that such claims were debunked.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich released an interim report in April concerning the 2020 election in Maricopa County concluding that fraud did occur and uncovering serious issues related to the handling of over 100,000 mail-in ballots.
“Our review uncovered multiple violations of ballot transportation procedures,” the attorney general wrote. “Specially, our investigation confirmed that out of 1,895 Early Voting Ballot Transportation Statements, 381 forms or 20 percent were missing required information.
“This included missing audit signatures, missing ballot count fields, missing Election Department receiving signatures, missing courier signatures and missing documentation of security seals and lack of the two required seal numbers,” added Brnovich, who is a Republican.
“In other words, it is possible that somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 ballots were transported without proper chain of custody.”
Brnovich also highlighted that Maricopa County has not been forthcoming in turning over all the materials related to the 2020 general election that the AG’s Election Integrity Office has sought despite multiple requests beginning in September 2021 after the Arizona Senate turned over the findings of its audit.
Lake, in her CNN interview, went to argue, “We have the right — it’s protected with our First Amendment — to question our government and to question elections.”
“We still have the First Amendment, and when you start seeing the media cancel people for questioning their government, then that’s when we have a problem,” she continued.
Lake has called for election reform.
“We want to know that our legal vote counted,” she told Bash. “We want to know the winner on election night. We don’t want to be counting for 10 days.”
At Monday’s event in Phoenix Lake said, “When I’m governor, we’re going to make sure we have honest elections. We have the Democrats, the independents and the Republicans to all know their vote counted. We want fair honest and transparent elections, and we’re going to deliver that for the people.”
