by Annalisa Pesek, November 30, 2022, The New American Magazine
https://thenewamerican.com/explaining-maricopa-countys-corrupt-free-and-fair-midterm-elections
The future looks grim, with inflation high and the power of rigged elections on the Democrats’ side. Those who dare to speak out are soundly silenced, as America seems to be on an unstoppable train toward a Venezuela-style situation of corruption, poverty, and darkness. And running roughshod over the people are none other than both Republican and Democratic election officials, who seem to be blasting their way down the corruption track.
On Monday, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates, a Republican, followed through with canvassing the county’s election results, fulfilling a “statutory responsibility” despite a “plethora of reports from election workers, poll watchers, and voters, including the county’s admission of widespread printer problems.”
The five-member Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to certify the election despite major grievances aired by an outraged public during a four-hour-long meeting preceding the vote. “Secure and accurate” was the mainstream media’s description of the botched election, though even Chairman Gates acknowledged “this was not a perfect election. There were issues,” adding, “but we were transparent about that.”
On Sunday, Maricopa County’s elections department had responded to portions of a multifaceted request by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office seeking explanations of the problems that marred Election Day voting, including the malfunctioning of tabulators that were unable to read ballots, an issue affecting some 71 vote centers, which represents 31 percent of the 223 centers that were open on November 8.
In its nine-page report, the county defended its actions yet also admitted its errors within a single statement: “While Maricopa County’s printer issue in 2022 impacted more Vote Centers than normal, every voter was afforded the ability to legally and securely cast their ballot.”
During Monday’s review of the issues, Board Chairman Gates promised, “we will do everything we can to make sure this does not happen in future elections.”
Meanwhile, county officials have reported that roughly “one percent of total ballots cast ultimately couldn’t be counted at polling sites by those [faulty] machines but were later tallied at the county’s elections center.” Consider that it took all day to resolve the printer issues and implement setting changes, from 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. There is no question that many voters chose not to wait in the hours-long lines, or that many people who were told to vote at a second polling center didn’t make it to that center to vote.
During public comments at Monday’s meeting, angry citizens pointed out the flaws of the compromised election, with many demanding a redo. A repeated conflict of interest is that Katie Hobbs, the acting secretary of state — who oversees elections — refused to recuse herself from the process, despite running as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Then there is Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, who served as co-chair of the Latinos for Katie Hobbs Coalition, now a member of Hobbs’ transition team.
As The Gateway Pundit exposed in its coverage, the conflict-of-interest list runs long. In addition to the above,
- Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who oversaw early voting, founded and operated the Pro-Democracy Republicans PAC, a dark-money PAC aimed at eliminating candidates with a MAGA agenda.
- Maricopa County Chairman Bill Gates, who oversaw the election on Election Day, openly rooted against Trump-Endorsed candidates, calling their win in the primaries a “catastrophe” and saying, “I think they are electable, which is frightening.”
- Katie Hobbs threatened to sue any county that did not certify this election and hand her the Governorship. She is moving forward with a lawsuit against Cochise County for delaying certification.
“No Choice” but to Certify
Maricopa, along with Arizona’s 14 other counties, had a deadline of Monday to collect their final votes and report the results to Secretary of State Hobbs’ office, which threatened lawsuits and felony charges should a county refuse to certify.
As of Monday morning, two counties — Mohave and Cochise — had delayed certification in protest of the widespread issues that disenfranchised potentially thousands of voters in Maricopa County, whether through mechanical error or a more sinister manipulation of the electorate system. No one really knows what happened that day.
By Monday afternoon, Mohave County’s Board of Supervisors, in a vote of 4-0, chose to canvass the election, with two supervisors telling the press that they felt pressured to certify, that they had “no choice” but to vote yes or face a felony.
Mohave County Supervisor Hildy Angius and Chairman Ron Gould were among the fear-filled and bullied. Angius reportedly spent part of Monday talking with constituents and Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, and felt that between the choice to certify the election or “essentially void the county’s votes in the state canvass,” the latter would “certainly disenfranchise” voters.
“I vote aye under duress,” Gould said at the meeting. “I found out today that I have no choice but to vote aye or I’ll be arrested and charged with a felony. I don’t think that’s what our founders had in mind when they used the democratic process to elect our leaders, our form of self-governance. I find that very disheartening.”
Meanwhile, Cochise County’s Board of Supervisors was less cowardly and thus slapped with two lawsuits, one by the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, which demanded a canvass be completed by Thursday, and another by Secretary Hobbs, who said the three-member board could be charged with serious crimes for violating Arizona’s election laws. The county board is expected to meet Friday to further review the certification of ballot tabulators.
In a letter dated November 21 to the Cochise County board from State Elections Director Kori Lorick, Lorick stated that Hobbs is legally bound to approve the statewide canvass by next week, and that Cochise County’s votes would be void if they were not reported in time. The stakes are high because if those votes are not counted, two reportedly close races, one a U.S. House seat and another for state schools chief, would flip from Republican to Democratic.
Kari Lake: A Fighter the Left Fears
Of all candidates, Kari Lake is the one that the Left cannot let win. An outspoken supporter of election reform, the charismatic former TV host has called for a return to paper ballots and same-day voting. Of her gubernatorial race, which shows Hobbs leading by a thin margin of some 20,000 votes, Lake has vowed to continue to fight “sham elections” and to expose the “botched election, where half of Election-Day voting centers were inoperable,” and “Arizonans were expected to wait in line for two, three, four, even five hours, simply to exercise their sacred right to vote.”
“Maricopa County, where it took two weeks to count votes, is the poster child for broken and botched elections,” said Lake in a statement on Twitter. “But if you bring up any of these issues, you are labeled an ‘election denier’ or a conspiracy theorist.” Indeed, the Democrats don’t want anyone talking about shoddy elections, and they will shut down those who try.
But Lake is fearless, and her message is a plea to Americans to stand up, to speak out about their extraordinary experiences at the polls, and to demand accountability and election reform. For her part, Lake has moved to litigate a case challenging the elections. Having already filed one lawsuit, she hinted at another coming soon.
“You simply can’t make this stuff up,” she exclaimed, explaining that any ethical person would move to investigate and correct the issues. “We the People will not forget. God will not forget. And I will not quit.”