INUNDATED

Elderly Man Bombarded With Calls for Kari Lake in Phone Number Mixup

Ed Wignall says he’s been bombarded with hundreds of calls meant for the MAGA Republican—a situation he decided to turn into a “science project.”

An 82-year-old Arizona man has been inundated with phone calls from people trying to reach Kari Lake’s gubernatorial campaign after his phone number was mistakenly listed on Google as a point of contact for the MAGA Republican. Ed Wignall told local news outlet Arizona’s Family he was initially “upset with the whole thing” and desperately “tried to figure out how to turn it off.” But then he decided to engage with the hundreds of callers who were directed to him by mistake. “I just decided to make this into a science project,” he was quoted as saying. “And have been taking calls ever since. It’s just mainly been me listening.” He says he informs callers that he’s not really with Lake’s campaign, but he offers to listen to their frustrations anyway. “They’re really disgusted with all the fear and hate speech, and all the ads on both sides. It’s just overwhelming,” he said. Lake lost the governor’s race to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs but is expected to challenge the results. A spokesperson for her campaign told Arizona’s Family they contacted Google last week to ask them to remove Wignall’s phone number from search results, but the number was still listed.