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Salon
Salon
Politics
Sarah Burris

Lake's "suppression" claim backfires

Republican gubernatorial candidate for Arizona Kari Lake speaks to members of the media after voting in the US midterm election, in Phoenix, Arizona, on November 8, 2022. (OLIVIER TOURON/AFP via Getty Images)

The GOP's efforts to question elections, pass so-called voter fraud laws, and suppress votes is now working against them.

Elections lawyer Marc Elias explained on Monday that one of the excuses from Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is that her voters were blocked from voting due to voter suppression efforts. Those efforts have long been part of the conservative attempt to restrict the electorate as much as possible and make it more difficult for people to vote.

Elias joined former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., on Monday with Nicolle Wallace to discuss their ongoing lawsuits around the election and protect the sanctity of the vote.

McCaskill explained that in her home state of Missouri, Republicans swept the state in federal and state seats. Yet, because Republicans have worked so hard to convince voters that elections should be questioned, the Republicans there are questioning the GOP wins.

"You know, Claire makes an excellent point about the narrative that Republicans are trying to spread in Arizona that somehow they were the victim of voter suppression," said Elias. "I mean, if you look up the term chutzpah in the dictionary, you find the idea that Kari Lake is saying that there is voter suppression. They're complaining that there were long lines. Well, you know why there were long lines? There were long lines because the Kari Lake and Republicans have been making it harder to vote in Arizona. They're complaining voters were disenfranchised due to voter registration laws. Do you know why? Because Kari Lake and the Republicans have made it harder to register in Arizona. They're claiming that ballots were thrown out due to mismatched signatures. Do you know why? Because when we sued Arizona to make signature matching more accurate and make it easier for people to cure their ballots, they opposed us. And by the way, on the long lines point, while they're crying crocodile tears about people waiting in line for an hour or two in Maricopa County, where are they talking about the students who waited for six hours in the cold in Michigan to vote in their election?"

He went on to ask where Kevin McCarthy was on the issues like voter suppression and lies about the election. In fact, all Republicans, from Ronna Romney McDaniel to Mitch McConnell are all silent when it comes to such issues.

See the discussion below or at the link here:

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