by Natalia Mittelstadt
Election modeling expert Richard Baris said Thursday in the Kari Lake election lawsuit that his projections showed as many as 40,000 voters were disenfranchised over Election Day chaos in Arizona’s Maricopa County, causing him to “have no doubt” that she would’ve won the gubernatorial election had there no problems at polling centers.
Baris is the final witness for Lake in the scheduled two-day trial for her election lawsuit.
Baris testified that 25,000 to 40,000 voters were disenfranchised in the County on Election Day as a result of the issues at the centers, specifically roughly one on five having problems with ballot tabulator machines in the first hours of Election Day
“We’ve got about 20% of the locations out there where there’s an issue with the tabulator,” said Maricopa Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, a Republican, said on election night.
He also said some machines wouldn’t accept ballots that voters had filled out.
However, election officials assured voters their ballots would still be counted as a result of redundancy protocols.
“We’ve got about 20% of the locations out there where there’s an issue with the tabulator,” Maricopa Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates, a Republican, said in a video posted online. Describing the problem, he said that after some voters filled out their ballot, the machine wouldn’t accept it.
The vote margin between Lake and Hobbs is 17,117 votes.
Baris also said the net gain Lake would’ve received in the votes that weren’t cast on Election Day would have made her the winner of the Arizona gubernatorial election.
Baris also testified that in the exit polling by his firm, Big Data Poll, show 93% of voters who voted early responded to the survey, compared to 72% of Election Day voters. That has “never happened to me before,” Baris said regarding the 20-percentage-point gap between the Election Day voters’ responses compared to early voters.
Lake, the 2022 Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee, is suing her Democratic opponent, Governor-elect and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs; Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer; the county Board of Supervisors; and county Director of Elections Scott Jarrett.
Lake’s case alleges the “number of illegal votes cast in Arizona’s general election … far exceeds the 17,117 vote margin” between her and Hobbs.
The trial began Wednesday with the testimony of Richer, Jarrett, cybersecurity expert Clay Parikh, county temporary technician Bradley Benticort, and Republican National Committee attorney Mark Sonnenklar.
Following Baris’ testimony, the defendants’ legal team will call four witnesses to the stand, then each side will give closing arguments.
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Natalia Mittelstadt graduated from Regent University with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Communication Studies and Government.
Photo “Kari Lake” by Kari Lake.
