Kari Lake calls Arizona 'the laughingstock of elections' as her race has yet to be called 5 days after election day

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

• On "Sunday Morning Futures" Arizona candidate for Governor Kari Lake lambasted the state's election process.
• It has been five days since the election on Nov. 8 and her race has not yet been called.
• Lake called the state's voting procedures "embarrassing" and called Arizona "the laughingstock of elections."

While awaiting election results that will determine whether or not she will be the next Governor of Arizona, GOP candidate Kari Lake took to Fox News to call her state's voting procedures "embarrassing."

It has been five days since election day and votes are still being counted in the battleground state's gubernatorial race, with Lake slightly behind Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs at the time of publication.

Lake, a Trump-backed candidate, previously questioned the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and on Sunday questioned the validity of Arizona's state elections that show her behind in the polls.

"This incompetency or maladministration is outrageous," Lake said on Fox's "Sunday Morning Futures" show. "And I think that the good thing is that more people are waking up to the fact that Arizona has real troubles when it comes to elections."

She went on to detail in-person delays and voting machines with no toner as evidence of the state's difficulty administering an efficient and fair election. On election day, election deniers seized on reports of malfunctioning electronic vote tabulation machines in Arizona as evidence of voter fraud, though there are no indication those temporary voting site issues impacted the election's outcome.

"This is a scam and voter fraud, no different than stuffing the ballot boxes," Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday, adding that Lake "was taken to a Liberal Democrat district in order to vote" and the election was "stolen" from Blake Masters, a GOP candidate for Senate who lost his race against Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly. Masters similarly joined in expressing doubt over the election results, saying Maricopa county had "mixed up" ballots and calling for a recount, The Washington Post reported. 

"We need to get in there and restore faith in our elections," Lake said."We can't be the laughingstock of elections anymore here in Arizona and when I'm governor I will not allow it. I just won't."

Republicans have won the last four Arizona Governor's races with between 52% and 56% of the vote. Though similar claims of voter fraud were levied against the state in the last election cycle, a Republican-led analysis of the 2020 race found elections in the state are conducted securely and had no widespread evidence of fraud, The Washington Post reported. 

Nearly 90% of the total votes have been tallied in Arizona for this year's race, with final results expected on Monday. Hobbs currently leads Lake with 50.8% of the vote for the Governor's seat. 

Representatives for Lake did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/fOAMmJL