Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is running for governor, told voters to “prepare” to wait days for votes to be counted in this year’s midterm elections.
Hobbs, Arizona’s top election official, is facing Republican candidate Kari Lake in a closely watched race that has been deemed a toss-up for weeks leading up to Election Day.
“Every single vote matters, and every single vote counts equally — whether you voted by mail, dropped off your ballot at a secure drop box yesterday, or voted in person today,” Hobbs said in a statement Tuesday evening. “We must all be patient and wait for every last vote to be counted.”
Tabulator machine problems in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, led to delays and prompted election officials to tell voters to either wait for the machines to come back online or to vote at another location. Maricopa officials later changed the printer settings at the affected voting centers, which “seems to have resolved this issue,” the county said in a tweet.
The delays at some voting centers prompted Republicans, including Lake, to file an emergency motion seeking to extend polling hours in the county, arguing the malfunctions impeded some voters from blocking their ballots. However, election officials said the delays did not block any residents from casting their vote.
“The widespread issues — in an election administered by Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs — are completely unacceptable, especially as Republicans flock to the polls to vote in-person on Election Day,” the Republican National Committee said in a statement. “We have dozens of attorneys and thousands of volunteers on the ground working to solve this issue and ensure that Arizona voters have the chance to make their voices heard.”
A judge declined to extend voting hours after an emergency hearing.
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Hobbs refused to recuse herself from election duties while running for Arizona’s governor. Lake and other Republicans called on Hobbs to step down while campaigning to avoid any conflict of interest.
“Elected secretaries of state in Arizona have overseen elections where they’re on the ballot since statehood. This has never been an issue until now,” Hobbs told CNN on Thursday. “I’m not going to recuse myself from the job that the voters elected me to do, and for which I took an oath of office, to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the state of Arizona. I have done that throughout my tenure as secretary of state. And I will continue to do that until I leave office on Jan. 2.”
