Arizona Congresswoman Says Trump Should Not Concede By Bowen Xiao
PHOENIX—Arizona Congresswoman Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said she believes President Donald Trump should not concede until every legal battle is resolved, as a number of her constituents have contacted her over perceived irregularities at voting places across the state.
“I do not think that the president should concede until all of this has played out because it is not over yet,” she told The Epoch Times on Nov. 10. “I do totally believe that if the tables were turned and Biden was in this situation he would do the same thing.”
County officials said they expect to be done counting this week the remaining tens of thousands of ballots in Arizona. Trump is within 0.39 percent of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to the latest unofficial results. An automatic recount will take place if the final margin is one-tenth of 1 percent, per state law.
“It’s still possible Trump could win Arizona,” she added.
The congresswoman felt it was irresponsible for the media to call Arizona for Biden early on in the race with many votes still left to be counted. Trump’s campaign early on predicted that the president would win the state and its 11 Electoral College votes.
“The media doesn’t declare winners they’re not the ones that determine who is the president—none of the states have certified the vote yet,” she added. “There’s still votes being counted, there’s still lawsuits filed that needs to be resolved.”
Lesko—who represents Arizona’s 8th congressional district and is a member of the House Freedom Caucus—said quite a few voters have contacted her: “they thought something funny was going on either with their ballot or at the voting places.”
Most of the calls were about two issues: either about being forced to use sharpies at polling places, or their votes were being shown as cancelled when they tracked them on the state website. Lesko said she has spoken with both the secretary of state and the county elections people and they all said Sharpies do not invalidate the ballots.
New ballots were used this time around. Officials told Lesko the ovals on the other side of the ballot were offset so even if the sharpie bled through it wouldn’t have mattered. Election officials also told her they tested different pens and the sharpies did the best job.
On the other matter, Lesko said she contacted the secretary of state’s office who told her some people’s votes were canceled because they originally requested a mail-in-ballot but did not mail it in, and did not bring the mail-in ballot to the polls when they showed up to vote in person on Election Day. Their in-person vote was then counted through the machine.
However, Lesko said when she told one of the individuals who contacted her this reason, the voter then told her they never requested a mail-in ballot. Lesko then asked the secretary of state about this individual’s name, and the office told Lesko the individual did request a mail-in ballot.
“So that’s as much as I know,” she added.
The congresswoman said she told all the individuals who contacted her to report their issues to the Trump campaign website.
Lesko has been on several conference calls with the Trump campaign. The campaign believes they really have valid legal cases in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, she said.
The Trump campaign has also filed a lawsuit Arizona over alleged rejected votes in Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona. The campaign stated that some in-person votes were disregarded because of improper guidance from poll workers.
“What the lawsuit does is they ask for a manual inspection of those ballots,” she said. “We will see what happens there.”
Dozens of Arizonian voters told The Epoch Times over the past week that they felt frustrated by this year’s drawn-out election process. Some questioned why Arizona couldn’t get its results out on election night like Florida had. Lesko said many voters requested a mail-in ballot but didn’t drop it in, and instead brought it to the polling place to drop off. These ballots are not counted until after Election Day, “so in very close races it could take a week, or 2 weeks sometimes to count all these ballots,” she said.
It’s important for voters to elect legislators that will uphold the integrity of the election, she said, noting that it is state legislators that mostly determine election laws.
For voters who are feeling frustrated in these times, the congresswoman had a message for them.
“Keep up the hope,” she said. “The election’s not over until its over. There is still a possibility that President Trump will be president.”
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