For Immediate Release
Wednesday, Oct. 12th, 2022

Contact: Josselyn Berry, Jberry@azdem.org

As Early Ballots Drop In Arizona, A Reminder of Lake’s Flip Flopping Hypocrisy on Early Voting

PHOENIX– As early ballots are mailed out across Arizona today, it’s the perfect time to harken back to Kari Lake’s complicated and antagonistic history with Arizona’s much-loved and much-used tradition of voting early by mail. The overwhelming majority of Arizona voters use early voting with 80% or more of voters routinely choosing early voting in each election.
First, let’s take a stroll down memory lane.

Before Lake began her Trumpian attack on early voting and mail-in ballots she faithfully, for decades, mailed in her ballot. Lake voted by mail in every single election from the 2006 general to 2020 primary, according to her voter file. But all that came to an end when she hit the campaign trail and began attacking Arizona’s VBM program at every turn.
So Kari Lake is now against voting early by mail? Well it’s hard to say….
During the primary, Lake called for an end to Arizona’s immensely popular early voting program and in March, Lake supported the Arizona Republican Party’s lawsuit arguing that vote by mail is “unconstitutional,” even as she hypocritically “put herself back onto the Active Early Voting List” during her campaign. She also stands with Trump as he claims you have to vote in person to avoid cheating.  But, at the same time, Lake called on her supporters to return their early ballots during the primary. Even now, she’s urging people to vote by mail and encouraged them to return their mail in ballots. At an event in early October, Lake said, “If you’re on the mailing voting list, I say vote that ballot. Don’t wait and bring it on Election Day, get it in the mail and get it out.”

“Kari Lake doesn’t care about election integrity or security. Lake cares about herself and she cares about pushing as many election conspiracy theories as she can to sow doubt and fear into voters’ minds. Kari Lake’s constant flip flopping on Arizona’s well-loved vote by mail system just showcases her hypocrisy and weak say-anything strategy to get elected,” said Josselyn Berry, spokesperson for the Arizona Democratic Party.

More Background on Lake’s Election Lies:

• One thing, however, is certain: Kari Lake’s insistence on hand counting ballots would be an unimaginable disaster for Arizona. Cochise County is considering hand-counting all ballots cast by the county’s 87,000 voters this election and election experts say it’s problematic and unnecessary. A hand count would produce inaccurate results, confuse voters, and consume extensive time, money, and labor, said C. Jay Coles, senior policy and advocacy associate at Verified Voting.
• Since launching her campaign, Lake has aggressively spewed a steady stream of election lies and after recently losing a lawsuit against Secretary Hobbs to force hand-counting of ballots for election day, she is doubling down by appealing the case which will surely result in another conspiracy failure. Lake has consistently and falsely claimed the 2020 election was “stolen” and “corrupt.” Lake has also said of Biden: “He lost the election, and he shouldn’t be in the White House.”
• At the GOP primary debate, Lake claimed that the right-wing and fraudulent 2020 election audit was proof the election was rigged, and defended the right-wing propaganda film, “2,000 Mules.”  In the days leading up to the primary election, Lake warned that something was going very wrong. “We’re already detecting some stealing going on,” Lake said at a campaign stop the week before the election. Hours before the polls closed, she hadn’t changed her tune, saying “If we don’t win, there’s some cheating going on. And we already know that.” After she was declared the winner however, Lake dropped all talk of fraud and never produced a single piece of evidence.