Kari Lake Falsely Claims There's a 'Lot of Corruption' in Electoral System, Suggests Restricting Early Voting

Caitlin O'Hara/Bloomberg/Getty Kari Lake, Republican candidate for Arizona governor

Republican nominee for Arizona governor Kari Lake offered a vague response when asked whether she believes the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" from Donald Trump, saying the media is "obsessed" with the question and claiming there is "a lot of corruption in this system."

Speaking to ABC News journalist Jonathan Karl on an episode of This Week aired Sunday, 53-year-old Lake said, "You guys are obsessed," when asked about the 2020 election.

When Karl noted that a number of high-ranking Republicans — including those on the Board of Supervisors, Republican governors across the country and Trump's former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr — have correctly noted that the election was indeed won by Joe Biden, Lake then suggested that some of those people "knew" that laws were broken.

"We have a lot of corruption in this system, and they don't want — I think a lot of people who were responsible for that election know that there were rules broken and laws broken," Lake said. "And they don't want to admit fault, OK?"

RELATED: Arizona Republican Kari Lake Booted from Gubernatorial Town Hall Audience: She 'Brought the Drama'

In truth, Lake's state of Arizona underwent multiple ballot recounts after the state flipped blue for Biden. In Maricopa County, an investigation found just "100 potentially questionable ballots" out of more than 2 million — a number that wouldn't change the election results, even if the ballots were found to be definitively fraudulent.

And while Lake claimed to ABC that some 740,000 ballots cast in Maricopa County in 2020 had "no chain of custody," the county itself has disputed that, saying in an official statement that the ballots were always secure.

As Lake and others cast doubt on the electoral system, poll workers in Arizona say they've been subject to threats and harassment, as two people wearing tactical gear and allegedly armed with guns were spotted near a drop box in Mesa, Arizona — located within Maricopa County — over the weekend.

Elsewhere in the interview, Lake spoke about her own upcoming election, which pits her in a tight race against Democrat Katie Hobbs, currently the Arizona secretary of state.

"I will accept the results of this election if we have a fair, honest and transparent election, absolutely, 100 percent," Lake told Karl.

Asked whether that meant she would accept the results even if she lost, Lake reiterated: "As long as it's fair, honest and transparent."

RELATED: Anti-Drag Candidate for Ariz. Governor Was Once a Supporter, Drag Queen Friend Says: 'Complete Hypocrite'

Elsewhere in the interview, Lake suggested that, if she was elected, she would seek to limit early voting in her state, telling Karl: "Our Constitution says Election Day. It doesn't say election season, election month. And the longer you drag that out, the more fraud with problems there are."

Early voting was a point of contention among Trump allies in the lead-up to election day 2020, and surveys show that Democrats are more supportive of allowing early voting than Republicans.

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Lake — a former news anchor who has molded herself in the image of Donald Trump — has courted controversy over the past several months, including for anti-drag comments (made despite past photos showing the Republican at a drag show) and for a video in which she lambasted the way, she said, that journalism had changed in recent years.

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