No, the Arizona governor’s election wasn’t ‘fraudulent’

Arizona counties have until Nov. 28 to certify their election results and send their final vote tallies to the secretary of state. But a recent Instagram post alleges, without evidence, that the gubernatorial election there was illegitimate. 

"The next step will be for the frauds to try and certify a fraudulent election (again)," the post says, apparently alluding to the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. "Fraudulent because due to machines not working, printers not working, voters being turned away from exercising their right to vote, it was not fair and equal and we cannot allow certification." 

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

According to unofficial election results, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs beat Republican challenger Kari Lake, a former Phoenix TV news anchor, with about 50.3% of the vote. In the more than two weeks since Election Day, we’ve debunked many claims seeking to undermine this contest’s results, including false allegations about voting machines, printers and efforts to disenfranchise voters. 

Voting machines at about 70 vote centers in Maricopa County temporarily stopped processing ballots on Election Day; some of the ballot printers didn’t use enough ink, making the ballots unreadable by a tabulator’s scanner.

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But voters weren’t turned away. They could place their ballots in a secured slot so their votes would be counted after polls closed or they could go to different Maricopa County polling locations that had working tabulators.

Another piece of misinformation that took hold: that the county — the state’s most populous  — intentionally reduced polling places, suggesting a bigger disenfranchisement plot. 

But Maricopa County had 48 more voting locations in the 2022 general election than it did in the 2020 general election. 

Among other related claims we’ve debunked: that the social media followings of Lake and Hobbs suggest election fraud; that bags of ballots in Maricopa County are evidence of election fraud; that split election results show the race was rigged; that Hobbs was caught in a vote counting room; that there was no chain of custody for ballots at a polling site in Maricopa County; that the chain of custody was broken there; and that final, unofficial election results in Arizona were delayed because election officials there wanted "more time to cheat." 

No evidence has emerged of widespread voter fraud in Arizona, just as it didn’t in the 2020 election. 

We rate claims that the Arizona gubernatorial race was fraudulent Pants on Fire!