Kari Lake moves on ... to the 2020 election

Kari Lake, having just lost her bid to overturn the 2022 election, has now moved on … to the 2020 election.

“Welcome to the Banana Republic of Arizona,” she tweeted on Monday. “Maricopa County report reveals thousands of ballots in 2020 didn’t have proof of citizenship.”Naturally, Lake’s “war room” chimed in on this shocking development.

“The Secretary of State who oversaw this debacle is squatting as Governor,” her campaign account added. “The guy who was Maricopa County Recorder is Secretary of State. These people were promoted for successfully sabotaging 2020.”Or put another way, they followed federal law.

Is Kari Lake ignorant or just shameless?

Lake's latest tweet shows she is either ignorant of the law or absolutely shameless in her attempts to undermine confidence in our elections.

Neither is a good look.

I suppose it wouldn't be all that surprising that Lake would be ignorant of such matters as as she revs up her supporters for what appears to be her inevitable run for the U.S. Senate next year.

Anything Lake doesn’t understand — state election law, federal election law, how bills become law — automatically becomes a “bombshell.”

One that usually blows up in her face.Which bothers her not in the least because she can then go on to complain about the “cover up” and fake news and liberal judges and such in her pleas for your cash.

But I digress.

4,484 voters didn't prove their citizenship

As Lake awaits an appeal of her own “stolen” election, she tweeted out this screaming headline from a conservative news site — a tweet then amplified thousands of times by her fans across the nation:

“Maricopa County report reveals thousands of ballots in 2020 didn’t have proof of citizenship.”

In fact, 4,484 Arizona voters didn’t provide proof of citizenship before casting their ballots in 2020, according to the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.This, I suppose, would be a stunning revelation to anyone who doesn’t know how elections work or the laws that govern them.

For nearly two decades, Arizona has required anyone who registers to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship.

But state law doesn’t trump federal law, which requires only that you affirm, under the penalty of perjury, that you’re a U.S. citizen.

This is perfectly legal. It's how the law works

Those federal-only voters can then cast a ballot, but only for federal offices.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (aka the Motor Voter law) says so.

So does the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2013 ruled that while Arizona can demand proof of citizenship from those wanting to vote in state and local elections, it cannot supersede federal law govering federal elections.

Naturally, Lake wants you to conclude that every one of those 4,484 voters is a non-citizen, evil interlopers intent on stealing our elections en route to stealing our country.

New printers: How Maricopa County is preparing for 2024 election

Either that or she just doesn’t have a problem with disenfranchising certain sorts of Americans.

The Brennan Center for Justice, citing several studies, estimates that 5% to 7% of Americans don’t have the most common types of documents used to prove citizenship: a passport or birth certificate.Some of them are Native Americans or others born outside of hospitals.

Others are low-income citizens who likely don’t have the inclination or the disposable income to go chasing down those long-lost documents.

Only 5 non-citizens voted in 2020

Maricopa County has canceled voter registrations of 222 non-citizens since 2015, according to a recent report by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates tightening the Motor Voter law.

These are largely immigrants who out themselves, people who don’t want to risk their shot at becoming citizens, , according to the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Only nine of those 222 actually cast ballots, the group reports.Only five of them voted in 2020.

“Welcome,” Kari Lake tweeted to her 1.2 million followers, “to the Banana Republic of Arizona.”

And you wonder why people no longer trust our elections?

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

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake trashes election law ignorantly (or shamelessly)