The Big Lie, Con't

Arizona Republicans failed to steal the 2020 election for Trump, so they're proposing giving themselves the right to do so legally in 2024.

An arch conservative member of Arizona’s state House of Representatives has proposed a mammoth overhaul of the state’s voting procedures that would allow legislators to overturn the results of a primary or general election after months of unfounded allegations and partisan audits.

The bill, introduced by state Rep. John Fillmore (R), would substantially change the way Arizonans vote by eliminating most early and absentee voting and requiring people to vote in their home precincts, rather than at vote centers set up around the state.

Most dramatically, Fillmore’s bill would require the legislature to hold a special session after an election to review election processes and results, and to “accept or reject the election results.”

The proposal comes after President Biden became the first Democrat since former President Clinton to win Arizona’s electoral votes. He defeated former President Trump there by just under 11,000 votes, or about three-tenths of a percentage point.

Ever since, Arizona Republicans have been riven between election denialists who have pushed to investigate or overturn those results and more mainstream legislators — and Gov. Doug Ducey (R) — who have tried to move on. An audit, conducted by an inexperienced firm called Cyber Ninjas, failed to uncover evidence of fraud or miscounting.

But Fillmore said at a committee hearing Wednesday he still does not believe the reports he has seen, though he maintained his skepticism has little to do with the ultimate winner.

“I don’t care what the press says. I don’t trust ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox or anybody out there. Everybody’s lying to me and I feel like I have a couple hundred ex-wives hanging around me,” Fillmore said. “This is not a President Biden thing. This is not a the other red-headed guy thing.”

“We should have voting in my opinion in person, one day, on paper, with no electronic means and hand counting that day. We need to get back to 1958-style voting,” he added.

 

And there it is. Vote on election day in person, one day, and that's it. Eliminate all mail voting, eliminate all early voting, and give the state legislature the final say on if the vote is legitimate. If this has been in place in 2020,  Trump would have been awarded the state and chaos would have followed for sure.

Remember, the whole point was to throw the election to the House because neither Trump nor Biden would have had the 270 electoral votes and Trump would have been declared the winner. The whole point was to obfuscate, smokescreen, and gaslight the process.

Arizona Republicans want to set up the ability to do so in 2024. More GOP state legislatures will follow.