Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates has blasted critics by arguing that it’s “offensive” to expect votes to be counted on time.
Gates was responding to mounting questions as the Arizona gubernatorial race is still being counted, days after Election Day.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is running against Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs – the person in charge of Arizona’s elections.
As of Saturday morning, only 83% of the votes have been counted – four days after the election.
Lake has rightly criticized the slow pace of the vote count.
However, Gates fired back at Lake by claiming her criticism, which is widely echoed, is “offensive.”
“Quite frankly it’s offensive for Kari Lake to say that these people behind me are slow rolling this when they’re working 14 to 18 hours,” Gates said in remarks to a local station that were amplified by CNN Friday.
“So I really hope this is the end of that now.
“We can be patient and respect the results when they come out.”
Lake currently trails Democrat Hobbs 50.7% to 49.3% with 83% of the votes.
According to the New York Times, Lake accused election officials of “slow rolling” the count during a Thursday appearance on Newsmax.
She told guest host Bianca de la Garza that she expected to win.
Lake also warned that changes to the state’s election processes would be a top priority.
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“The people of Arizona are sick and tired of elections being run like we’re in some banana republic, and we won’t have it anymore,” Lake said, calling the situation “ridiculous.”
“We’re going to win this.
“Everybody in this state knows we’re going to win it.
“I was running against a basement candidate who didn’t even campaign, didn’t debate, and the people didn’t vote for her.”
Lake criticized the handling of the 2022 election after over 20% of ballot tabulators malfunctioned Tuesday, prompting an unsuccessful lawsuit to extend voting hours in Maricopa County.
“They got to fix this problem.,” Lake said Tuesday after voting.
“This is incompetency.
“I hope it’s not malice.
“But we are going to fix it, we are going to win and when we win there’s going to be a ‘come to Jesus’ for elections in Arizona.”
