Here is the reality behind Lake’s misleading and false claims about elections:
Claim: “I think we have major problems in our election system. And it goes back to 2000. We had Democrats saying the 2000 election wasn't fair. They were complaining the 2004 election wasn't fair. 2016, Kamala Harris spoke out and said that the electronic voting machines were hacked in front of her eyes. … What I say is we have problems in our election. They haven't been solved in 2016. They weren't solved in '18.”
Reality: As countless reporters, election officials, and former members of Donald Trump’s Justice Department have repeatedly explained, the 2020 election was secure — not plagued by “major problems.” And the Trump campaign’s illegal attempt to overturn the 2020 election is certainly not comparable to Democratic objections to the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections.
Claim: “And now all of a sudden in 2020, Garrett, we don't have free speech anymore. We can't speak out against our own elections. All I'm asking for is the ability to speak out when our government does something wrong — we should be able to speak out against it.”
Reality: The government is not shutting down free speech around elections — Trump’s legal challenges were allowed and failed in court. Since then, many people have continued to attack election companies and falsely claim that the election was rigged to favor Democrats. As a result, private companies like Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems are suing election deniers for defamation.
Claim: “Just a month or two ago during our primary election, and I'm sure your viewers don't even know this, Katie Hobbs' office advised the counties on how many ballots to print. This was two months ago. And they under-printed ballots in our biggest county and they ran out of Republican-only ballots one hour into voting."
Reality: Lake’s comment suggesting Hobbs, her Democratic opponent and the current Arizona secretary of state, played some nefarious or unusual role in telling counties “how many ballots to print” is misleading; creating ballots and administering elections are part of the normal jurisdiction of secretary of state and chief elections officer. Ensuring counties print enough ballots for voters prevents ballot shortages, like the recent Pinal County ballot shortage, which can disrupt the election process. In that case, several voting precincts ran short of GOP primary ballots on Election Day and had to print more, seemingly due to “a higher amount of people requesting day of, in-person ballots, and Independents requesting Republican ballots because so many Democrats were running unopposed in major races.” County attorney Kurt Volkmer apologized, explaining, “It was just simply a mistake”:
