Kari Lake and Mark Finchem have hit upon who to blame if they lose

There’s a new conspiracy brewing in Arizona, it seems. A diabolical plot to steal the 2022 election in, of all places, Pinal County.

Naturally, Kari Lake, Mark Finchem and the rest of the Stop-the-Steal crowd, are all over it.

Lake has been hinting for months that the only way she could lose the Aug. 2 Republican governor’s primary is if the election is stolen.

“We have a movement. Our campaign is a movement,” she said, when asked during the June 30 Clean Elections debate whether she would accept the election results. “We’re going to show up in droves. They are going to have to cheat even harder to win it.”

Never mind, apparently, the fact that there also is a rather substantial “movement” underway to elect her opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson (who, by the way, has agreed to accept the results once the voters have spoken.)

Finchem has flat out said he won’t concede should he lose the secretary of state’s race.

"Ain't gonna be no concession speech coming from this guy,’’ he told supporters, during a June 28 event in Chandler. “I'm going to demand a 100% hand count if there's the slightest hint that there's an impropriety.’’

Given that Finchem sees conspiracies behind every cactus, I’m guessing that means there’s a 100% chance he’ll scream “fraud” should he lose to one of his three opponents.

Which brings us to the sinister doings in Pinal County.

'The most important thing you will read all day'

“This,” Lake tweeted on Monday, “is the most important thing you will read all day.”

This, being a tweet she and Finchem are passing along to their hundreds of thousands of followers from True the Vote’s Gregg Phillips.

Phillips is taking a break from chasing ballot mules to expose the plot in Pinal, where he ominously announces that county elections officials are “injecting 63,000 new ballots into the system" -- an amount equivalent to just over a quarter of the county's registered voters.

While he doesn't use the C word, it's implied when it's coming the guy who's been spinning voter fraud theories since 2016 -- one whose analysis formed the basis for the widely debunked 2000 Mules documentary. 

“We know in advance this time,” he tweeted, of the nefarious doings in Pinal. “This is happening before our eyes. Watch closely.”

Indeed, it is happening right before our eyes, which probably tells you it’s not much of a conspiracy.

Here's what really happened

Pinal County announced earlier this month that it messed up 63,000 early ballots. The county forgot to include municipal races on ballots sent to voters in six Pinal County towns and put city and town races on ballots sent to nearby unincorporated areas.

Elections officials made a programming error – a serious one.

A kerfluffle ensued until county officials came up with a fix: Affected Pinal early voters will vote twice.

Once, for federal state and legislative races, which were correctly listed on their original early ballot. (No votes for municipal races on this ballot will be counted.)

And again, on a second ballot that will be sent out this week for non-partisan city and town races.

Phillips is correct that the county is “injecting 63,000 new ballots into the system”. But those ballots have nothing to do with Lake's race or FInchem's race or any other federal, state or legislative race.

Lake and Finchem know better

Lake and Finchem know that.  Yet here they are, signalling that something stinky is afoot. Then again, I guess it's a great way to begin to build a case that they've been robbed, should the need arise come Aug. 3.

The Arizona Republican Party is all over it.

“Election disaster has already struck in Pinal County,” the state GOP tweeted on Friday.

The party went on to urge people to “Vote Republican to Save America”, evidently forgetting that Pinal County -- the site of this "disaster" -- is run by Republicans.

As with all things conspiratorial in the age of social media, the suggestion that something foul is afoot is taking root among the Save America crowd.

Naturally, Finchem has called for Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to resign.

Never mind that Hobbs’ office had nothing to do with Pinal County's mess.

“Under Arizona law, the Secretary of State’s Office is not involved with a county’s creation or proofing of ballots for local contests nor does our Office conduct logic and accuracy testing for local contests,” SOS spokeswoman Sophia Solis told me.

You'd think a guy running for secretary of state would know that.

Then again, you'd think a guy who wants to run Arizona's elections would know better to than to constantly, baselessly complain that you can't trust Arizona's elections.

Unless, that is, he's willing to say he won't accept the results of this "corrupt" election even if he's elected?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Will Kari Lake and Mark Finchem blame Pinal County if they lose?