Kari Lake, an official in President Donald Trump’s administration, drew a barrage of rebukes on Election Day after suggesting a weather-related Election Day power outage in Maricopa County, Arizona, was a plot against conservative voters.
Lake, a senior adviser at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, posted on X on Tuesday after the county said an outage had temporarily closed its vote center at the Laveen Elementary School District Office.
But power was restored in time for the 6 a.m. opening, AZFamily reported. The Laveen center was already open when Lake posted.
“The bulls— continues…,” Lake wrote. “PRO-TIP: Maricopa County voters, find a voting center in the most liberal part of town and go there. My gut tells me you’ll find fewer equipment malfunctions, shorter lines, no electricity issues, plenty of ballots, etc.”
Within hours, a U.S. senator, a state lawmaker, an Arizona reporter and the county’s former Republican recorder had all rebuked her.
“This is beyond stupid (unsurprisingly) and reckless,” Arizona House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, a Democrat, wrote on X. “The Vote Center at the Laveen Elementary School District Office opened on time at 6am. And Laveen is in my district -- very blue! Stuff like this is why Arizona voters rejected you multiple times.”
“Laveen is one of the bluest precincts,” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) wrote. “I represented in the state house, Congress and won it decisively against Kari [Lake]. Also the outage happened before the poll opened, nothing was interrupted.”
“Laveen is literally a very blue area,” wrote Jerod MacDonald-Evoy, a reporter for the Arizona Mirror. “We just had historic rain Kari.” Record rainfall in usually dry Arizona caused deadly flooding and power outages, NBC News reported.
“Grow up,” Stephen Richer, the Republican former Maricopa County recorder, wrote on X. “It was still open at 6:00 AM. Laveen is deep blue.”
“And you really think this is all Debbie Lesko,” Richer added. “This latest religion you’ve found has addled your brain.”
Richer was referring to Debbie Lesko, a Republican former congresswoman; she is now vice chair of the county Board of Supervisors.
Lake’s complaint about “equipment malfunctions” echoed her accusations against Richer over the 2022 election, which led to a defamation suit she stopped defending. Richer sued Lake in June 2023 for defamation, saying she repeatedly spread lies that he had sabotaged electronic tabulators so they would jam on Election Day in 2022. Lake eventually lost “all rights to litigate the merit” of the case, a judge said, because she had stopped defending herself.
Other figures on the right went further than Lake, casting the outages as cheating or part of a national pattern.
“‘Power outages’ are closing voting centers in Maricopa County, Arizona this morning,” an account for right-wing activist Laura Loomer’s show, Loomer Unleashed, wrote on X. “The Democrats are already cheating. Swamp the vote and stay in line!”
“The United States power grid has seen a 43% increase in power outages today that … are affecting polling places,” Jeremy Herrell, a host on pro-Trump Live From America TV, said in a video posted on X Monday evening. A proposed Community Note on the post said outages were at routine low levels.
“It’s like the mob runs our elections,” Liz Harrington, a former Trump spokesperson, proclaimed on X.
Polling-place outages in other states did not stop voting, either.
In Kansas City, Missouri, overnight storms knocked out power at the Blue Ridge Church of Christ polling place, utility Evergy said, according to KSHB. Voters cast ballots there with machines on battery backup, some using their phone lights, before power returned about 9:30 a.m., the station reported.
A polling place at St. Pius Catholic Church Family Life Center in Mobile County, Alabama, lost power as polls opened, WKRG reported. The outage would “not affect voting” because machines had backup batteries and a generator was running, the station said. Alabama Power expected power to be restored by 11 a.m., WKRG reported.
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