Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Thursday declined to concede the governor race to Democrat Katie Hobbs Thursday, raising concerns about the election process, The Hill reported.
The Associated Press and other outlets projected that Hobbs won the race on Monday. But Lake, a former television news anchor, indicated she is assembling a legal team that is “collecting evidence and data” pertaining to the electoral process.
“Rest assured, I have assembled the best and brightest legal team and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week,” Lake said in a video address posted Thursday morning. “I’m doing everything in my power to right these wrongs.”
Lake, a Trump-backed candidate, sidestepped questions about whether she would accept the results of her election on multiple occasions during the campaign.
In her statement on Thursday, Lake pointed to printing malfunctions in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county that includes Phoenix, calling it “unforgivable” and claiming voters were disenfranchised.
70 of the county’s 223 voting centers early on Election Day used printers that churned out ballots with ink that was too light for tabulation machines to read, election officials said.
Voters could wait in line until the issue was fixed, cast a ballot at another vote center or deposit their original ballot in a separate, secure box that was sent to the county’s central facility for tabulation.
County election officials have repeatedly pushed back on Lake’s allegations, saying no one was denied.