The battle between Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and state election officials continues.
Lake's campaign filed a lawsuit this week against Maricopa County officials, demanding the release of internal documents pertaining to the county's process for counting votes before, on and after Election Day.
Democrat Katie Hobbs, who currently serves as Arizona's secretary of state, has been projected as the winner in the governor's race — besting Lake by approximately 17,000 votes, according to the Newsmax elections tracker.
If that 17,000-vote/0.66% differential becomes official, then Lake would be just outside the threshold for demanding a recount in Arizona: 0.5%.
Still, Lake has refused to concede the results of her race to Hobbs; and her campaign is calling for more public transparency of the Election Day gaffes that Lake alleges precluded Arizona from tabulating votes in a timely manner.
For the lawsuit, Lake's campaign references the printer problems that affected dozens of tabulation sites in Maricopa County on Election Day.
The campaign also wants all public records related to voters "who tried to vote and couldn't," including the voters' names and contact information.
According to reports, Lake's campaign committee also requested records of registered voters in Arizona who tried to check in at two different voting centers, along with documents regarding ballots that "had the write-in Senate candidate for Legislative District 22."
The Lake campaign says it has received the public documents requested, save for two omissions:
1) "All communications prior to Election Day between or among County employees, agents and vendors with regard to problems with tabulation or printing of ballots at vote centers."
2) "All public records related to retabulation of votes cast in person at vote centers due to commingling and/or reconciliation issues.”
The lawsuit comes on the heels of Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, "going into hiding" after allegedly receiving death threats for his handling of the election results within Arizona's largest county.
While speaking to a local TV station, Gates confirmed he had moved to an "undisclosed location" and been given security detail.
The rancor between Gates, a Republican official, and factions of Arizona voters played out a full week past Election Day (Nov. 8), after Maricopa officials had difficulty processing up to 40% of the ballots submitted on that day — due to a combination of printer/ink errors and other machine malfunctions.
The Maricopa precinct voters waiting in line were then asked to entrust their open paper ballots to a so-called "Box 3," which would be processed at a different location.
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