Arizona

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Chaos will be created’: Arizona court hears election-subversion case – with eyes on 2024

      by

      In a courtroom in Phoenix, Arizona, two elected officials who allegedly tried to subvert the county’s 2022 election tried to get a lawsuit against them thrown out in a case one of their defense attorneys called both “silly” and “scary”.The Cochise county supervisors, Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, appeared in court virtually, to defend themselves against charges of attempted election interference for their initial failure to certify the county’s election results.The implications of the case extend far beyond the rural county and the Phoenix courtroom 200 miles away.The state attorney general, Kris Mayes, a Democrat, sought the charges in the deep-red border county, where election denialism has gripped part of the electorate. Those looking to sow doubt in elections found, to some degree, willing ears with the two Republicans on the board.View image in fullscreenTheir attorneys argue that the officials’ conduct did not actually delay the election results statewide. They also claim the two supervisors have legislative immunity for their votes, regardless of their underlying motivations. And, while the state has maintained that signing off on election results is a required duty not subject to supervisors’ discretion, the supervisors claim they don’t just serve as a “rubber stamp” on election results.The Arizona legislature’s Republican leaders filed a brief in the case aligning with the supervisors, saying that the lawsuit “portends further weaponization of legal and judicial processes for political retribution”.“What we’ve got is a rogue prosecution, a rogue prosecutor in a rogue prosecution, arguing, well, we’ll just take any legislative function – clearly, which it was, this vote – and we’re going to now read into it,” Dennis Wilenchik, Crosby’s attorney, said in a court hearing on 19 April.The lawsuit is part of a deeper conflict – a clash between a Democratic attorney general, narrowly elected in 2022, and Republicans who question election results in the state. The recent indictments against the Republican slate of Arizona fake electors, two of whom are sitting lawmakers, further the divide.Both Mayes and the Republican-controlled legislature allege the other side is playing politics instead of doing their job. The state house started a committee to investigate Mayes’ actions on various issues, including Cochise elections; the committee’s chair has said the group could recommend actions be taken against Mayes, including potential impeachment.The battle lines drawn in Cochise county extend far beyond its borders, into whether local elected officials can decide not to sign off on election results, into the fate of Arizona’s future and who controls it. The culmination of the case holds potential consequences for the 2024 election, when officials at the local level could try similar tactics to question results.View image in fullscreenPart of a patternAfter the 2020 election, activists in counties around the country turned up at meetings to allege that voter fraud stole the election from Donald Trump and demanded changes to how their elections are run.In Cochise county, these activists repeatedly brought up unsubstantiated claims about problems with tabulation machines that made their use in elections suspect. They wanted the county to count ballots fully by hand and throw out the machines.Crosby and Judd aligned with those activists, agreeing to a full hand-count. The idea invited a lawsuit, which led to a ruling that a full hand-count would be illegal in Arizona.The supervisors claimed they had lingering questions about the use of tabulation machines, specifically whether those machines had the proper certification, so they refused to certify the election. A court intervened, forcing certification. Judd eventually voted in favor of certifying results after the court ruling, but Crosby didn’t show up for the meeting.Personnel issues have plagued the elections office as these legal battles have played out. The county’s former elections director, Lisa Marra, opposed the hand count, and Crosby and Judd sued her personally in an attempt to get access to the ballots for a hand count. Marra eventually quit because of a “threatening” work environment, leading to a monetary payout.View image in fullscreenThe county is on its fourth elections director since the 2022 election, after the most recent director, Tim Mattix, left in April for personal reasons. The director before him, Bob Bartelsmeyer, was an election skeptic who stayed in the role for just five months after his conservative bonafides were repeatedly impugned by local far-right activists.Mayes’ office contends the two supervisors’ pattern of behavior leading up to delaying certification speaks to a plan to sow chaos in elections and question results.“This is a criminal conspiracy to obstruct the election,” the assistant attorney general Todd Lawson argued, “so that the secretary of state is unable to certify, and that chaos will be created, no one will know what will happen, and that people like the US House of Representatives, perhaps the Arizona legislature, will have to step in and declare election results, irrespective of who actually won.”Whatever happens in the case, now in Maricopa county superior court, it will almost certainly be appealed to a higher court.Crosby did not answer questions sent from the Guardian, responding: “No thanks.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJudd also did not respond, and her attorney said he had advised against her speaking with the media at this time.But Judd told Votebeat that she wasn’t a driving force for a hand count in the first place and voted for it because of what she was hearing from constituents.“You can ask anyone. I never pushed for it,” she said.A separate courtroom battle over the legality of hand counts, stemming from Mohave county, could affect whether Cochise and other jurisdictions pursue the elimination of voting machines in this year’s presidential election.In the Republican-dominated county, the supervisor Ron Gould sued Mayes after her office sent a letter warning supervisors against a full hand-count of the 2024 election, something the board there had been considering but ultimately voted against.Mayes warned that supervisors could face criminal prosecution if they proceeded with a hand count, as many counties across the country have tried to do since 2020.View image in fullscreenLegislature strikes backBefore the first meeting of the house ad hoc committee of executive oversight in early April, Mayes held a press conference and derided the legislature’s “outlandish personal attacks” on her and the attorney general’s office.“Perhaps our Republican senate president and speaker of the house aren’t very used to an attorney general who will actually roll up her sleeves and fight for Arizonans,” she said. “But that is what they have in me.”View image in fullscreenIn the house, Democrats skipped the meeting in protest. Representative Jacqueline Parker, the committee’s chair, said it would investigate Mayes’ actions to see whether she had weaponized her office or abused her authority, but it seemed the committee already believed she had.The Cochise county skirmishes were just one part of their opposition – they also mentioned her refusal to prosecute anyone who violated Arizona’s abortion ban and her unwillingness to defend laws on LGBTQ+ issues such as one outlawing trans girls from playing girls’ sports, among other concerns.One of the first records requests to Mayes’ office from the committee centered on Cochise county – in particular, an unsuccessful lawsuit brought by the attorney general when the board voted to move some election authority to the Republican county recorder, who had pushed for the hand count and cast doubt on elections.“We would like to better understand your motivation for targeting Cochise county and including such inflammatory and irrelevant material in your court filings,” the committee chairs wrote.Parker said in the initial hearing that she hoped Mayes cooperates with the records request because she would “really be interested in finding out why she’s only going after Cochise county and not other bad-acting counties like Pima or Maricopa, who have had, in my opinion, many, many more issues”.After Mayes announced the fake electors charges, Parker called on her to recuse herself from “any legal matters involving elected officials or candidates” because she has “prosecuted or threatened to prosecute public officials if they dare disagree with you”.Mayes’ office said the backlash doesn’t affect her work and that she “won’t let the partisan attacks by the GOP deter her from doing her job”. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Arizona senate passes repeal of 1864 near-total abortion ban

      by

      Arizona lawmakers have repealed the state’s 160-year-old statute banning nearly all abortions.The 1864 law, which was reinstated by the state supreme court three weeks ago, has made abortion a central focus in the battleground state and galvanized Democrats seeking to enshrine abortion rights.In the state senate, Democrats picked up the support of two Republicans in favor of repealing the ban. The Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, is expected to ratify the repeal, which narrowly cleared the Arizona house last week after three Republicans joined with all the Democrats in the chamber.Dozens of demonstrators for and against the right to abortion gathered at the capitol before the vote, and others packed into the chamber’s gallery to watch. As senators began to vote, Republicans in the chamber voiced bombastic protests and criticisms in floor speeches.Antony Kern, a Republican who has been indicted as a fake elector in a plot to undermine the 2020 election results, said his fellow Republicans backing the ban were the “epitome of delusion”. He claimed the vote would take the state down a slippery slope towards acceptance of pedophilia, as supporters cheered from the gallery with silent claps. Kern also compared the chamber repealing the bill to Nazi Germany.Another Republican senator, JD Mesnard, played a sonogram recording of his child’s heartbeat on the floor. He said: “These will be fewer, these heart beatings.”Republican Shawnna Bolick gave a 20-minute speech in defense of her vote to support the repeal, covering stories about her own pregnancies, other pregnancies, and her critiques of the state’s Democratic governor. Ultimately, she said, repealing the ban would allow Republicans to maintain a less extreme version of abortion restrictions. She said: “We should be pushing for the maximum protection for unborn children that can be sustained. I side with saving more babies’ lives.”The civil-war era statute, which predates Arizona’s statehood, bans nearly all abortions, including those sought by survivors of rape or incest. It also imposes prison terms for doctors and others who aid in abortions. The law had been blocked by the 1973 supreme court Roe v Wade decisions that granted the constitutional right to abortion.“We are relieved that lawmakers have finally repealed this inhumane abortion ban – something extremist politicians refused to do for far too long,” said Victoria López, director of program and strategy for the ACLU of Arizona. “Unfortunately, cruel abortion bans like the law from 1864 have been at the center of political stunts for years, causing lasting harm to people who need abortions and their providers.”Last month, the state’s Republican-appointed supreme court justices suggested it could be reinstated since Roe was overturned in 2022.The repeal would not take effect until June or July, 90 days after the legislative session. Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has vowed not to enforce the ban in the meantime. Providers, including Planned Parenthood, have been preparing resources to help patients seeking abortions to travel out of state during the time that the ban is in effect.“Today’s vote by the Arizona senate to repeal the draconian 1864 abortion ban is a win for freedom in our state,” Mayes said.Once the 1864 measure is stricken, a 2022 statue banning procedures after 15 weeks of pregnancy would supplant it as the state’s ruling abortion law.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenAbortion rights advocates have emphasized that repealing the ban is not enough. “This is an important step, but our work isn’t done,” said Ruben Gallego, a US congressman from Arizona who is running for the US Senate. “Arizona women deserve better. That’s why we’re going to pass a constitutional right to abortion and defeat anti-abortion extremists.”Democrats have been pushing for a ballot measure in November that would enshrine the right to abortions in the state’s constitution. In the weeks since the ban was reinstated , the Arizona for Abortion Access effort saw its volunteers grow from about 3,000 to more than 5,000.“Nothing has changed about the need for the Arizona abortion access act,” the group organizing the ballot measure said following the passage of the repeal.The issue has placed enormous pressure on the Arizona GOP, from conservatives who support the ban and from swing voters who oppose the extreme measure. On the senate floor on Wednesday, Bolick, as she cast her vote in favor of the repeal, said: “I want to protect our state constitution from unlimited abortions up until the moment of birth.”In the key swing state – one that historically leaned Republican but backed Joe Biden in 2020 – the issue could help turn out more voters who could help flip the statehouse blue.Republican lawmakersare considering putting one or more competing abortion proposals on the November ballot, including a 14-week ban and a “heartbeat protection act” that would make abortion illegal after six weeks. No such measures have been introduced yet. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Arizona Rancher Accused of Killing Migrant Won’t Be Retried After Mistrial

      by

      George Alan Kelly was accused of murdering Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, an unarmed migrant from Mexico, on his 170-acre ranch in Kino Springs, Ariz., last year.Prosecutors in Arizona said on Monday that they would not retry a rancher who was charged with murdering an unarmed migrant on his property last year after a mistrial was declared last week.Jurors were not able to reach a unanimous verdict in the case against George Kelly, 75, who fatally shot at Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, on his 170-acre ranch in Kino Springs, Ariz., after Mr. Cuen-Buitimea crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in January 2023. Judge Thomas Fink of Santa Cruz County Superior Court declared a mistrial on April 22.The Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Office said in a statement on Monday that “because of the unique circumstances and challenges surrounding” the case, Mr. Kelly would not be retried.“However, our office’s decision in this case should not be construed as a position on future cases of this type,” the office said. “Our office is mandated by statute to prosecute criminal acts, and we take that statutory mandate seriously.”Brenna Larkin, a lawyer for Mr. Kelly, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.Ms. Larkin said last week that there had been a hung jury in the case, and that the final count had been 7-1 in favor of finding Mr. Kelly not guilty.Mr. Cuen-Buitimea was part of a group of undocumented migrants who were crossing the high desert in Kino Springs, Ariz., near the border with Mexico on Jan. 30, 2023, when they were spotted by Border Patrol and fled, according to the authorities. Mr. Cuen-Buitimea and another man, Daniel Ramirez, ran onto Mr. Kelly’s ranch, which is when Mr. Kelly fired an AK-47-style rifle at them, the authorities said.Mr. Cuen-Buitimea was struck in the back and died, law enforcement officials said.Mr. Kelly was charged in February 2023 with one count of second-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault.The case emboldened immigration critics and conservative ranchers, who said that Mr. Kelly had been a victim, while others were horrified by the shooting.Ms. Larkin said in court documents that Mr. Kelly had been eating lunch the day of the shooting when he and his wife saw several men armed with rifles near his home.“Mr. Kelly responded by firing several warning shots over the heads of the group,” she wrote in court documents.Michael Jette, a deputy Santa Cruz County attorney, said during closing arguments on April 18 that Mr. Kelly had fired his gun “without verbal warning, without a shout, without any indication,” The Associated Press reported.Before the case went to trial in March, Mr. Kelly rejected a plea agreement that would have reduced the charges to one count of negligent homicide. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      More Than 170 Protesters Arrested at Northeastern and Arizona State University

      by

      The police made arrests at Northeastern University, Arizona State and Indiana University on Saturday, as more schools move in on encampments protesting the war in Gaza.Nearly 200 protesters were arrested on Saturday at Northeastern University, Arizona State University and Indiana University, according to officials, as colleges across the country struggle to quell growing pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments on campus.More than 700 protesters have been arrested on U.S. campuses since April 18, when Columbia University had the New York Police Department clear a protest encampment there. In several cases, most of those who were arrested have been released. More

    • 225 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      A physician, a lawyer, a CEO: the 84 fake electors who allegedly tried to steal the 2020 election

      by

      With the indictment announced in Arizona this week, 36 out of 84 people who signed certificates falsely alleging they were electors for Donald Trump have now been criminally charged.Kris Mayes is the third state attorney general to indict part of the slate of people who signed the false documents with plans to turn them over to Mike Pence, the US vice-president, to steal the election from Joe Biden. Attorneys general in Michigan and Nevada have also brought charges, and in Wisconsin, fake electors face a civil lawsuit.
      36 have been criminally indicted (one has had charges dropped)
      10 face a civil lawsuit
      14 have been subpoenaed by Congress as part of the January 6 investigation
      This year, as the country prepares for a rematch between Trump and Biden, the majority of the 84 people have not been prosecuted criminally. Some of the fake electors, including those in Pennsylvania, are unlikely to be charged because of how the document they signed there was worded; their documents said their electoral votes would only be counted if they were determined to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Pennsylvania.A small number of the 84 people – who in 2020 mostly were local Republican party leaders and activists – have been elected to public office or appointed to positions of power since the scheme.
      Seven have been elected to office
      Seven have lost elections
      Four have been appointed or nominated to positions of power
      One is currently running for federal office
      It’s unclear whether Trump and his allies would use a similar playbook to try to steal the next election if he loses in November. He and others in his orbit are already laying the groundwork to claim voter fraud.As of now, a number of the people who signed false elector certificates have positions of authority and could help Trump if he were to attempt something similar again.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenArizona (11)On Wednesday, Kris Mayes, the state attorney general, announced that Arizona’s 11 fake electors and seven other Trump allies had been indicted for their role in the scheme.Tyler Bowyer: Bowyer is the chief operating officer of Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based non-profit organization, and an Arizona committee member for the Republican National Committee. He has called on the RNC to “immediately indemnify” those who participated in what he calls the “contingent elector plan”. Recently he has also led trainings for Turning Point to encourage Republicans to cast early ballots.Nancy Cottle: Cottle was one of two Arizona fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. She was the chair of Arizona’s fake elector delegation.Jake Hoffman: Hoffman is an Arizona state senator, elected in 2022, and was previously a state representative. He founded the legislature’s far-right freedom caucus and announced in March that he’s running to represent the state as a member of the Republican National Committee. He also runs a conservative digital-marketing company, Rally Forge, that was banned from Facebook and suspended from Twitter for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on behalf of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA.Anthony T Kern: Kern is an Arizona state senator, elected in 2022, and is currently running for a seat in the US Congress to represent Arizona’s eighth district. He was an Arizona state representative from 2015 until he lost his seat in the 2020 election. He has introduced a senate proposal calling for the state legislature to decide on presidential electors instead of adhering to a popular vote. Kern participated in the January 6 riots in Washington, which he has called a peaceful demonstration.James Lamon: Lamon ran for the US Senate to represent Arizona in 2022, losing in the Republican primary.Robert Montgomery: Montgomery was appointed to a seat on the Palominas fire district board in 2022 and is the former head of the Cochise county Republican committee.Samuel I Moorhead: Moorhead serves as the second vice-chair of the Gila county Arizona Republican party.Loraine B Pellegrino: Pellegrino, the secretary of Arizona’s fake elector delegation, was also subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. Pellegrino has served as president of Ahwatukee Republican Women and was previously president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women.Greg Safsten: Safsten was the executive director of the Republican party of Arizona during the 2020 election. Records show that he had been in communication with Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump ally and the architect of the fake elector plan, with instructions on how to carry out the plan.Kelli Ward: Ward is an osteopathic physician who served as the chair of the Arizona Republican party from 2019 to 2023. Following the 2020 election, Ward filed a number of lawsuits to nullify Arizona’s results, in support of Trump’s effort to prove the election had been stolen. She previously served in the Arizona state senate. Records show that Ward had also been in communication with Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump ally and the architect of the fake elector plan, with instructions on how to carry out the plan. Two days before the Arizona delegation gathered, Ward emailed various people connected to Trump’s campaign about the effort, according to records. She was subponead in 2022 as part of the January 6 select committee’s investigation, and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to block the subpoena.Michael Ward: Kelli Ward’s husband is an emergency medicine physician. He was also subpoenaed in 2022 as part of the January 6 select committee’s investigation and, with Kelli Ward, filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to block it.Georgia (16)Three of Georgia’s fake electors were named in the Fulton county indictment of Trump and 18 of his allies for efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. Several other fake electors struck immunity deals or plea agreements with the office of Fani Willis, Fulton county’s district attorney.Mark Amick: Amick is a member of the election feasibility committee in Milton, Georgia, and the Georgia Republican Foundation. In 2020, he served as a poll watcher in Milton county and testified in a hearing after the election that he saw more than 9,000 votes wrongly go to Joe Biden during the first Georgia recount.Joseph Brannan: Brannan is the former treasurer of the Georgia Republican party. He is reportedly “unindicted co-conspirator individual 9” in Fani Willis’s indictment of Trump and his allies in Fulton county. He received an email from Kenneth Chesebro before the scheme with logistics on how the Trump campaign hoped alternate electors would cast their votes.James “Ken” Carroll: Carroll, formerly the assistant secretary for the Georgia Republican party, recently ran unsuccessfully to be the state GOP’s second vice-chair. He told the Washington Post that, knowing what he does now, he would not have agreed to cast an electoral college vote for Trump. Carroll is a witness for the state in the prosecution of Trump and others in Fulton county, according to a court filing.Brad Carver: Carver, a lawyer and member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, was also investigated by the Georgia state bar in 2022 for his role in the scheme following a complaint by a legal watchdog.Vikki Townsend Consiglio: Consiglio is a former assistant treasurer for the Georgia Republican party. In 2022, Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor, reappointed her to the state soil and water conservation commission. Townsend is a witness for the state in the prosecution of Trump and others in Fulton county, according to a court filing.John Downey: Downey was involved with the Cobb county Republican party in 2020.Carolyn Hall Fisher: Fisher is a former first vice-chair for the Georgia Republican party. She is a witness for the state in the prosecution of Trump and others in Fulton county, according to a court filing.Gloria Kay Godwin: Godwin is a local Republican party leader in Blackshear. She is a witness for the state in the prosecution of Trump and others in Fulton county, according to a court filing.David G Hanna: Hanna was the CEO and co-founder of a financial technology company.Mark W Hennessy: In 2023, Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor, named Hennessy, the owner of several Georgia car dealerships, to the board of natural resources.Burt Jones: Jones is currently the lieutenant governor of Georgia, a position he’s held since being elected in 2022. Previously he was a member of the Georgia state senate for 10 years. Before January 6, Jones planned to deliver a letter to Mike Pence calling on him to delay the tally of electoral college votes, but he never delivered it, according to reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 2022, a judge ruled that Fani Willis cannot target Jones in Fulton county alongside Trump and others because of a conflict of interest (Willis held a fundraiser for his eventual Democratic opponent in the lieutenant governor’s race), but state prosecutor Pete Skandalakis said recently that he will lead the investigation into Jones’ alleged role in trying to overturn the election. Jones is reportedly “unindicted co-conspirator individual 8” in Fani Willis’s indictment of Trump in Fulton county.Cathy Latham: Latham, who was the Coffee county Republican party chair during the 2020 election, was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in Fulton county for her efforts to help Trump overturn the election. Latham allegedly helped breach and tamper with election equipment in Coffee county.Daryl Moody: Moody, an attorney, is chair of the board of governors for the Georgia Republican Foundation. In 2022 the Georgia state bar investigated him for his role in the scheme following a complaint by a legal watchdog.David Shafer: Shafer, who was the chair of the state GOP during the 2020 election, was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in Fulton county for his efforts to help Trump overturn the election. According to prosecutors, Shafer played a key role in organizing the slate of fake electors, convening them in the state capitol and telling them that “thousands of people” voted illegally in the state. He was also a Georgia state senator from 2003 to 2019. In 2018, he ran for lieutenant governor and lost in the primary. He was subpoenaed by the January 6 committee in Congress.View image in fullscreenShawn Still: Still is a state senator in Georgia, elected in 2022. He was finance chair of the Georgia GOP during the 2020 election, and was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in Fulton county for his efforts to help Trump overturn the election. He was the secretary of the fake elector meeting in the state capitol. He was also subpoenaed by the January 6 committee in Congress. In September 2023, a three-person panel appointed by the governor didn’t recommend that he be removed from the state senate while the Fulton county case is pending.CB Yadav: A small-business owner in Camden county, Yadav is a member of the Georgians First commission under the governor’s office.Michigan (16)In July 2023, Dana Nessel, the Michigan attorney general, charged all 16 of the state’s fake electors with eight felonies each. They all pleaded not guilty. One has since had his charges dropped. A judge is currently considering whether to send the rest to trial.Kathy Berden: Berden is a national committee member of the Republican party of Michigan. She was one of two Michigan fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Hank Choate: Choate, a dairy farmer, served as chair of the Jackson county Republican party.Amy Facchinello: Facchinello was elected in 2020 to serve on the school board in Grand Blanc and has been the subject of protests over her QAnon social media posts. Facchinello refused to resign, though there have been efforts to recall her.Clifford Frost: A real estate agent, Frost ran unsuccessfully for the Macomb county board of commissioners in 2022. He has also run unsuccessfully to represent the 28th district in the Michigan house. He is one of two of the state’s fake electors to try to get the felony charges against them dismissed because of comments made by the attorney general Dana Nessel, that the electors had been “brainwashed”.Stanley Grot: Grot is the Shelby township clerk, appointed in 2012, and ran unsuccessfully for the Michigan house in 2022. After the Michigan attorney general charged Grot, the state stripped him of his ability to administer elections, but he remains in office.John Haggard: Haggard was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Michigan officials in which he sought to overturn the 2020 election results.Mari-Ann Henry: Henry is treasurer of the seventh congressional district Republican committee. She is one of two of the state’s fake electors to try to get the felony charges against them dismissed because of comments made by the attorney general Dana Nessel, that the electors had been “brainwashed”.Timothy King: King was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Michigan officials in which he sought to overturn the 2020 election results.Michele Lundgren: Lundgren was the Republican nominee in 2022 for a Detroit-based seat in the Michigan house, but lost in the general election.Meshawn Maddock: Maddock is the former Michigan Republican party co-chair and is the co-owner of A-1 Bail Bonds, along with her spouse, the state representative Matt Maddock. CNN reported that she bragged about the Trump campaign’s involvement in the fake elector scheme. She and her husband spoke at a pro-Trump event in DC the day before the January 6 insurrection.James Renner: Renner has served as a precinct delegate and volunteer with the Michigan Republican party. He is the only Michigan fake elector to get his felony charges dropped after he agreed to “cooperate fully” with the attorney general’s investigation. He then testified in February that he did not know how the electoral process worked and “never would have challenged it” had he known it was illegal.Mayra Rodriguez: Rodriguez served as the chair and secretary of Michigan’s Republican electors. She was one of two Michigan fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Rose Rook: Rook is the former Van Buren county GOP chair.Marian Sheridan: Sheridan is grassroots vice-chair for the Michigan Republican party. She was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Michigan officials in which she sought to overturn the 2020 election results.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKen Thompson: Thompson was brought in to replace a GOP elector who was “uncomfortable with the whole thing” and refused to participate, a state GOP official testified to the House January 6 commission.Kent Vanderwood: Vanderwood is the mayor of Wyoming, Michigan, winning election in 2022. He was previously a longtime member of the city council in Wyoming, a small city near Grand Rapids.New Mexico (5)New Mexico prosecutors investigated the state’s fake elector scheme and determined that nothing in state election law applies to the participants’ conduct, according to the department’s final report issued in January.Anissa Ford-Tinnin: Ford-Tinnin is the former executive director of the state Republican party.Lupe Garcia: Garcia is a business owner.Deborah W Maestas: Maestas is former chair of the Republican party of New Mexico. She was one of two New Mexico fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Jewll Powdrell: Powdrell chaired the state fake elector meeting and was one of two New Mexico fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Rosie Tripp: Tripp was a national committee member for the Republican party of New Mexico, a former Socorro county commissioner and a former city council member in Socorro.Nevada (6)A Nevada grand jury in December indicted the six state fake electors and charged them with two felonies each. They have all pleaded not guilty. Under the current schedule, they will not stand trial until next year.James DeGraffenreid: DeGraffenreid has served as vice-chair of the Nevada Republican party. He was one of two New Mexico fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. He was summoned to testify by Fulton county prosecutors about his communications with Kenneth Chesebro about the scheme and was also called to testify in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation of Trump.Jim Hindle: Hindle runs elections in Storey county, Nevada, where he was elected clerk in 2022. He was previously vice-chair of the Nevada Republican committee.Jesse Law: Law is chair of the Clark county Republican party and was a staffer on the Trump campaign. He announced in December that he’s running for state assembly.Michael J McDonald: The chair of the Nevada Republican party, McDonald is a former member of the Las Vegas city council. He was one of two Nevada fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. He was also called to testify in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation of Trump.Shawn Meehan: Meehan is a retired air force veteran who serves on the Nevada Republican central committee and the Douglas county Republican party. He recently said he launched an effort to “guard” the constitution.Eileen Rice: Rice serves on the board of the Douglas county Republican party.Pennsylvania (20)Pennsylvania’s 20 fake electors are unlikely to face criminal charges because of the stipulation written on their electoral vote documents.Bill Bachenberg: Bachenberg, who chaired the state’s slate of fake electors, is the millionaire owner of Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays. He allegedly funded efforts to uncover voter fraud in Pennsylvania and other states. He was involved in Arizona’s sham “audit” and was subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Lou Barletta: Barletta served as a member of the US House from 2011 to 2019, and as mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, from 2000 to 2010. In 2022, he unsuccessfully ran in the Republican gubernatorial primary.Tom Carroll: Carroll ran unsuccessfully in 2019 for district attorney in Northampton county and refused to concede the race because of “overwhelming irregularities” in how the election was administered. He brought a lawsuit against state and local officials alleging election law violations in the 2020 election.Ted Christian: Christian was the Pennsylvania state director for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.Chuck Coccodrilli: Coccodrilli was a board member with the Pennsylvania Great Frontier Pac. He died in October 2021 after an illness.Bernadette Comfort: Comfort is the vice-chair for the Pennsylvania Republican party.View image in fullscreenSam DeMarco III: DeMarco has been an at-large representative on the Allegheny county council since 2016. He is also the chair of the Republican committee of Allegheny county. In 2022, he was interviewed by the FBI about his role in the scheme. He recently filed a lawsuit challenging the use of ballot drop off locations in the county, and the county agreed to a settlement.Marcela Diaz-Myers: Diaz-Myers is the chair of the Pennsylvania GOP Hispanic Advisory Council.Christie DiEsposti: DiEsposti is an account representative at Pure Water Technology. She has reportedly moved to Florida.Josephine Ferro: Ferro was Monroe county register from 2015 until losing reelection in 2023. She is the former president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Republican Women. In 2020 and 2022, she was a plaintiff in lawsuits seeking to block voters from being able to correct defective ballots and to stop pre-canvassing of ballots.Charlie Gerow: Gerow is a Republican strategist who ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for governor in 2022. He is also former vice-chair of the American Conservative Union, and the CEO of Quantum Communications, a Harrisburg-based public relations firm, where the fake electors met in Pennsylvania in December 2020.Kevin Harley: Harley works with Gerow as managing director of Quantum Communications and has served as a spokesperson for Gerow. He has also worked as press secretary for Tom Corbett, the former Pennsylvania governor.Leah Hoopes: Hoopes served as a poll watcher in 2020 and co-wrote a book about election fraud. She filed a lawsuit against Delaware county, accusing it of mishandling ballots in the 2020 election. She was named as a defendant in a Delaware county voting machine supervisor’s lawsuit alleging that Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that election officials tampered with the election made the supervisor the subject of physical threats.Ash Khare: An immigrant from India and retired engineer, Khare is a member of the Warren county GOP committee.Andre McCoy: McCoy was present at the Maricopa county ballot recount and was involved in the Arizona sham “audit”.Lisa Patton: Patton was the secretary of Pennsylvania’s slate of fake electors and was a member of the Pennsylvania Women for Trump leadership team. She was subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.View image in fullscreenPat Poprik: Poprik is the chair of the Bucks county Republican committee.Andy Reilly: Reilly is a national committee member for the Republican party of Pennsylvania and former secretary for the party. Reilly was previously elected twice to serve as a member of the Delaware county council.Suk Smith: Smith was on the advisory board of Gun Owners/Sportsmen for Trump in 2020.Calvin Tucker: Tucker was deputy chair and director of engagement and advancement for the Pennsylvania Republican party. In 2016, he served as a media surrogate and African-American adviser to Trump’s campaign.Wisconsin (10)A civil lawsuit over the fake electors scheme settled in December. The 10 Republicans acknowledged Biden’s victory and agreed not to serve in the electoral college this year.Mary Buestrin: A former national committee member of the Republican party of Wisconsin.Carol Brunner: Brunner is the former vice-chair of Wisconsin’s first congressional district Republican party.Darryl Carlson: Carlson is the former chair of the sixth congressional district GOP. He ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2014 for the Wisconsin state assembly.Bill Feehan: Feehan is the chair of the third congressional district GOP. In 2022, he sat on an advisory board for the gubernatorial campaign of Rebecca Kleefisch, an election denier who has sued the Wisconsin election commission (WEC) over its administration of the 2020 election, according to American Oversight.Scott Grabins: Grabins is former chair of the Dane county Republican party.Andrew Hitt: The chair of the Republican party of Wisconsin from 2019 until 2021, Hitt was one of two Wisconsin fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. He was interviewed on 60 Minutes in February and said he feared for his family’s safety if he didn’t sign the fake elector papers.Kathy Kiernan: Kiernan is the second vice-chair of the state Republican party.Kelly Ruh: Ruh is chair of the eighth congressional district Republican party, former alderperson for De Pere, and was one of two Wisconsin fake electors who were subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.Bob Spindell: Spindell has been a Republican commissioner on the Wisconsin election commission since 2019 and is the chair of the Republican fourth congressional district. He was previously the Milwaukee election commissioner for more than 18 years. In 2021, he refused to recuse himself from a vote on whether the WEC should investigate Wisconsin’s false electors.Pam Travis: Travis was the vice-chair of the seventh congressional district GOP and is a former staffer for the US senator Ron Johnson’s 2022 re-election campaign. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Talk of an Immigrant ‘Invasion’ Grows in Republican Ads and Speech

      by

      Once relegated to the margins of the national debate, the word is now part of the party’s mainstream message on immigration.A campaign ad from a Republican congressional candidate from Indiana sums up the arrival of migrants at the border with one word. He doesn’t call it a problem or a crisis.He calls it an “invasion.”The word invasion also appears in ads for two Republicans competing for a Senate seat in Michigan. And it shows up in an ad for a Republican congresswoman seeking re-election in central New York, and in one for a Missouri lieutenant governor running for the state’s governorship. In West Virginia, ads for a Republican representative facing an uphill climb for the Senate say President Biden “created this invasion” of migrants.It was not so long ago that the term invasion had been mostly relegated to the margins of the national immigration debate. Many candidates and political figures tended to avoid the word, which echoed demagoguery in previous centuries targeting Asian, Latino and European immigrants. Few mainstream Republicans dared use it.But now, the word has become a staple of Republican immigration rhetoric. Use of the term in television campaign ads in the current election cycle has already eclipsed the total from the previous one, data show, and the word appears in speeches, TV interviews and even in legislation proposed in Congress.The resurgence of the term exemplifies the shift in Republican rhetoric in the era of former President Donald J. Trump and his right-wing supporters. Language once considered hostile has become common, sometimes precisely because it runs counter to politically correct sensibilities. Immigration has also become more divisive, with even Democratic mayors complaining about the number of migrants in their cities.Democrats and advocates for migrants denounce the word and its recent turn from being taboo. Historians and analysts who study political rhetoric have long warned that the term dehumanizes those to whom it refers and could stoke violence, noting that it appeared in writings by perpetrators of deadly mass shootings in Pittsburgh, Pa.; El Paso, Texas; and Buffalo, N.Y., in recent years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      The pro-Trump Arizona fake electors scheme: what’s in the charging document?

      by

      The indictment against the slate of fake electors in Arizona and the Trump allies who advanced the scheme there includes a host of public statements and private exchanges that show how the group intended to overturn the state’s electoral votes for Joe Biden in 2020.Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, announced on Wednesday that a state grand jury charged the 11 false electors and seven others with nine felony counts of fraud, forgery and conspiracy. The indictment from Mayes’s office is sure to be a talking point in this year’s elections, nearly four years after the acts themselves occurred.The case’s net spans more broadly than the slate of fake electors itself, entangling Trump associates who perpetrated the theory that this “alternative” slate could be used by Congress and then vice-president Mike Pence instead of the state’s rightful electors who signed off that Biden won the state.The documents detail the steps taken behind the scenes to push the concept of using electors for Trump to pressure Pence on 6 January 2021. Trump allies, both those charged in Arizona and those who weren’t, were exchanging messages, pressuring elected officials and arranging court cases to benefit the fake electors idea, the indictment shows.And several of the fake electors themselves, by their public statements, intended for their act of signing falsely that they were the state’s true electors to be used by the Trump campaign to disrupt the electoral count and subvert the state’s Biden win.Trump himself is not charged in the Arizona case, though he is listed throughout the indictment as “unindicted co-conspirator 1”, a “former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election”.There were also attempts to add caveats to the language in the documents signed by the fake electors in Arizona to note that they were intended only as a backup plan should judges rule in Trump’s favor, but that did not happen, the indictment alleges.The false electors included two sitting state senators, Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern. It’s not clear how or if the state senate will respond to these charges or if it will affect their legislative actions. The senate Republicans’ spokeswoman told the Guardian she checked with a rules attorney in the chamber, who “verified there is no protocol on such a matter, as people are presumed innocent until proven guilty”.The former Arizona Republican party chair Kelli Ward was charged, as was her husband, Michael. Tyler Bowyer, a Republican national committeeman and Turning Point Action executive, was also charged, as were the other fake electors Jim Lamon, Nancy Cottle, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino and Gregory Safsten.The Trumpworld figures charged include high-profile allies such as the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, the former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, the lawyer John Eastman, the adviser Boris Epshteyn, the attorney Jenna Ellis, the current election integrity counsel for the Republican National Committee, Christina Bobb, and the former Trump campaign operative Mike Roman.In initial documents, the names of Trump allies are redacted, making it somewhat difficult to track who allegedly said what to whom. They are identifiable by their descriptions or other details.Mayes, who won her race by less than 300 votes in 2022, is already in the Republican-led legislature’s crosshairs for this investigation and a host of other issues where she, a Democrat, is at odds with GOP lawmakers. The state house opened a committee to investigate her and her use of the office. The charges are sure to further inflame Republican lawmakers.Hoffman issued a statement saying he was innocent and intended to “vigorously” defend himself against the charges, and that Mayes had weaponized the attorney general’s office for political reasons. “I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this disgusting political persecution by the judicial process,” he wrote.Kern responded with an “LOL!!” and changed the subject to abortion when a commenter on X said he should resign immediately. The Arizona Republican party put out a statement calling the timing of the indictments “suspiciously convenient and politically motivated” and an example of election interference, a favorite claim of Trump himself in the face of a host of charges.Charlie Kirk, the founder of the rightwing youth organization Turning Point, said he and the organization stand by Bowyer and the others charged.“The Arizona Trump electors were doing what they thought was a legally necessary step as part of a wider political and electoral dispute,” Kirk wrote on X. “They acted in the belief that Donald Trump was the true winner of Arizona in the 2020 election. They engaged in no fraud and no deception. In fact, they literally published a press release explaining what they were doing!”Didn’t hedge language despite a warningOf the seven states that saw a similar fake electors scheme, those in Pennsylvania and New Mexico used language that indicated the electors who signed for Trump were contingent on the signers later being certified as the “duly elected and qualified electors” because of court interventions that were outstanding at the time.Arizona’s documents include no such hedge, instead saying the people who signed on claimed to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Trump in the state.The indictment claims a Pennsylvania attorney raised concerns about that language on 12 December 2020 and requested adding in the contingency language. After that, “unindicted co-conspirator 4”, who appears to be the scheme’s architect, the attorney Kenneth Chesebro, texted a Trump campaign official to point out the issue.View image in fullscreen“Mike, I think the language at start of certificate should be changed in all states. Let’s look at the language carefully,” Chesebro wrote to a Trump ally, presumably Mike Roman.Chesebro said the hedged language could help prevent the false electors from “possibly facing legal exposure (at the hands of a partisan AG) if they seem to certify that they are currently the valid electors”.“I don’t,” the person responded. After Chesebro offered to help draft the language, the Trump operative responded: “Fuck these guys,” according to the indictment.The pressure campaignTo build the narrative of the case, the indictment walks through Trump and his allies’ intense pressure campaign on the Maricopa county board of supervisors, the state legislature and the governor, all of whom played some role in election oversight.The details here are now publicly well-known – they include calls from the White House and Trump allies to people such as the former House speaker Rusty Bowers and the county supervisor Clint Hickman, as well as a call from the White House to the former governor Doug Ducey on the day he signed off on the certification of votes.Also mentioned is the backlash and ensuing harassment that some of these officials faced from members of their own party for refusing to take part in the efforts to overturn the results.The indictment walks through the various lawsuits the Trump campaign and other state Republicans filed to try to get their claims of election fraud affirmed in court or disrupt the results in some way, none of which succeeded.Ward worked to organize the Trump electors along with others. She expressed concerns that, if there weren’t an appeal filed in one of the election cases contesting results, it “could appear treasonous” to sign on as an alternate slate without any pending court cases. An appeal in one case, Ward v Jackson, was filed in time for the slate to vote on 14 December 2020.One appeal, the indictment notes, was filed quickly as a way to “give legal ‘cover’ for the electors in AZ to ‘vote’” to create their slate, a person labeled as “unindicted co-conspirator 5”, believed to be the Arizona attorney Jack Wilenchik, wrote in an email at the time.As proof of the intent to throw the election to Trump, the indictment mentions meetings between Pence, his staff and someone who appears to be Eastman from contextual clues, where the Trump ally lays out to Pence how he could reject electoral votes from certain states, delay the court and ask state legislatures to instead step in and declare a winner. During a meeting with Pence’s chief counsel, a charged Trump associate “admitted that his plan would lose if it went before the US supreme court”, the indictment says.The indictment also notes a memo written on 23 December 2020 that envisions Pence refusing to count the Biden electors from Arizona and other states with fake slates because there were multiple slates from those places, thus giving Trump a majority of the remaining electoral votes. This memo, other reporting from the Washington Post confirms, was written by Eastman.Pence did not follow through, to the dismay of Trump and his allies.Using their own wordsThe attorney general uses the fake electors’ own words, often displayed publicly on social media platforms, to show their intent was not simply to offer an alternate slate in the face of a potential court order, but to pressure the vice-president and others to use the Trump electors instead.On 14 December 2020, at the state Republican party headquarters, the electors signed on for Trump. The party posted a picture and video of it to X. Ward wrote, “Oh yes we did! We are the electors who represent the legal voters of Arizona! #Trump2020 #MAGA.” The party released a statement on the action that was similar to a template created by Chesebro, the indictment says.The next day, Bowyer, of Turning Point, described the move as giving “potential ground to not accept electors from states with competing electors”, the indictment says.Later that month, the 11 fake electors signed on to a lawsuit against Pence from the Texas congressman Louie Gohmert seeking to have the court declare Pence had the authority to decide which electoral votes to use in states that had multiple slates, according to the indictment.After the Gohmert case was filed, Bowyer wrote on X that the vice-president had the “awesome power” of selecting which slate to use when there were two competing ones, or to select neither.Kern gave an interview to the conspiracy website Epoch Times where he said the dual slates gave Pence the choice to pick one or the other and that would then likely lead to a “contested electoral process” on 6 January.“It’s going to be just a nice constitutional lesson for all of America to see,” Kern said, according to the indictment. A couple days later, Kern called on state leaders to bring an emergency legislative session to “decertify” the Biden electors, then convene a grand jury to investigate election fraud claims. He also was at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.The day before the insurrection, Hoffman wrote to Pence and asked him to delay certification and get clarity from the legislature over which slate was “proper and accurate”.Based on their statements and machinations behind the scenes, the indictment concludes that the defendants “deceived the public with false claims of election fraud in order to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency, to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters, and deprive Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted”. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Arizona Republicans Who Supported Repealing an Abortion Ban Face Blowback

      by

      On social media, Arizona lawmakers are accused of being baby killers, cowards and traitors.State Representative Matt Gress, a Republican in a moderate slice of Phoenix, was in line at his neighborhood coffee shop on Thursday when a customer stopped and thanked him for voting to repeal an 1864 law that bans abortion in Arizona.“I know you’re taking some heat,” he told Mr. Gress.More than some.Shortly after the repeal bill squeaked through the Arizona House on Wednesday with support from every Democrat, as well as Mr. Gress and two other Republicans, anti-abortion activists denounced Mr. Gress on social media as a baby killer, coward and traitor. The Republican House speaker booted Mr. Gress off a spending committee. And some Democrats dismissed his stance as a bid to appease swing voters furious over the ban during an election year.In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Gress said that he was trying to chart a middle path through a wrenching debate over abortion that has consumed Arizona politics in the two weeks since the State Supreme Court revived the Civil War-era ban.“There are extremes on both ends here,” he said. “To go from abortion being legal and constitutionally protected to nearly a complete ban overnight is not something that the electorate is going to be OK with.”Mr. Gress, 35, a former teacher and school-board member, worked as a budget director under Arizona’s previous governor, the Republican Doug Ducey. He was first elected in 2022 to represent a swath of Phoenix and Scottsdale that spreads from middle-class neighborhoods through strip malls, desert parks and wealthy gated communities.He speaks with the measured cadences of someone who has appeared on plenty of news programs, and had focused his attention on homelessness and teacher pay before abortion erupted into an all-consuming legislative battle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More