Scrutinizing Arizona’s Election Administration Does Not Make Kari Lake An ‘Election Denier’

Even though the Arizona governor’s race has been called in favor of Katie Hobbs, Hobbs’ opponent Kari Lake has not conceded and vote counting and vote correcting are still happening.

As has been reported (in mainly conservative media), many voters were turned away on Election Day because of broken printers or given provisional ballots that wouldn’t be counted. Furthermore, many ballots were not counted because of a non-matching signature or some mistake in filling out the ballot. This means voters are being contacted about their ballot being rejected and given a chance to correct or “cure” it. The window for doing this just ended on Nov. 17.

Considering how laughably convoluted this process is, along with its many vulnerabilities to fraud and error, it’s more than understandable to see why Lake, someone projected to win big and who faced a meek candidate who refused to debate her or even do much campaigning, refuses to give up. The glacially slow counting, the numerous malfunctioning printers and ballot machines, and the recent history of gross irregularities from the previous election all give ample reason for suspicion. There’s also the added wrinkle of Hobbs refusing to recuse herself from the role of supervising the election — somehow this didn’t constitute a conflict of interest.

And yet, for all this, the corporate media are blasting Lake for daring to challenge the election result, living up to her reputation as a dirty, rotten “election denier.” Here’s just a small sampling of headlines: “Election denier Kari Lake refuses to concede Arizona governor race she lost” in The Guardian, “Katie Hobbs elected Arizona’s 5th female governor, defeating election denier Kari Lake” in the Arizona Republic, “Kari Lake Is Denying Her Election Loss” in New York Magazine, and “Democrat Katie Hobbs defeats election denier Kari Lake for Arizona governor, AP projects” in Yahoo News.

As David Harsanyi has argued, this charge of election denier — that is, a person who questions and/or challenges elections — is a ridiculous criticism that stigmatizes perfectly rational behavior in a democracy. Furthermore, it’s a label that applies far more to Democrats despite being exclusively directed at Republicans. This insult (coupled with “the big lie”) became popular in 2020 after Donald Trump and many of his supporters claimed the presidential election was stolen.

It’s no secret that the left continues to call its opponents election deniers because it has been an effective tool to silence dissent. It casts people like Trump and Lake as unhinged losers who are ready to smash the whole system because they didn’t win. Thus, to give even the slightest credence to their objections is tantamount to undermining “Our Democracy.” And if anyone thinks that is an exaggeration, they should know that hundreds of Jan. 6 protesters have been thrown in prison and denied bail because they were “election deniers” who ostensibly posed a threat to the country.

However, the more successful it is to slander people as “election deniers,” the more destructive it becomes. First, it is an