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      How the Worst Fears for Democracy Were Averted in 2022

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      A precariously narrow but consequential slice of the electorate broke with its own voting history to reject openly extremist Republican candidates — at least partly out of concern for the health of the political system.Not long ago, Joe Mohler would have seemed an unlikely person to help bury the political legacy of Donald J. Trump.Mr. Mohler, a 24-year-old Republican committeeman and law student in Lancaster Township, Pa., voted for Mr. Trump in 2016. He voted for him again in 2020 — but this time with some misgivings. And when Mr. Trump began spouting lies and conspiracy theories about his 2020 loss, Mr. Mohler, who grew up in a solidly conservative area of southeastern Pennsylvania, was troubled to hear many people he knew repeat them.Last January, after county Republican leaders aligned with a group known for spreading misinformation about the 2020 election and Covid-19 vaccines, Mr. Mohler spoke out against them — a move that he said cost him his post as chairman of the township G.O.P. committee.“I just realized how much of a sham the whole movement was,” he said. “The moment the veil is pulled from your face, you realize how ugly the face is that you are looking at.”Mr. Mohler was part of a precariously narrow but consequential slice of the electorate that went against its own voting history this year in order to reject Republican candidates who sought control over elections, at least in part out of concern for the health of the political system and the future of democracy.After deciding that preserving the integrity of elections was his single most important issue in 2022, he voted last month for the party’s nominee for Senate, Mehmet Oz, who hedged carefully on the question of who won the 2020 election but eventually said he would have voted to certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory had he been in office. But in the governor’s race, Mr. Mohler decided he could not vote for Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate, who as a state senator was central to efforts to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results. Mr. Mastriano had pledged to decertify voting machines in counties where he suspected the results were fraudulent and to appoint as secretary of the commonwealth, the office overseeing elections in Pennsylvania, someone who shared his views.“It was just so reprehensible,” Mr. Mohler said. “I didn’t want anybody like that in the governor’s office.”Doug Mastriano, a leader in the movement to investigate and overturn the 2020 election, was defeated in the Pennsylvania governor’s race.Mark Makela for The New York TimesThe decisions of voters like Mr. Mohler, discernible in surveys and voiced in interviews, did not necessarily lay to rest concerns about the ability of the election system to withstand the new pressures unleashed upon it by Mr. Trump. But they did suggest a possible ceiling on the appeal of extreme partisanship — one that prevented, in this cycle, the worst fears for the health of democracy from being realized. Mr. Mastriano lost by nearly 15 percentage points to the Democratic candidate, Josh Shapiro — part of a midterm election that saw voters reject every election denier running to oversee elections in a battleground state. In Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, Republican primary voters nominated candidates campaigning on Mr. Trump’s election lies for secretary of state, the office that in 40 states oversees the election system. In all three, those candidates lost. The rout eased the immediate concern that strident partisans who embraced conspiracy theories about hacked voting machines, foreign meddling and smuggled ballots might soon be empowered to wreak havoc on election systems.The election results suggest that a focus on Mr. Trump’s election lies did not merely galvanize Democrats but also alienated Republicans and independents. Final turnout figures show registered Republicans cast more ballots than registered Democrats in Arizona and Nevada, but election-denying candidates nevertheless lost important races in each of those states.Republican candidates in statewide contests who embraced Mr. Trump’s election lies also significantly underperformed compared with Republicans who did not. This was true even in districts that voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump in 2020, suggesting that the defection of ticket-splitters like Mr. Mohler likely played a role.In a survey of voters in five battleground states conducted by the research firm Citizen Data for the advocacy group Protect Democracy, a third who cast ballots for a mix of Democrats and Republicans in November cited a concern that G.O.P. candidates held views or promoted policies “that are dangerous to democracy.” The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      Women Are on the March

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      Perhaps you missed the big news: In 2023, there will be a record-breaking 12 women serving as governors around the nation. Way over the previous record of … nine.And your reaction is:Hey, that’s 24 percent — not bad.That’s less than a quarter!Are any of them going to run for president? And does that mean we have to discuss Kamala Harris? Because I’m really not sure. …OK, one thing at a time, please. Just think of 2023 as the Year of Women Governors.Even so, we’ve still got a way to go. Eighteen states have yet to select a woman governor, ever. California! Pennsylvania! And Florida — really Florida, there’s a limit to how much time we’ve got to complain about you.New York elected a woman for the first time last month, a development that began when then-Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul was propelled into the job because of Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal. Sorry, Andrew, but history may well recall this as your final gift to New Yorkers.Arizona hasn’t gotten enough attention — electing Katie Hobbs as its fifth female governor kept it the national record-holder. Good work, guys! It was also one of the states with a woman-vs.-woman race, although being Arizona, it featured a crazy subplot. Kari Lake, the defeated Republican Trumpophile, is taking the whole thing to court.It’s important to admit that while the quantity of female governors expands, the quality is … varied. Current incumbents include the newly re-elected Kristi Noem of South Dakota, whose attitude toward Covid vaccination has been, at best, deeply unenthusiastic. (Noem spent $5 million of pandemic relief funds on ads to promote tourism.)On the other side, there’s Michigan’s current governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who led the Democrats to a monster statewide sweep last month. She went through a lot to do it — remember when a group called Wolverine Watchmen plotted to kidnap her and put her on trial for treason?Our female governors, both incumbent and newly elected, have a wide ideological range, but it’s very possible they’ll still be more conscious of women’s issues — like child care and sexual assault — than would a group of men from similar political backgrounds.And abortion rights — although some, like Noem, are definitely not on that boat. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision mobilized female voters so much in the fall that you’d think we’d be seeing more women out there carrying the flag in the governors’ races.“It may well have come down too late to see candidacies emerge as a result,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, who’s hoping the surge will still be coming.If so, it’ll be the next chapter in a saga that goes back a century — the first two women ever elected governor won their jobs in 1925, in Wyoming and Texas.The Wyoming winner, Nellie Tayloe Ross, was the widow of the prior governor. When he died, his party nominated her to succeed him before she’d decided to run. She won anyhow and apparently liked the job. Ross ran for re-election and lost but went on to forge a successful career as director of the U.S. Mint. Wyoming, however, has never since chosen a woman as governor. Get a move on, Wyoming.The other woman who became governor a century ago was a little less, um, encouraging. Texas’ Miriam “Ma” Ferguson also succeeded her husband — who was, in this case, impeached. “Ma” basically vowed to carry on her husband’s not-totally-reputable practices. Elect her, she promised voters, and get “two for the price of one.” That, you may remember, is what Bill Clinton said when he ran for president in 1992 — pick him and get Hillary as well.It worked a lot better for the couple from Arkansas than it did for the couple in Texas. Ma Ferguson won, and voters got a governor who pardoned an average of 100 convicts a month. Most did not appear to be worthy of release on any basis other than cold cash. But hey, she was definitely carrying on a family tradition.The first woman elected governor in her own right was Ella Grasso in Connecticut. That was in 1974 and I was in Hartford at the time, starting out my career covering the state legislature. My clients were little papers who forked over a tiny bit of money to hear what their lawmakers were up to. The regular pressroom decreed there was no room for any newcomers, and I was dispatched — along with my partner, Trish Hall — to work out of the Capitol attic.The other facilities in said attic included a men-only bar for legislators. The 35 women in the legislature at the time didn’t seem upset about discrimination when it came to access to drinking quarters. Possibly because the facility in question, known as the Hawaiian Room, was a dark, moldy space with dusty plastic leis hanging from the ceiling.But I did complain about having to work in the attic, and one night when I was there alone — it was really pretty late — Ella Grasso herself showed up to check the accommodations. As she was walking down the narrow room, a bat flew down from the ceiling and into her hair.She took it very well.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Kari Lake Will Present Election Fraud Claims in an Arizona County Court

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      After a judge dismissed most of her claims, two will go forward. Lawyers expect she will have to clear a high bar, and her case relies on a collection of election deniers.Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona who made false election claims the centerpiece of her campaign, is starting a two-day trial on Wednesday as she presses to have her loss overturned.Ms. Lake lost by around 17,000 votes to Katie Hobbs, the secretary of state, but sued Maricopa County and Ms. Hobbs to overturn the results under Arizona’s election contest statutes. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge is allowing two of her claims of misconduct by election officials to go forward, but eight other claims were dismissed. A ruling is likely soon afterward.In a separate election case in Mohave County, the Republican candidate for attorney general, Abraham Hamadeh, will present evidence on Friday. The November election ended with Mr. Hamadeh trailing Kris Mayes, the Democratic nominee, by 511 votes, within the margin that requires a mandatory statewide recount that is going on now.Lawyers for Ms. Hobbs and Maricopa County have been warning that such trials could become a free-for-all for election conspiracy theorists. Ms. Lake has indicated that she may call as witnesses people who have been pushing false or misleading claims related to Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the presidential election.There is, however, a high bar to proving election misconduct that could have swayed the results.“The court has given an opportunity to put them to the test,” said Abha Khanna, a lawyer for Ms. Hobbs. “If you think you have proof something happened and that proof doesn’t exist, and they’re not able to prove it in this court, I hope we could put to bed the idea that there’s something lurking out there.”The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      Kyrsten Sinema Brings Bad Tidings for Democrats in 2024

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      Arizona was on the cusp of seating a Democratic governor alongside two Democratic senators for the first time since 1951 when Senator Kyrsten Sinema abruptly announced last week she is leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent.The move was met with harsh criticism from the left, which saw it as another in a series of self-aggrandizing acts that risk sacrificing the Democratic Party’s power and President Biden’s legislative agenda for her personal benefit.Polls make it clear that Ms. Sinema is reviled by a large segment of her now-former party. In a recent Civiqs poll of likely voters, she was at a meager 7 percent approval among Arizona Democrats. Her switch to declare herself an independent may seem like a desperate act to hold on to the Senate seat she won in 2018 by fewer than three percentage points.It may be that. But for Democrats looking ahead to 2024, her move compounds the difficulties of what is promising to be a brutal Senate map and suggests some hard truths about the party’s chances in Arizona and places like it.The Donald Trump era may have given Democrats in Arizona a bit of a blue mirage. They were very successful in the midterms: Senator Mark Kelly won re-election, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs will be the new governor, and Adrian Fontes will become the secretary of state.But it seems that the Democrats’ success is not simply the result of permanent shifts in Arizona’s demographics. Before Mr. Trump’s 2020 defeat, Arizona voted for five consecutive Republican presidential candidates and, before Ms. Sinema’s win in 2018, had not elected a single Democratic senator since 1976. Arizona’s electorate has certainly grown, urbanized and diversified, but registration percentages haven’t changed much since 2012. Today, 35 percent of Arizona registered voters are registered Republicans; 34 percent are Independents; and 31 percent are Democrats.Democrats’ recent victories were presaged by overtly moderate Democratic candidates running against opponents endorsed by Mr. Trump. Ms. Sinema’s path to the Senate was buoyed by her opponent’s irreparably damaging association with Mr. Trump.In announcing her departure from the Democratic Party, Ms. Sinema argued that representing Arizona as an independent will “provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country who also are tired of the partisanship.” She is not wrong on that point: Over a quarter of Americans say they dislike both parties according to Pew Research Center. Only 6 percent said so in 1994.For independent voters, it is disdain for partisanship — not moderate ideology — that drives most of them to buck the party label. A vast majority of independents, 75 to 90 percent, have no trouble identifying their preferred party, and they nearly always vote for it. It is the rancor and incivility associated with partisanship that dissuades independents from publicly showing their true colors.Independent voters are hardly a uniform voting bloc: Generally, they just about evenly divide between those who hold liberal views and usually vote for Democrats and those who are conservative and usually vote for Republicans.The bad news for Ms. Sinema — and perhaps for Democrats — is that independent candidates rarely succeed. Without a sizable Republican or Democratic base, an independent will struggle to cobble together ideologically incompatible voters who are bonded primarily by their reluctance to publicly identify with the party they secretly support.This is one area where the Trump effect has come into play. In recent Arizona elections, the state’s independents have shown that they appear to be more favorable to Democrats than Republicans. In the state’s Senate race, exit polls suggest that independents backed Mr. Kelly over his Trump-endorsed opponent, Blake Masters, by 16 percentage points, and self-identified moderates favored Mr. Kelly by 30 percentage points. Ms. Hobbs similarly won the independent vote against her Trump-endorsed opponent, Kari Lake, by seven percentage points, and she won self-identified moderates by 20 percentage points.Indeed, recent survey data I collected across Arizona shows that independents look much more like Democrats than Republicans when it comes to their disdain for Mr. Trump. Even among those Arizona independents who say they lean toward the Republican Party, 40 percent see the state G.O.P. as “too conservative.”Given repeated Republican losses, it seems that Arizona Republicans — and independents, who have a large say in Arizona’s electoral outcomes — have rejected Mr. Trump as well as his chosen nominees, and this has helped usher in a wave of Democratic candidates, Ms. Sinema included.When a state’s status shifts to swing, it is often attributed to demographic change in the electorate. But in Arizona, that is not likely the case, or at least that isn’t the full story. And this is why the outlook for Democrats might be troubling.Sure, Arizona boasts high population growth in urban areas like Maricopa County. But voter data does not support theories that a transforming electorate is shifting electoral tides. Over time, voter registration percentages have shown Republicans declining slightly but maintaining their numerical advantage.That shift is probably better attributed to changes in the politicians who are running rather than to the people deciding whether to vote for them.If she had remained a Democrat, Ms. Sinema would not be the first politician who faced harsh criticism for frustrating her party, and many of them prevailed in subsequent elections. Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are examples.If nothing changes and Ms. Sinema runs for re-election, her former party will be left in a pickle. She probably can’t win as an independent, especially if her popularity doesn’t improve quickly, but a Democrat (like Representative Ruben Gallego, who has hinted at a Senate bid) running against Ms. Sinema and a Republican is also unlikely to win.So for Democrats, Ms. Sinema has made a daunting Senate map in 2024 even worse. There will be 33 Senate seats up for re-election, and Democrats will defend 23 (including Ms. Sinema’s). Three of those seats are in states that Mr. Trump won by at least eight percentage points in 2020: Montana, Ohio and West Virginia.When Republicans in Arizona and other states leave Mr. Trump behind, Democrats will lose this electorally useful foil. States where Democrats enjoyed upset victories against MAGA Republicans might see some of their gains rolled back, especially if the Republican Party rejects Mr. Trump and elevates candidates who better represent more of the party’s voter base.Ms. Sinema’s move has just added another degree of difficulty to a formidable Senate puzzle for Democrats in 2024 — and beyond.Samara Klar is a political scientist at the University of Arizona and an author of “Independent Politics: How Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Kari Lake Sues Arizona’s Largest County, Seeking to Overturn Her Defeat

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      Ms. Lake, who fueled the false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from Donald Trump, lost the Arizona governor’s race by 17,000 votes.Kari Lake, the losing Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, filed a lawsuit Friday contesting the results of an election that was certified by the state this week.Ms. Lake’s lawsuit came after she had spent weeks making a series of public statements and social media posts aimed at sowing doubt in the outcome of a contest she lost by more than 17,000 votes to her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs. That loss was certified in documents signed on Monday by Ms. Hobbs, who currently serves as secretary of state.A former news anchor, Ms. Lake centered her candidacy on false conspiratorial claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Donald J. Trump, who had endorsed her. For the past month, Ms. Lake, her campaign and other allies have been soliciting Election Day accounts from voters on social media and at rallies.“If the process was illegitimate, then so are the results,” Ms. Lake said on Twitter on Friday evening after announcing her lawsuit. “Stay tuned, folks.”Ms. Hobbs called Ms. Lake’s suit “baseless” in a post of her own on Twitter, describing it as the “latest desperate attempt to undermine our democracy and throw out the will of the voters.”The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      Arizona Certifies Midterm Election Results After GOP Resistance

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      The state’s top officials certified the results after weeks in which several Republican candidates have sowed baseless doubts about the outcome.Arizona’s top officials signed papers to certify the results of the state’s midterm election on Monday, completing a normally routine task that had become troubled in a state where Republican activists and candidates have claimed without evidence that the election results were irredeemably marred by widespread problems.Two heavily Republican counties in Arizona initially delayed certifying their results but ultimately did so. In one case, in Cochise County, certification came only under order from a judge.Finally, at an event on Monday that was closed to the public but broadcast live, the secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who won this year’s race for governor, signed documents to certify the results in all 15 counties.Also signing the certifications were Gov. Doug Ducey and Arizona’s attorney general, Mark Brnovich, both Republicans, along with Robert Brutinel, the chief justice of the State Supreme Court.In a speech before the signing of the documents, Ms. Hobbs addressed some of the conspiracy theories that had been spreading and said that the election had been properly conducted.“Powerful voices spread misinformation that threatened to disenfranchise voters,” she said. “Democracy prevailed, but it’s not out of the woods.”Mr. Ducey, the departing governor, explained that state law required the certification as part of the democratic process.“I swore an oath to uphold the law,” he said.Ms. Hobbs’s opponent for governor, Kari Lake, who lost by more than 17,000 votes, ran a campaign heavily focused on false conspiratorial claims of stolen elections. She and her allies have vowed to continue fighting the outcome, sowing doubts about the results with public statements and social media posts.The efforts have made Arizona the center of the national election-denial movement, attracting activists who have gained influence spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election as they speak at protests and local government hearings.Ms. Lake and the Republican nominee for attorney general, Abraham Hamadeh, have suggested that after the certification, they may file lawsuits challenging the election results. Mr. Hamadeh is trailing Kris Mayes, a Democrat, by about 500 votes in a race that has not yet been called and is headed to a recount.Mr. Hamadeh previously filed a lawsuit asking a judge to declare him the winner, which was dismissed by the court as “premature” since under state law, a lawsuit challenging election results needs to be filed after the certification of an election, not before it. (Such a challenge must be filed within five days of certification.)The Republican candidates and their allies, including right-wing activists and media figures like Steve Bannon, the former adviser to Donald J. Trump, have claimed for weeks without evidence that voters in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and is Arizona’s largest county, were “disenfranchised.”They have pointed to technical problems on Election Day that led to long lines at some polling places. But in fact there has been no sign of widespread voter disenfranchisement, because voters who encountered problems were able to cast ballots via backup systems or at other polling locations.A New York Times review of dozens of accounts from voters, poll workers and observers that were posted by Ms. Lake and her allies found that many voters acknowledged that, while inconvenienced, they had ultimately been able to cast their ballots. More

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      Arizona’s Cochise County Certifies Election Results as Officials End Protest

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      Officials in Cochise County gave final approval to the midterm results after a judge ordered them to end the stall tactics.An Arizona county whose Republican supervisors had refused to certify last month’s election results relented on Thursday under court order, ending an unusual standoff that had threatened to delay the formal end of the election in the closely watched battleground state.In a hastily arranged meeting, the board of supervisors in Cochise County voted 2 to 0 to approve the final canvass of votes in the largely rural county in the southeast corner of the state. The move came hours after Judge Casey F. McGinley of Pima County Superior Court ordered members of the board of supervisors to take action by the end of the day.Whatever concerns they had about the election, “it is not a reason to delay” finalizing the results, Judge McGinley said at a hearing on the matter.The board’s two Republican members, Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby, had said they were stalling to hear out the concerns of right-wing activists promoting a legal theory — one previously debunked by federal election officials and rejected by the state’s courts — that the state’s electronic voting equipment was invalid.But in an interview this week with The New York Times, Ms. Judd characterized the delay as a way to protest the election in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, where Republican candidates have clashed with Republican election officials over unproven claims that November’s election was compromised by technical problems.Before she voted to give up the protest, Ms. Judd acknowledged she would be disappointing some people.Peggy Judd, vice chairwoman of the Cochise County board of supervisors, after the election certification on Thursday.Rebecca Noble for The New York Times“I’m going to make a lot of people happy, and some people are going to stay mad at me anyway, but that’s OK, too,” she said. “I’m a person and our lives are all like that, ups and downs and happy and sad.”Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, sued the Cochise County board of supervisors on Monday for refusing to certify the county’s election by the deadline. The action had threatened to delay the statewide certification of the results beyond the legal deadline of Dec. 5.Ms. Hobbs, a Democrat who defeated the Republican Kari Lake in the governor’s race last month, argued in the lawsuit that the Cochise County board had overstepped its bounds. Judge McGinley on Thursday agreed, saying the board had “exceeded its lawful authority” in delaying certification.His decision followed a brief but chaotic hearing in which the county board members appeared without a lawyer. The county attorney, Brian McIntyre, had for weeks opposed a series of efforts by Ms. Judd and Mr. Crosby to audit or delay certification of last month’s election, arguing that they were illegal.In the hearing, Ann English, the board’s chairwoman and its lone Democratic member, spoke up in opposition and expressed concerns about a board meeting scheduled for Friday, in which Mr. Crosby had hoped to have a group of Arizona election deniers and representatives of Ms. Hobbs’s office present their cases against and for certification — “a sort of a smackdown,” she said.“I think it’s a circus that doesn’t even have to happen,” Ms. English told Judge McGinley in the hearing. “I’ve had enough. I think the public’s had enough.”Ann English, the chairwoman of the board of supervisors, after Cochise County’s midterm election certification meeting on Thursday.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMs. English and Ms. Judd voted to end the standoff. Mr. Crosby did not attend the board meeting.Mr. Crosby and Ms. Judd had at various times said that their efforts were necessary to assuage the concerns of their constituents, citing a variety of election conspiracy theories and false claims that have taken root in a large swath of the Republican electorate.In a rebuke of some of these theories, a federal district judge in Arizona found on Thursday that Ms. Lake and Mark Finchem, the losing Republican candidate for secretary of state, had made “false, misleading and unsupported factual assertions” in a lawsuit that the judge, John J. Tuchi, said was worthy of sanctions.The judge found that Ms. Lake and Mr. Finchem did not meet the standards for receiving sanctions themselves, “although the court does not find that plaintiffs have acted appropriately in this matter — far from it.” He said he would determine who among the lawyers involved in the case should be sanctioned.Alan Dershowitz, one of the lawyers on the case, and other attorneys for Ms. Lake and Mr. Finchem did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The legal fallout from the election in Arizona is likely to continue. Ms. Lake has said she plans to file a lawsuit contesting the results of the election as soon as Monday, as does Abe Hamadeh, the Republican candidate for attorney general, who is trailing his opponent by only around 500 votes.Mr. Hamadeh already filed such a suit last week, but it was dismissed on Tuesday after a state judge found it was “premature.”Ken Bensinger More

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      Republican-Controlled County in Arizona Holds Up Election Results

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      Republican local officials are threatening to disrupt the final tally of midterm votes in one more sign of the politicization of elections.Republican officials in an Arizona county voted on Monday to hold up certification of local results in this month’s midterm elections, reflecting an expansion of partisan battles into obscure elements of the election system and largely uncharted legal territory.The Cochise County board of supervisors refused to certify the results, although members cited no issues with the count or problems in the vote. In Mohave County, Republican supervisors delayed a vote to certify the election, but then backtracked and certified the vote on Monday.The move is unlikely to significantly stall the final results of this year’s elections; state officials have said that if necessary they will pursue legal action to force the board’s certification. But it represents a newfound willingness by some Republican officeholders to officially dispute statewide election results they dislike, even when the local outcomes are not in doubt.“Our small counties, we’re just sick and tired of getting kicked around and not being respected,” said Peggy Judd, one of two Republican supervisors in Cochise who voted to delay the certification of county results until Friday.Ms. Judd described the move as a protest over the election in Maricopa County, where Republican candidates have claimed — with no evidence — widespread voter disenfranchisement, largely as a result of ballot printing errors.Similar actions have taken place in Pennsylvania, where activists have sued to block certification in Delaware County, and Republican election officials in Luzerne County voted against certification, forcing a deadlock on the county election board after one of the three Democratic board members abstained from voting.In Arizona and Pennsylvania as in most states, elections are run by county governments, which must then certify the results. The act was regarded as little more than a formality until the 2020 election.Since then, local Republican officials aligned with the election denier movement have occasionally tried to use their position to hold up certification. The tactic has become more widespread this year and earned encouragement from Republican candidates and right-wing media personalities.“People were suppressed and disenfranchised,” Charlie Kirk, the conservative pundit, said on his radio show this month. Mr. Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, which is based in Phoenix, cheered on Cochise and Mohave officials in their efforts: “We’re not going to let this one go.”These actions have mostly unfolded in heavily Republican counties and have only rarely been prompted by suspicions about local elections. More often, local Republican officials and activists have described the actions as an effort to complicate or at least protest the certification of elections elsewhere that they claim have been compromised.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More