Fox talk-show host Maria Bartiromo, who used to be a respected financial journalist before she left CNBC to become a flack for Trumpism, dished up a plate of Kari Lake election denialism on her show on Sunday, January 8, 2023 (see story here).
Formatted as an interview, but in actuality a backscratching, Bartiromo served up softball questions like this:
“You, a minute ago, said the other side sabotaged you. How did they do it and how far are you willing to take this lawsuit?”
So you have Bartiromo inviting Lake to claim her election defeat was a result of “sabotage.” Here’s how Lake responded:
“We are suing. We are the first court case even to have evidence put forth in an election case. Really, a lot of people said in 2020, they didn’t put any evidence forward. There’s a lot of evidence and we saw it play out on the election day in Arizona when 60% of the voting locations stopped working as soon as the polls opened on election day.”
Not exactly. She sued. Past tense. And lost. Her election challenge was thrown out by a judge who found it so meritless he ordered Lake to pay the defendants’ witness fees. And when she asked the state supreme court to let her skip the state court of appeals and appeal directly to them, they refused in a summary order.
The takeaway from the legal proceedings so far is that Lake has no understanding of what courts are for, knows nothing about legal process, and can’t distinguish between evidence and fantasy.
Now let’s unpack what she told Bartiromo.
- First, she appears to be admitting Trump and his allies offered no evidence the 2020 election was “stolen.” That’s not an especially good look for a candidate who sucked up to Trump and campaigned by parroting his election lies.
- Next, she says “there’s a lot of evidence” the Arizona governor’s election was stolen from her; but where the rubber met the road, i.e. in court, she had none.
- Finally, her claim that “60% of the voting locations stopped working as soon as the polls opened” is flat-out false. The judge found the ballot printer problems in Maricopa County didn’t prevent anyone from voting, or any ballots from being counted.
Lake then added,
“Knowing that 75% of the people voting on election day were voting for Kari Lake, they sabotaged election day by printing the wrong images on the ballots, jamming up the machines. The machines didn’t work at at least 60% of the polling locations and that caused lines of two and three and four hours. People couldn’t vote. They got to the front of the line; the machines were jamming. And people were disenfranchised.”
Republicans don’t like mail voting and tend to vote in person. That someone theoretically could target Republican votes by messing with polling place equipment doesn’t prove anyone did. She alleged, but failed to prove in court, that “people couldn’t vote” and were “disenfranchised.” County officials credibly testified that no one was prevented from voting and all ballots affected by printer problems were counted.
As for her numbers, Lake got the 60% figure from rightwing sources (see, e.g., here); county officials said the printer problems affected roughly 30% of Maricopa County polling places. (CNN detailed the printer problems here; PolitiFact also addressed the issue here.) I can’t determine where the 75% figure came from; she may be relying on exit polling data. You can’t get a breakdown of polling place results and mail ballot results from the Arizona secretary of state or Maricopa County election department websites, and it’s possible no one knows because the ballots were intermixed together.
The bottom line is that Lake had a chance to prove her contentions in court, and if you read her attorney’s arguments and the judge’s ruling, it’s clear there’s nothing there beyond baseless accusations and speculative conjecture. Lake has “vowed to pursue her lawsuit ‘to the United States Supreme Court’ if necessary,” but that court accepts only a tiny fraction of the petitions it receives, and this case doesn’t involve the kind of issue that court typically reviews.
In many ways, this is a conversation between two election crackpots; but beyond that, Lake reminds me of a spoiled child complaining about not getting her way, and Bartiromo is playing the role of a shoulder for the spoiled child to cry on.
Photo below: Bartiromo, left; Lake, right
