Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake: Cannot 'be the laughingstock of elections anymore'
Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake joined "Sunday Morning Futures" to discuss the state's governor race and key issues that drove voters to the ballot box.
Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake took issue with her Democratic opponent not recusing herself as Arizona’s chief election officer amid days of election officials counting ballots.
"We called for her to recuse herself July of last year of 2021, right after we got into the race, recognizing that there's a major ethical problem there. Obviously, just the optics of it looks bad. And she didn't do that," Kari Lake said on Fox News’ "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo."
"Even though many people been calling for her to recuse herself, it creates problems to say the least," Lake continued.
Lake is up against Democrat Katie Hobbs, Arizona's secretary of state, who currently has roughly 34,000 more votes than Lake at more than 88% of the votes counted. The state has been counting ballots since Tuesday evening and still has not determined the winner of the gubernatorial election.
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Republican Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, whose skepticism of the 2020 presidential election's outcome has led to advocacy for more rigorous election security measures. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
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Lake said a firm timeline for the final count is "wishy-washy" and was told the state might have answers anywhere from Monday to later this week.
Lake told Bartiromo that Hobbs is "partially" responsible for the election in which she is running for governor.
Secretary of State and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs speaks at a press conference, Oct. 7, 2022, in Tucson, Arizona. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
"She will be the one that would certify the election. She has a lot to do with registration, voter registration, all kinds of things … voter rolls and advising counties on how many ballots they'll need," Lake explained.
Lake said that for now, she is holding tight as the ballots continue being counted and is hopeful that votes from deep-red areas have not been tabulated yet.
A man fills out his midterm ballot on Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
"We have election season here. We start voting about a month before Election Day, and we keep counting after Election Day — forever. And we're in the process of still counting the votes and there are about 300,000 ballots that have not been counted, this is according to the county recorder," she said.
"Many of them in Maricopa County, and they are from heavy, very heavy, Republican areas. So, we're waiting for the vote to be counted," she added.
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