Kari Lake, fresh off her latest loss in court last month in her effort to overturn her Arizona election loss in 2022 to Gov. Katie Hobbs, is now pushing a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential election — and Laurie Roberts of The Arizona Republic tore it to shreds in a new column.
"'Welcome to the Banana Republic of Arizona,' Lake tweeted Monday. 'Maricopa County report reveals thousands of ballots in 2020 didn’t have proof of citizenship.' Naturally, Lake’s 'war room' chimed in on this shocking development. 'The Secretary of State who oversaw this debacle is squatting as Governor,' her campaign account added. 'The guy who was Maricopa County Recorder is Secretary of State. These people were promoted for successfully sabotaging 2020.'"
"I suppose it wouldn't be all that surprising that Lake would be ignorant of such matters as as she revs up her supporters for what appears to be her inevitable run for the U.S. Senate next year," wrote Roberts. "Anything Lake doesn’t understand — state election law, federal election law, how bills become law — automatically becomes a 'bombshell.'"
The problem, wrote Roberts, is that, while 4,484 voters in Arizona didn't prove their citizenship, federal law says that they don't have to. State law requires proof of citizenship, but under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which supersedes the state law, voters are simply required to affirm they are a citizen under penalty of perjury. Roughly 5 to 7 percent of voters don't possess the type of identification needed for proof of citizenship, noted Roberts, and "some of them are Native Americans or others born outside of hospitals." The actual known grand total of non-citizens who improperly voted in 2020 was five.
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This, Roberts concluded, is Lake's big "bombshell." "And you wonder why people no longer trust our elections?" she wrote.
All of this comes as right-wingers are still targeting and harassing election officials in Arizona, baselessly accusing them of misconduct or fraud for Democrats' victories in the state in 2020 and 2022. Bill Gates, a Republican who serves as the Maricopa County Recorder, announced this week he would not be seeking re-election due to the campaign of intimidation against him by election conspiracy theorists.
