Free Republic

Republican lawmakers who have spread election conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential outcome was rigged are overseeing legislative committees charged with setting election policy in two major political battleground states. Divided government in Pennsylvania and Arizona means that any voting restrictions those GOP legislators propose is likely to fail. Even so, the high-profile appointments give the lawmakers a platform to cast further doubt on the integrity of elections in states that will be pivotal in selecting the next president in 2024. Awarding such plum positions to lawmakers who have repeated conspiracies and spread misinformation cuts against more...

Nov. 28 was the deadline set by Arizona law for counties within the state to approve the official tally of votes for the 2022 election, a process that is also known as the canvass. For 2022, all Arizona counties, except one, have done so, despite pressure from some Republicans not to officially approve a vote count that had Democrats winning for U.S. Senate, governor and other statewide races. Initially, Republican supervisors in Mohave County postponed a certification vote until later Thursday after hearing comments from residents angry about problems with ballot printers in Maricopa County. The northwestern Arizona county, however,...

PHOENIX (AP) — Refusing to concede, Kari Lake, the defeated Republican candidate for Arizona governor, said Thursday she is assembling lawyers and collecting evidence of voters having trouble casting ballots on Election Day as she considers her next move. Lake, in a 2 1/2-minute video, made no mention of giving up in her most extensive public comments since losing the election. Before the election, she had refused to say that she would concede if she lost the race to Democrat Katie Hobbs. “Rest assured I have assembled the best and brightest legal team, and we are exploring every avenue to...

Simmering discontent among a segment of Arizona Republicans over John McCain’s famous penchant for bucking his party boiled over in the winter of 2014 with the censure of the longtime U.S. senator. McCain’s allies responded with an all-out push to reassert control over the Arizona Republican Party. Censure proponents were ousted or diminished, and McCain went on to defeat his far-right challenger in a blowout during the 2016 primary. Less than a decade later, the right wing forces that McCain marginalized within the Arizona GOP are now in full control, with profound implications for one of the nation’s most closely...

PHOENIX (AP) — U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is growing increasingly isolated from some of her party’s most influential officials and donors after playing a key role in scuttling voting rights legislation that many Democrats consider essential to preserving democracy. Leaders of the Arizona Democratic Party voted Saturday to censure Sinema, a symbolic condemnation for the woman who just three years ago brought the party an Arizona Senate seat for the first time in a generation. Donors are threatening to walk away. Several groups are already collecting money for an eventual primary challenge, even though she’s not on the ballot until...

PHOENIX (AP) — Ten months after Donald Trump lost his 2020 reelection bid in Arizona, supporters hired by Arizona Senate Republicans were preparing to deliver the results of an unprecedented partisan election review that is the climax of a bizarre quest to find evidence supporting the former president’s false claim that he lost because of fraud. Nearly every allegation made by the review team so far has crumbled under scrutiny. Election officials in Arizona and around the country expect more of the same Friday from the review team they say is biased, incompetent and chasing absurd or disproven conspiracy theories....

PHOENIX (AP) — Former Republican Secretary of State Ken Bennett said Wednesday that he plans to step down as the Arizona Senate’s liaison to the GOP-led audit of the 2020 election, dealing another blow to the credibility of the unprecedented partisan review. Bennett has been barred from the building where audit work is happening after he gave data to outside election experts without telling Senate President Karen Fann or employees of Cyber Ninjas, the firm Fann hired to lead the audit. On Wednesday, Fann said ballot counting is complete and the ballots are being returned to Maricopa County elections officials.

Two top Republicans in the Arizona Senate issued two new subpoenas late Monday for materials from the 2020 election as they look to continue their unprecedented review of former President Donald Trump’s loss in Maricopa County. The subpoenas issued by Senate President Karen Fann and Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen set up a new confrontation with the Republican leaders of Maricopa County, who have vowed to stop producing materials for the Senate’s review. They say the review is being run by incompetent grifters, and they’ve already provided everything needed to review the 2020 vote count. Fann and Petersen also, for...

PHOENIX (AP) — Firms hired to run a partisan audit of the 2020 election for Senate Republicans in Arizona said Tuesday that data was not destroyed, reversing earlier allegations that election officials in the state's most populated county eliminated evidence. The claim of deleted databases was amplified by former President Donald Trump and his supporters, who believe conspiracy theories about election irregularities.Ben Cotton, founder of a computer forensics firm working on the audit, told key senators that he had recovered all data. The revelation came a day after Maricopa County officials released a scathing letter saying the auditors couldn't find...

<p>The Republican who now leads the Arizona county elections department targeted by a GOP audit of the 2020 election results is slamming former President Donald Trump and others in his party for their continued falsehoods about how the election was run.</p>

Months after former President Trump's election defeat, Arizona legislative Republicans are challenging the outcome as they embark on an unprecedented effort to audit the results. The state Senate used its subpoena power to take possession of all ballots in Maricopa County and machines that counted them. They've handed the materials over to Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based consultancy with no election experience run by a man who has shared unfounded conspiracy theories claiming the official 2020 presidential election results are illegitimate. The process is alarming election professionals who fear the auditors are not up to the task and will undermine faith...