Kari Lake Says She'll Accept Only 'Fair, Honest' Election in Arizona Race (Newsmax)
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Sunday, 23 October 2022 12:59 PM EDT
Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake said Sunday she'll accept the results of the election against Democrat opponent Katie Hobbs regardless of the outcome, but only if the election is held in a way that is "fair, honest, and transparent."
However, there's an issue, she said in the interview, airing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," because Hobbs, as Arizona's secretary of state, could be the one who will have to determine if the election was fair.
"Looks like my opponent might have to determine that," Lake, a former Phoenix TV news host, told ABC's Jonathan Karl. "That's an interesting conundrum, isn't it?"
Lake also on Sunday said that if she's elected, she isn't only committing to serving all four years, but said she's "going to serve eight years as governor of Arizona," even if former President Donald Trump asks her to be his running mate in the 2024 presidential race.
"I just have to laugh at this question," said Lake. "I’m hearing this a lot on the campaign trail and what I think is happening is the media is trying to scare the public that I’m going to leave. I am devoted and dedicated to saving Arizona and to turning it around."
She added that she likes to say she's the "fake news' worst nightmare" and she's "going to be their worst nightmare in Arizona for eight years. I'm going to have two terms as governor."
Meanwhile, Lake, who has often denied the results of the 2020 election of President Joe Biden over Trump, and told Karl that as governor, she'd seek to change the election laws in the state.
"We will secure our election, restore faith in our elections, make sure our elections are honest and transparent," said Lake, adding that there are problems with early voting that must be addressed.
"Our Constitution says Election Day," she said. "It doesn't say election season, election month, and the longer you drag that out, the more fraud with problems there are. We just saw problems this week with Katie Hobbs, my opponent. She just sent out 6,000 ballots that went – the wrong type of ballots to the wrong people."
And even though Hobbs has corrected the issue, which had ballots go out that only had federal races listed, Lake said that she wants to shore up elections so they are "very honest," with Karl noting that about 90% of people in her state voting either early or using early ballots.
Lake also argued in the interview about the 2020 election, commenting that 2,000 mail-in ballots were accepted by Maricopa County after Election Day in 2020. Karl, though, quoting county election officials, said that no ballots were accepted after the day's 7 p.m. deadline.
But Lake argued that she agreed to the interview to talk about her policies, not elections, as "the media thinks I'm only talking about elections. I'm talking about a lot of things."
However, the questions about the elections continued, with Karl asking her about comments last week when she said there were 740,000 ballots in the state that should not have been counted during the election, as they had no chain of custody.
"The Republicans on the Board of Supervisors, the Republican governor, now the Republican candidate for Senate running along with you, the Republican attorney general under Donald Trump, Bill Barr, all said that the election was not stolen," Karl told her.
"Are we going to sit and litigate this?" she retorted. "I'd be happy to do it…you guys are obsessed. We have a lot of corruption in this system. I think a lot of people who were responsible for that election know that there were rules broken and laws broken and they don't want to admit fault. We're going to go forward. And we're going to make sure, going forward, our elections are secure."
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