OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Republican Arizona candidate for governor, Kari Lake, is celebrating what she believes is a victory for voters.
It came in a tweet where she responded to a story that said a Cleburne County , Arizona quorum court voted get rid of electronic voting machines and use only paper ballots, KARK reported.
“Americans in EVERY state and EVERY community must demand honest elections. No electronic voting machines, replace election month with election day and paper ballots that are hand-counted in small precincts. We demand honest & transparent elections NOW!” she said.
Americans in EVERY state and EVERY community must demand honest elections.
No electronic voting machines, replace election month with election day and paper ballots that are hand-counted in small precincts.
We demand honest & transparent elections NOW! https://t.co/IUBQfauU26
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 13, 2023
The vote, and the decision, came in response to Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative Inc. (CEO Colonel Conrad Reynolds’ demand for voting machines to be removed. It means votes now have to be hand counted.
“The machines do not read the names on the ballots, instead they scan barcodes, which humans cannot read,” he said. “They also utilize proprietary software that we are not allowed to examine. This all means voters cannot verify that their vote is being counted properly as mandated by state law.”
An AVII attorney noted that it is in Arkansas law that each county has the right to choose their voting process.
Cleburne County Justice of the Peace Jacque Martin voted in favor of moving to paper ballots, stating “It’s time we take back and return to having elections we can have faith in – with transparency and integrity.”
The group’s plan is to have all of the 74 county quorum courts in the state vote to do the same by early 2023.
Lake may have come up short in her bid to become the governor of Arizona, but there is good news for her. A new poll found that Lake is still loved by many in the Copper State and could become its next Senator. Even as Lake pursues her court battle over the November governor’s election, an early poll exploring the 2024 U.S. Senate race in Arizona found that Lake is in first place in what will likely be a three-way race.
According to the survey by Blueprint Polling, Lake is leading by 4 points over Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and by 22 points over incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who switched her party registration from Democrat to Independent.
“An early 2023 survey of likely general election voters illustrates that Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s path to
reelection is both complicated and unprecedented. Sinema runs a distant third in a hypothetical three-way race in the general that also includes 2022 GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Democratic
Congressman Ruben Gallego,” the survey found.
Below are some more topline findings from the survey:
Kari Lake polls at 36% in a three-way Senate race with Gallego and Sinema. The congressman follows closely at 32% while the incumbent polls less than 14%. One in six voters are undecided. Sinema draws support from both Republicans and Democrats—she gets the vote of 15% of Biden 2020 voters and 11% of Trump 2020 voters.
23% of Biden voters remain undecided in the race (compared to 13% of Trump voters), suggesting that some Democrats may be waiting to see how the race shakes out before backing a candidate. Still, Sinema’s best hope for a return to the US Senate may be for the Republican party to nominate a candidate so flawed that moderate and conservative voters would abandon that person for the Independent Sinema.
Sinema gets very little support from Hispanic voters, garnering 3% of their vote (Gallego leads Lake 41%-39% with this group), while Sinema gets the support of 17% of white Arizonans. Notably, Gallego does better with women by about 4% than with men and Sinema enjoys a similar positive differential with men.
Late is still pursuing her court battle over the November governor’s election.
Lake filed two appeals related to a lawsuit challenging her loss in the Arizona gubernatorial race in November. Lake also filed a motion to have her lawsuit heard by the Arizona Supreme Court, which was denied.
“Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled against Lake’s challenge after finding the court was not presented with clear and convincing evidence in the widespread misconduct, she alleged influenced the election results,” Fox News reported. “Lake, on Wednesday, filed an appeal with the Appeals Court on Judge Thompson’s ruling. She also filed a motion to send the appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court, asking to skip a step with the Appeals Court. Arizona’s Supreme Court denied the request to transfer the appeal.”
In its decision, the Arizona Supreme Court said, “no good cause appears to transfer the matter to this court.”
