After multiple controversies, lawsuits and actions demonstrating an incredible amount of gross incompetence, two county supervisors in Cochise County, Arizona have approved the hiring of a conspiracy theory-spouting election denialist as the man in charge of counting their ballots. These two supervisors continue to insist on casting doubts on the accuracy of the last two elections, despite evidence that proves those accusations to be lies.
They've cost the taxpayers of the county thousands of dollars in legal fees for their incompetence. Their antics led to the resignation of a competent, professional election supervisor, something they apparently had on their agenda when they were originally elected. They almost caused the county to not have any of its votes counted in the 2022 midterm elections because of their illegal delay in failing to certify the vote total, making the same false claim about Dominion voting machines that have been proven false time after time after time.
All but one of the county residents who came in to provide testimony during the supervisors meeting expressed their displeasure at the hiring of this individual, who was one of the election deniers leading the effort to attempt to stop certification of votes in November, 2022, in order to try to save the election deniers who lost.
The election denier who was hired, Bob Bartelsmeyer, is a hard liner. The irony one of his previous comments, "Everything the Dems are doing was done in Germany before Hitler took over," should not be lost on anyone who understands exactly what these people are doing and how they are going about it. That, along with insisting that he will never be convinced the 2020 election wasn't stolen should disqualify him from serving on any public payroll where tax dollars pay his salary. These people need to be exposed and expelled from any contact with any part of our elections system. They are the real danger to democracy.
County Residents Are Taking Action
After all of the incompetence and confusion created by the two Republican supervisors, Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, costing thousands of county taxpayer dollars, violating the law and making a mockery of the election process, a group of residents in Crosby's district determined to start a recall effort which appears to be moving along quite well. This will throw some gasoline on that fire. Recalling one of the two will save the county's election integrity, since the third supervisor, a Democrat, votes in a responsible, common sense way, based on affirmed facts. Judd's district has the highest percentage of registered Republican voters in the county, but many of the constituents who came to the meeting to express their opposition to the choice of this election denier were from her district, and apparently several of them are also planning to get the recall petitions circulating.
The Warning Was Sounded Long Ago, so Where Have We Been?
Our hope of having free and fair elections depends on making sure these people are shown the exit from any responsibility related to elections. We've been warned, but for some reason, unless it's a presidential election year, a lot of our constituency doesn't take the time to cast ballots or check out who is on the lower end of their ballot. The evidence that the 2020, and 2022 elections, were clean, that there was no "massive voter fraud" and that the conspiracy theories about voting machines being programmed to favor Democrats were all lies is overwhelming. Believing it in the face of hard evidence is insanity, and we don't need mentally ill people in government, where there is enough incompetence already.
It was almost a regular, weekly part of Rush Limbaugh's radio show to point out ways Republicans can use what power they had to game the system, and use the rules to create an advantage for themselves while Democrats were focusing on the upper parts of the ballot and behaving according to their normal patters. And a lot of those local county officials, who were regular listeners to his program, followed his instructions, invading precinct meetings after primaries, school boards, city councils, county supervisor boards and other places where local officials have almost absolute control over elections.
And so here we are. What do we do about it?
Most of this will have to be fought through the courts, or through what processes the Republicans once slipped this under the door, through local elections where supervisors, city councils and other governing bodies, even local school boards or hospital boards where public dollars are spent, and it will take time. I just hope we have enough, and until then, there are enough people keeping an eye on this, like the people who show up in Cochise County, at supervisor meetings, and keep telling their two Republican supervisors that they need to either get it together and do it right, or get out. According to the article posted from the Herald Review, the county's only daily newspaper, every supervisor's meeting since the election has drawn a crowd of voters angry at the two Republicans. A recall effort might just trigger a resignation, and that would change everything.
It's time to put an end to this nonsense. These nut jobs don't outnumber us. Finish the recall effort against Crosby, and that's enough to make some change. It might just be the encouragement others need in other places like Cochise County to motivate and bring an end to this creeping fascism.
Here is a link to donate to the recall of Tom Crosby:
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