PHOENIX—Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has significantly narrowed the gap between herself and Democrat Katie Hobbs as vote counting continued on Nov. 9.
At 10:45 p.m. local time on election night, Hobbs led Lake by about 170,000 votes, and within about an hour, the lead had narrowed slightly to 163,000. As of the afternoon of Nov. 9, only about 11,000 votes separated Lake, the former television news anchor, and Hobbs, who is Arizona’s secretary of state, with as many thousands of votes yet to be counted.
Vote tabulation machine malfunctions at about 25 percent of polling places in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, sparked criticism early on Election Day on social media, although officials assured that every vote would be counted….