Breaking down Maricopa County's murky midterm elections

I want to thank you guys for following our reporting over the past week and if you haven’t already you can do so at WatchingArizona.com. Now on Monday night, following the latest ballot drop coming out of Maricopa County, Democrat Katie Hobbs became the Arizona governor-elect as she is projected to defeat Republican candidate and front-runner Kari Lake.

BUT, Lake has announced that she will not be conceding until every legal vote has been counted…..and since she is only trailing behind by a razor-thin margin. It’s possible that we could see a secondary election or recount due to Arizona state laws.

According to Arizona state law, if a candidate wins by a margin of less than 0.5%, an automatic recount will be triggered. With 2% of the vote left to be tallied, Lake is trailing Hobbs by 0.68% as of Thursday, and Lake’s campaign is encouraging voters to cure their ballots—meaning that if their ballots have yet to be counted or if it was challenged, to find out why and make sure their vote was processed. 

ARIZONA — Some votes get kicked back. You need to CHECK YOUR BALLOT STATUS NOW:https://t.co/ZMvqDy0OdZ

And then CURE your ballot— the deadline is Wednesday — making sure your vote gets counted 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/8rOUis8MDO

— Tyler Bowyer 🇺🇸 (@tylerbowyer) November 13, 2022

But citizens across Arizona have been protesting since election day over what they say is voter suppression that occurred in controversial Maricopa County, Phoenix’s largest metro. Voters, predominantly Republicans, waited hours in line on election day after machines malfunctioned in more than 26 locations throughout the county.

Many were forced to leave because of obligations and couldn’t vote at all. They say that they were disenfranchised and were furious when the race was called for Democrat candidate Katie Hobbs, who is also the secretary of state that oversees elections.

A group showed up at the Capitol in a plea for help. In her first announcement since the race was called for Hobbs, Lake sent out a video message on Twitter and said she won’t be conceding until the election has been certified and is working with her legal team to rectify the atrocities that occurred in Maricopa County.