Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake blamed Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose for ballot scanning issues during the state's elections on Tuesday.
Ohio voters are set to decide a ballot measure that would raise the threshold for constitutional amendments to pass from a simple majority to 60 percent. If the measure passes, it would make it more difficult for an amendment enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution to pass later this year.
As voters flock to the polls, all of the ballot scanners at one polling location in Cuyahoga Falls, a suburb of Akron, went down Tuesday morning, preventing people from being able to cast their ballot, according to WEWS-TV reporter Mike Holden. The issues have sparked concerns from voters, though officials said these ballots would be cast at a later time.
Lake, who was defeated by Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in Arizona's governor race last November, said LaRose, who is seeking the GOP nomination in Ohio's Senate race, was to blame for the election-day scanning issues in a post to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Sound familiar?? Looks like they took a page out of the Maricopa County 'selections' playbook. Today is Election Day in Ohio and the machines don't work. The swampy never-Trumper Ohio Secretary of State was too busy running for another office to do his job making sure Election Day runs smoothly. Reminds me of the jacka**** who run Maricopa County officials when they sabotaged Election Day to stop the will of We the People," she wrote.
She compared the situation to her election during the 2022 midterms. Lake has claimed that scanning issues in conservative-leaning areas of Maricopa County, the state's largest, disenfranchised Republican voters, helping to hand the tight election to Hobbs. However, election officials have maintained the integrity of the election, and her attempts to challenge the results have failed in court.
Despite her criticism, it remained unknown Tuesday afternoon whether the voting machines were tested prior to election day, what caused the machines to stop working, and who—if anyone—was responsible for the malfunction.
Newsweek reached out to LaRose's office for comment via email.
LaRose is one of several Republicans seeking to challenge Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in the 2024 election, in a traditionally competitive state that has drifted toward Republicans in recent years.
Although Lake attacked LaRose as a "never-Trumper," he did receive an endorsement from the former president ahead of his election in 2022.
LaRose, however, has resisted Trump's unfounded claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election, telling The Plain Dealer in November 2020 that he has "faith" in Ohio's elections and that he believes "all the other states do it very well also."
"If anybody believes that there's something out there, they need to show evidence. Otherwise, making claims without any basis or evidence behind it is problematic," he told the newspaper.
Polls suggest LaRose would be the strongest Republican candidate against Brown, a Democrat who was reelected in 2018 despite the state's increasingly Republican tilt.
A USA TODAY Network/Suffolk University poll, which surveyed 500 likely Ohio voters from July 9 to 12, found that LaRose came closest to beating Brown in 2024, though Brown still held a narrow lead.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more
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