Kari Lake, Arizona's Republican nominee for governor, interviewed with journalist Jonathan Karl on ABC. The network did not air the entire interview, but it showed an excerpt in which Karl confronts Lake about the doubts she has expressed regarding the 2020 election.
Arizona's secretary of state is the one charge of making sure that elections run smoothly. The person who held this position during the 2020 elections was none other than Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs.
The interview wrapped in commentary
Karl was not happy with Lake's responses in the interview. In fact, the clip of the interview that was shared by ABC begins with a comment from the journalist himself criticizing the Republican candidate.
During the interview, the ABC reporter makes every effort to achieve two goals. The first was to get Kari Lake to say whether or not she thought the 2020 election was fraudulent. The second was to get her to say in advance that she will accept the results of the 2022 election, regardless of whether or not there is vote rigging. Lake did neither.
2020 elections
In one part of the interview, the journalist asks Lake about the position of other Republicans regarding the 2020 election:
Karl: But just to be clear, the Republicans on the Board of Supervisors, the Republican Governor [Doug Ducey], now the Republican candidate for Senate, running along with you, the Republican Attorney General under Donald Trump, Bill Barr — all said that there, that there wasn’t, you know, that the election was — was not stolen.
Lake: Are we going to sit and litigate this? I’m happy to do it, but —
Karl: No, I just — I’m just wondering why they would all lie.
Lake: – but you guys are obsessed. Well, we have a lot of corruption in the system, and they don’t want — I think a lot of people who were responsible for that election know that there were rules broken any laws broken, and they don’t want to admit fault, OK?
Karl: Even like Bill Barr?
Lake: And that’s fine. We’re going to go forward, and we’re going to make sure going forward our elections are secure.
No chain of custody
Karl then focuses on a particular issue:
Karl: You said something last week. You said that there were 740,000 ballots with no chain of custody, those ballots shouldn’t have been counted. Are you saying you would throw out the ballots of 740,000 — that’s nearly three-quarters of a million Arizonans? I mean, those were ballots —
Lake: 740,000 ballots violated the chain of custody requirements in Maricopa County.
Karl: I mean, first of all, it’s, it’s not true. I mean, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors put out a 98-page report that went through these allegations.
Lake: OK, that is a fact. That is a fact. Check your facts.
The reporter referred to a report in which Maricopa County officials stated that they indeed had control of those ballots throughout, so the chain of custody was not broken.
Mail-in ballots
Another of the issues the journalist discussed with Lake is absentee voting. Lake believes that voting by mail is more prone to fraud because it is easier to prevent against illegal voting at the physical polling place.
Karl: As governor, would you seek to change the election laws? And specifically, would you look to limit early voting and mail-in voting in Arizona?
Lake: I don’t know exactly how we’ll do it, but we will secure our elections, restore faith in our elections, and make sure our elections are honest and transparent.
Karl: I assume everybody wants that. But specifically early voting and mail-in voting, which you’ve been very critical of — would you seek to limit it?
Lake: I think, you know, a lot of things going back to when I first started voting back in the Eighties, we had Election Day. Our Constitution says Election Day. It doesn’t say election season or election month. And the longer you drag that out, the more fraught with problems there are.
Karl: My question is whether or not you would limit mail-in voting, limit early voting, given that so many people in this state, it’s like 90%, vote early in this state or use early ballots.
Lake: We want to shore up our elections, so they are very honest, and every voter knows that it’s an honest system. Let me just give you a couple of facts: Two thousand mail-in ballots were accepted by Maricopa County after Election Day in 2020. After Election Day.
The additional facts that Lake wanted to share do not appear in the edited ABC interview.
Predicting there will be no fraud
Karl was persistent in trying to get Kari Lake to say in advance that she will accept the results of the November election, no matter what. He tries to assure that there will not be any type of fraud or irregularity.
Lake's response, to the journalist's chagrin, is that she will accept the election result only if it is fair. However, she cannot foresee the future and consequently cannot anticipate that there will be no irregularities of any kind. This is the exchange between the two:
Karl: Why it is that you have not said — or maybe you’ll do it now? — you have not said that you will accept the certified results of this election even if you lose, this election.
Lake: I will accept the results of this election if we have a fair, honest, and transparent election. 100%.
Karl: So, if you were to lose — and you’re ahead — but if you were to lose, and you went out, and you had all your appeals, they went through —
Lake: As long as it’s fair, honest, and transparent.
