Until the expansion of the military base at Ft Huachuca, and an influx of military personnel and a civilian workforce largely brought in from other military communities scattered across the country, Democrats were in the majority, and controlled the county and city governments. But since the military base started using private contractors to provide services, replacing civilians employed by the government with civilians employed by private employers, the county has shifted to the right. The southeastern third of the county, around the border town of Douglas and county seat of Bisbee, is predominantly Latino and predominantly Democratic party. The ranching and farming areas are mixed, with some Latino population, but are mostly white and Republican, while the area in which most of Ft. Huachuca's employees live is Republican dominated.
That also reflects the makeup of the county board of supervisors. The supervisor district that is made up of the southeastern part of the county, and the towns of Douglas and Bisbee, always elects a Democrat as their supervisor. The other two districts, one made up of mostly the city of Sierra Vista and Ft. Huachuca, elects a Republican as does the district covering the northern part of the county, mostly farming and ranching area, with some suburban spillover from Tucson, near the town of Benson in the northwestern part of the county.
Cochise County, or at least most of it, falls within Congressional District 8, which was represented by Democrat Gabby Giffords, wife of Senator Mark Kelly, until the injuries she sustained in an assassination attempt forced her to step down. Since then, two Democrats, Ron Barber, who was Gifford's chief of staff, and Ann Kirkpatrick, from Tucson, and two Republicans, Martha McSally and current congressman Juan Ciscomani, have represented the district. A gerrymander by the Republican controlled state legislature just before the 2022 mid-terms removed the southeastern third of the county, containing most of its Democratic voters, from District 8 and put it in the district represented by Democrat Raul Grijalva.
The 2022 Mid-Term Election Fiasco
Republican Trump supporters were viciously angry over the fact that this long time Republican-leaning state had flipped to President Biden in the 2020 election. It was a narrow win for Biden, but the lead he got from early voting, and a bigger than normal Democratic turnout helped him carry the state. Certain that there had to be cheating, the state senate, not satisfied with two separate non-partisan audits proving that there was no fraud, and that the totals reported by the counties to the secretary of state were accurate, spent six million dollars on a fraudulent audit conducted by a firm called "the Cyber Ninjas," which claimed they could uncover ballots stuffed in the election from China, because of their bamboo fibers.
It was nutcase stuff, and a comedy of errors, including mishandling ballots, recalibrating voting machines making them useless for future election counts, and millions of taxpayer dollars squandered to produce results that, if the time had been taken to be patient, would mirror those of the two previous audits. Ultimately, when the state legislature decided not to ante up any more tax dollars, the Ninjas closed their audit and concluded that there had been no widespread voter fraud in Arizona.
In the 2022 mid-terms, in spite of some gerrymandering done by the Republican legislature, Arizona's statewide elections fell to the Democratic candidates. It was close, but Katie Hobbs was elected governor, Adrian Fontes was elected Secretary of State, Kris Mayes was elected Attorney General. Only the superintendent of public instruction, a minor post compared to the top three, went to a Republican.
The Republican gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, a rabid, vocal Trumpie, who thought Trump's endorsement put the election in the bag for her, was furious. She launched lawsuits right and left, in the teeth of evidence showing the election was conducted fairly and the counts were accurate. The balance of Democratic votes ensuring the victory came from the two most populous counties in the state, Pima, with a population of just over a million, and Maricopa, with a population of almost five million. In several of the counties outside these two, local supervisors and election clerks followed a plan to delay certification of the vote, a move they thought would flip the governor's race to Lake, who lost by just under 20,000 votes.
In Cochise County, the two Republican supervisors, Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby, refused to accept the county results, claiming that the counting machines were rigged, in spite of the fact that Lake received the majority of the votes, as did Juan Ciscomani, the Republican who flipped congressional district 8. While officials in several other counties which were holding back decided to follow court orders to certify their counts after audits showed their accuracy, Judd and Crosby ordered the county election clerk to hand count the 58,000 ballots, a procedure that was in violation of state law. Facing a deadline and knowing this was against the law, the clerk refused, and resigned under duress.
With the certification deadline approaching, Cochise county's refusal to certify votes was on the verge of disenfranchising all 58,000 voters, Republican and Democrat. Without the margin he had won in Cochise County, Ciscomani would have lost the District 8 Congressional seat by 10,000 votes. Lake's total margin would have been reduced by a further 10,000 votes and the state legislative positions, all involving districts which included voters outside of the county, would have gone to Democrats, flipping the legislature to Democratic control.
Court pressure finally pushed one of the Republican supervisors, Judd, to vote with Democrat Ann English to certify the ballots, while Crosby held out. The Secretary of State, who was also Governor-elect Katie Hobbs, accepted the ballot count. But Judd's actions, along with Crosby's earned indictments for felony counts of failing to certify an election as required by law. They were also the object of a lawsuit filed by the former county elections supervisor for the hostile work environment they had created for her.
Consequences of the Abuse of Power
Had Hobbs, as secretary of state, certified Arizona's vote totals without including the 58,000 ballots from Cochise County, she would have been within the letter of the law. She could have done so, and that would have benefitted her party in that it would have sent a Democrat to Congress from District 8 instead of Ciscomani and would have given three Democratic state senate candidates whose districts cross into Cochise County, narrow wins, instead of narrow losses. It would have also altered the vote total for the state superintendent of public instruction just enough to give that job to a Democrat.
So it is a testimony to her sense of fairness, and her commitment to the democratic process, to accept the county's votes when Judd finally voted to certify, a 2-0 vote with one abstention, from Crosby.
These two Republicans determined to act unilaterally, in spite of a clear procedure laid down in the law, requiring them to do their job. They kept insisting that the voting machines were not accurate, and demanding a hand count, even when they were shown evidence indicating that the machines were programmed correctly, and through several audits and tests that showed their accuracy. And even though they had this proven to them, they kept listening to the voices of a handful of Trump supporters who kept egging them on.
Being predisposed to believe conspiracy theories should disqualify persons from serving in public office, especially when elections are part of their responsibility. And it appears that these antics will have done so to these two county supervisors, though it has caused a waste of taxpayer dollars and lots of time. Both have been indicted and are awaiting trial in a state court that has come down hard on election denying tactics and lies. Judd has determined not to run for re-election while Crosby, who narrowly won the GOP primary, may be convicted prior to the election, which would disqualify his candidacy, giving Cochise County two Democrats as supervisors for the first time since the late 1970's.
Multply the Number of MAGA Republicans Who Are County Supervisors Across the Country to Get The Idea of How Much Trouble Certifying the 2024 Election Will Be if Harris and Democrats Get the Sweep That is Shaping Up
Marc Elias has issued a warning that these kinds of election shenanigans will result in lawsuits, and in prison terms for those officials who are in a position to mess with election results when there is no evidence suggesting the results are anything but legitimate. Fear has been expressed, legitimately, that Trump's last ditch effort to steal the election if he doesn't win will go through these MAGA Republicans in counties where they certify votes.
But elections are monitored. Democrats, independents, and all kinds of poll watchers are part of the processs in every county. When Trump filed lawsuits all over the place in 2020, he lost them all, in spite of the fact that most of the judges he faced were Republican appointees or elected Republicans. He hasn't corrupted everyone in the justice system. And in most states, like Arizona, the law is clear about when elections must be certified, and what happens if they aren't. And if these two supervisors in Arizona have been convicted by election time, there's a nice example and a great deterrent to others who might be thinking about doing the same.
This kind of anti-Patriotic, un-American dishonesty needs to be more than just defeated at the ballot box. They need an overwhelming defeat, a landslide, for voters to communicate how sick we all are of this graft and corruption.
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