The Arizona race between Lake, a Donald Trump-endorsed Republican, and Democrat Katie Hobbs, the Arizona Secretary of State, has been one of the closest-watched governor races in the nation. On Monday, polling showed that Lake was barely leading Hobbs with less than 2 percentage points.
The race is so tight that a winner might not be named until several days after the election. Every vote counts in such a tight race and the machines breaking in Maricopa solidified the fears of many voters that theirs would not be counted.
Lake, who has echoed Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen and corrupt, claimed at the time that Maricopa County accepted 2,000 mail-in ballots after Election Day in 2020. The county was subjected to an audit of votes, which found an even larger victory for Joe Biden.
“I am getting flooded with calls and text messages from people who are having trouble voting all over Maricopa County,” Lake tweeted on Tuesday, sharing a video posted by conservative pundit Charlie Kirk. “THIS is why we must reform our elections.”
Lake’s tweet quickly gained steam with more than 20,000 interactions barely an hour after she posted.
The video showed a Maricopa County poll worker telling voters waiting to cast their ballots that some of the machines were malfunctioning. The poll worker said of the location’s two machines, one was not working and one was misreading 25 percent of the votes and rejecting the ballots.
He said that rejected ballots will be recorded elsewhere.
“No one is trying to deceive anybody,” the poll worker said.
“Of course not, not on Election Day, that would never happen, right?” the person recording the video replied.
Kirk tweeted that reports of similar situations were reported “all over Maricopa” already. “If this happens to you, don’t get out of line!” he wrote.
Lake said the voting machine faults were a prime example of why she advocated for election reform. During her campaign in May, Lake tweeted a favorable opinion of House Bill 2289, called the “One Day, One Vote” bill. The bill proposed voter ID, hand count paper ballots cast without voting machines, smaller precinct polling locations and eliminated mail-in and absentee ballots.
“Imagine Arizona elections with: One DAY Voting, done on paper, in person, with No Machines, No Mail-Ins. And an immediate way of establishing a chain of custody,” she wrote.
After the video of the poll worker alerting voters of the issue, Maricopa County Elections Department tweeted a video from Chairman Bill Gates and Recorder Stephen Richer updating voters on the issue.
Gates said “things are going great out there,” but that 20 percent of the tabulator machines recording the votes were causing issues. Once people vote and try to feed their ballot through the tabulator, the vote doesn’t go through.
“The good thing is, first of all, we are trying to fix this problem as quickly as possible,” Gates said. Gates also urged voters to put their ballot in the secure box in front of the tabulator, where the ballot will be stored until later Tuesday night when elections staff would count them.
Newsweek reached out to Lake’s campaign for comment.
