Republican candidates running for Arizona offices were the focus of two television segments on different shows that aired over the weekend — just over a week before the state's general election.
On Saturday, NBC's long-running "Saturday Night Live" opened with a sketch featuring comedians impersonating Republicans Kari Lake, Georgia's Herschel Walker and TV host turned U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz.
The sketch, a spoof of "PBS Newshour," featured Cecily Strong playing Kari Lake and referenced Lake's past as a new anchor, her denial of 2020's election results and armed ballot box "watchers" in Arizona.
"Drag queen story time. Men dressing as loud sassy women introducing children to the joys of reading? Not on my watch," Strong's Lake said, framing it as Arizona's "most pressing issue."
CBS then aired an episode of "60 Minutes" Sunday night featuring a special segment on election-denying Arizona politicians that included an interview with secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem.
Finchem claimed that Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has a "mountain of evidence" related to voter fraud in his office and that the FBI found repeated fingerprints on 25,000 ballots in Yuma County, which reporter Scott Pelley said the FBI denies.
Finchem is running against Democratic candidate Adrian Fontes for secretary of state in Arizona's general election. Lake is running for governor against Democrat Katie Hobbs, Arizona's current secretary of state.
The state's general election is Nov. 8.
In Arizona, where election results in 2020 were close and contested, they say they're protecting the vote. But some voters in Arizona say these ballot box watchers are intimidating them.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told Newsy about six reports of alleged voter intimidation in Maricopa County in the last few days.
"These reports have all been sent to the Attorney General and the Department of Justice for investigation. And we absolutely believe that part of the intent of these vigilantes is to cast a chilling effect on people's freedom to vote," said Hobbs.
Newsy obtained those voter complaints, which detail a group of people in camp chairs, who waited for voters to pull up to a ballot drop box outside a juvenile courthouse in Mesa allegedly following, filming and photographing voters and their license plates in the name of "election security."
Two armed men wearing disguises and tactical gear also hung around another drop box in Mesa, according to local officials. The Maricopa County sheriff's office responded to incidents, and videos emerged online. The complaints are mainly aimed at a group called "Clean Elections USA," according to a lawsuit filed Monday. And members kept it vague with our local partner station. Online, Clean Elections references a debunked conspiracy film called "2000 Mules," claiming without evidence that so-called "'mules' were paid to go from drop box to drop box."
