Arizona Daily Star: Still Looking for Ballot Problems
The Arizona Senate is still stuck on the 2020 election. In spite of an avalanche of evidence which shows that the final tally of Arizona's ballots, specifically those in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state, was accurate, state senators keep insisting on issuing subpoenas and gathering evidence, based on phony conspiracy theories. The Republicans in that senate just can't seem to wrap their minds around the fact that this has been coming for a while and that Maricopa County, with 4.5 million people, the largest county in the state and fourth largest in the entire nation, no longer has a Republican majority.
Since the 2020 election, in which President Biden's 11,000 vote margin of victory in Arizona was a result of his having carried the county by over 40,000 votes, the Arizona senate has been incapable of accepting the results. They have specifically focused on Maricopa County, even though the county officials in charge of elections are all Republicans except one, and their whole election process has been subjected to two very thorough, professional audits, two recounts and the fraudulent imposters known as the Cyber Ninjas, hired by the Senate illegally and without authority to order a ballot audit.
The Cyber Ninjas basically puttered around, displayed appalling ignorance in their inability to figure out how to access and use the county's voter database, mishandled ballots by leaving them laying around unattended and disorganized, exposed several of the counting machines which will need to be replaced, and found nothing of substance to indicate that the count was off due to "massive voter fraud." But as the dutiful Trumpies that they were, underwritten by Trump campaign contributors, their report had to cast some doubt on something. The Senate has gone ahead and taken the plunge into figuring out how to suppress the growing Democratic party presence in Arizona even though the evidence that was required from the Cyber Ninjas to support their contention that change was needed was never handed over to the Senate.
There's a really good reason for that, according to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. It doesn't exist.
The state senate just this week voted down a bill that would give the state's attorney general more power and authority to "investigate" elections in Arizona as one Republican, who has seen this whole charade for the ridiculous lie that it is, voted with the Democrats to kill the bill. Now another senator is claiming that there were over 200,000 ballots that were allowed through in spite of not passing the signature check and that has prompted yet another subpoena push, led by yet another hoodwinked senator, wasting the taxpayers money chasing down conspiracy theories. The county's election officials have said repeatedly that these fraudulent claims have no basis in fact and have provided all of the evidence necessary to support that contention.
No evidence at all has ever been produced that would support this new claim. The Cyber Ninjas were repeatedly asked to provide evidence to the Senate that supported their report. None has yet been provided, nor will it ever be, since they are gone and left nothing else behind.
One More Reason for Arizona Democrats to Make the Effort in 2022
Arizona has gone from being one of the most reliably Republican states in the nation to being a purple state where Democrats are on the verge of capturing the executive and legislative branches of the state government in one election cycle. The Republicans have just a one vote majority in the Senate, and two in the house. There are several reasons for that.
One is that the Latino population in Arizona is increasing rapidly, and here, Latinos tend to vote Democrat in higher percentages than in many other places in the United States. Part of that is the result of a "get out the vote" effort in, you guessed it, Maricopa County where the notorious bigot Joe Arpaio was Sheriff. Arpaio had an abysmal record, openly prejudiced against Hispanics which manifested itself in the treatment they got from his deputies. Hispanic Arizonans whose families had been in the state for generations were subject to harassment, surveillance and false arrest. Arpaio claimed to be a hard line "law and order" guy, though the crime rate in Maricopa County rose significantly when he was the Sheriff.
Latino groups organized, registered voters and Arpaio was voted out of office in 2016. He made a primary run for the Senate in 2018 and lost, and announced he would run for Maricopa County Sheriff again in 2020, but was defeated in the primary.
Maricopa County is one of the fastest growing counties in the country, in one of the fastest growing states in the country. A significant number of the new residents are from the heavily Democratic neighboring state of California, and from the heavily democratic cities of the upper midwest and northeast. While Republican voter registration in Arizona has actually declined during the past 20 years, Democrats and Independents have both increased their numbers. Democrats have chipped away at the once insurmountable Republican majorities in the heavily gerrymandered senate and representative districts and are now just one election cycle away from a majority. The state's congressional delegation shifted after the 2010 census and both US Senators are now Democrats (though Sinema is much more of a conservative independent).
One Place to Get Rid of "Big Lie" Advocates
Getting one Republican out of the mess and getting their vote to kill the bill that would place more power in the hands of the attorney general to "investigate" elections was a great start. All elections matter, mid-terms clearly as much as any others do. This is a great example of a place where Democrats can make a real difference. The Arizona legislature is ripe for a flip, given the number of Democrats who have registered to vote in the state since the last election cycle. All this silliness, and the disaster of the Cyber Ninjas have pushed a lot of independent voters to the left, as have the antics of Senate President Karen Fann, who seems to be living up to her first name in alienating members of her own party.
This is why the mid-term elections are important, and why Democrats need to blow past all the media coverage and make plans to set turnout records. The balance on President Biden's poll numbers, which have shifted upward since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, is Trump's unfavorable number, which hovers around 65%. That doesn't count the "somewhat unfavorables." Head to head, nationwide, Democrats are in great shape to take this thing. Arizona is one good place to start.
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