The claims come as Lake is narrowly trailing her rival, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, with the number of votes to be counted dwindling.
Beginning early Tuesday morning, printers at 70 of the district’s 223 polling stations produced ballots with ink too light for counting machines to read, causing votes to be rejected. This forced voters to wait in line, move elsewhere or deposit their ballots in safe boxes that were moved to Phoenix and counted there. District officials say no one has been denied the right to vote.
The Post found the boundaries of affected voting precincts using data provided by Maricopa County election officials, then analyzed voter registration breakdowns in each precinct using data from election data provider L2.
The analysis found that the share of registered Republicans in the affected regions, about 37 percent, is about the same as the share of registered Republicans countywide at nearly 35 percent.
Throughout the week, prominent Republicans suggested, without evidence, that the printers’ problem only affected parts of the Republican Party.
Lake, speaking to reporters after voting downtown with his family, said, “There’s a reason we decided to change locations — we’re going to go to a pretty Republican area.” Instead, “we came to vote for the heart of liberal Phoenix because we wanted to make sure we had good machines.”
“And guess what?” she added. “They’ve had zero problems with their machines today. Not a single machine spit out a ballot here today. Not one, in the most liberal area. So we came to the most liberal area and voted.
In fact, according to The Post’s analysis, the problems were in areas that skew heavily Democratic.
These include two elementary schools in East Phoenix and a health center in South Phoenix — Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 40 percentage points everywhere. Hobbs, Lake’s Democratic opponent, received nearly three times as many votes as the Republican candidate in areas where printers had problems at Mountain Park Health Center in south Phoenix. District.
A spokesperson for the Lake campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Lake’s claims were amplified throughout the weekend by Trump writing on Truth Social, a social media site founded by the former president. and his allies, “even Cary Lake was taken to a Liberal Democrat district to vote.”
The former president used that assertion to make a baseless claim that Maricopa County officials “stole” the election from GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters. Masters was on Friday will lose His opponent is incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly.
“So here they are again in Maricopa County. … But only in Republican counties,” wrote Trump, who has targeted the county for false claims of election fraud in 2020.
“Do another election!” He concluded.
Masters hinted at a similar claim during an appearance on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show Friday, before The Associated Press called his race. “I think the most honest thing at this point is for Maricopa County to wipe the slate clean, take all the ballots and do a new count,” he said.
Masters said ballots were “mixed” twice in the district, but did not provide a basis for that claim. A campaign spokeswoman did not respond to a request for evidence on which to base her claims.
A spokeswoman for the county elections department said election workers at the two locations combined the two blocks of votes, but “this has happened in the past and there are redundancies to help us ensure each legal vote is counted only once.” Those layoffs, including checking total ballots against check-ins at polling places, are “conducted with political party monitors,” spokeswoman Megan Gilbertson said.
A Report In a post on Twitter Saturday, Masters did not make allegations of fraud, but said he would not admit until all the votes had been counted.
Maricopa County officials have insisted in recent days that the glitches did not misread any ballots or prevent anyone from voting. They say they are working up to 18 hours a day to process the record number of ballots cast on Election Day — and have said for weeks it could take up to 12 days to tabulate.
Bill Gates, “I’m going to stand up for my state” The chairman of the Republican Oversight Committee told reporters Friday afternoon. “We do things the right way.”
Arizona Republican Party leaders say their voters are disproportionately affected by defects because of their tendency to vote on Election Day. “It’s no secret that Republicans wanted to vote on Election Day,” the state party said in a statement Sunday.
But The Post’s analysis bolstered the district’s argument that the proportion of Republican Election Day voters in precincts with printer problems did not prevent people in affected areas from doing so who wanted to vote Tuesday.
Party lawyers on Tuesday night asked a judge to extend the voting hours by three hours, citing mechanical problems. But about five minutes before the polls were to close, the judge denied the request, finding that Republicans could not show that any voter was denied a vote.
In Maricopa, voters can vote at any polling station, no matter where they live. This is different from some systems where people have to vote their surroundings.
For example, voters who live in the suburbs and commute to Phoenix for work can cast their ballots near their homes, downtown or at schools, churches or at any of the 223 polling stations set up throughout the wider county.
Traditionally, people tend to vote in areas that are close to their homes or where they are part of their daily routines, said Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida.
“Voting centers are conveniently located, they’re part of your day, they can be on your way to all your errands,” he said.
Broner reported from Washington. John Swain and Reis Thebault in Washington contributed to this report.
