In Arizona, Maricopa County's top election official has been moved to a secret location with a security detail because of all the credible death threats against him thanks to GOP loser Kari Lake.
Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates has confirmed that he moved to an undisclosed location for his safety after security concerns connected to the 2022 midterm elections.
Deputies from the sheriff's office are also providing a security detail, officials said.
Gates, a Republican and one of the leaders of the Maricopa County Elections Department, has been a fierce defender of the county's election system and an outspoken critic of false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
In a similar vein, Gates has continued to defend the county against continued claims of fraud during the midterms. Some have focused on an issue with printers on Election Day that led to numerous tabulation machines being unable to read some ballots.
His stance has caused a slew of backlash online and in person. Some people were seen launching verbal attacks on Gates during a meeting with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors earlier this week.
Other county officials have reported receiving calls they considered threatening from campaign volunteers.
Needless to say, while the annulment scenario of a Republican loss in 2022 (and the odds of that happening in 2024) was largely avoided due to 2020 election deniers largely getting crushed at the polls, the danger to election officials is still very much real in the months ahead because there are multiple states where election deniers are already in power.
Besides, Kari Lake is still openly trying to steal her election, and the only question is how much help she's going to get from Arizona Republicans, who are already calling for new elections now.
A Chandler Republican recently elected to the Arizona House of Representatives says that she will not cast her vote on any bill unless the 2022 election is redone.
Liz Harris, recently elected to represent Legislative District 13 which encompasses much of Chandler, issued the statement on Instagram and her campaign website saying in part "it has become obvious that we need to hold a new election immediately."
Despite winning her own election, Harris alleges that there were "clear signs of foul play" which necessitated her demands. There has been no evidence of this.
"Machine malfunctions" were cited as one such sign. On election day, 60 of the 223 polling places in Maricopa County saw issues with their ballot printers, leading to some ballots not being counted immediately.
The issue was resolved within a few hours, and election officials say that they were able to ensure that every legal ballot was successfully counted.
Harris also questioned the fact that Treasurer Kimberly Yee (R) won her election with a greater count of votes than any other candidate.
"How can a Republican State Treasurer receive more votes than a Republican Gubernatorial or Senate candidate?" Harris asked.
In Arizona, voters are allowed to cast a split ticket. This means that they don't have to vote exclusively along party lines. Yee also received more votes than any Democratic candidate running for office.
It's not the first time that Harris has been involved in trying to overturn the results of an election.
After losing to incumbents Jennifer Pawlik (D) and Jeff Weninger (R) in the 2020 general election, Harris began a "Grassroots Canvass Report" to investigate baseless allegations of voting errors in order to decertify the results of both the state legislature and presidential elections.
The report falsely claimed to have uncovered some 173,000 “lost” votes and 96,000 “ghost votes” in a private door-to-door canvassing effort, supposedly rendering the 2020 election in Maricopa County “uncertifiable.”
Maricopa County election officials and outside experts said Liz Harris used “quasi-science" in her canvas of the 2020 election and her findings were "inaccurate."
Harris's canvassing report initially appeared in the Cyber Ninjas 'audit' draft report but was later removed from the final version after it was revealed that the DOJ had warned Harris against door-knocking.
If Arizona's Republican party wants to destroy themselves, great. The problem is they want to take the rest of us with them.
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