The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” — Maya Angelou.
We all have learned this lesson many times and right now it is being taught to us again by the 2020 election deniers running for office throughout Arizona. Through fear, wild exaggerations and outright lies, they seek to delegitimize our electoral system by calling into question the honesty of thousands of Arizonans who participate as poll workers and elections officials in our 15 counties.
Currently, there are at least 20 Republican candidates running for federal and state office in Arizona who claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. The most prominent among them are Kari Lake, Mark Finchem and my opponent in the attorney general’s race, Abe Hamadeh.
Over the last several months, Hamadeh has promised that he will “not forget about the fraud of 2020” and will “prosecute the crimes of the rigged 2020 election.” During a Trump rally on July 22, just outside of my hometown of Prescott, Hamadeh said the following about Arizona election workers and officials: “It’s time we lock up some people and put handcuffs on them.” During my Clean Elections debate with Hamadeh, moderator Ted Simons asked Hamadeh about these irresponsible statements, “What crimes? Who is going to be held accountable? Who will be held to reckon? What are you talking about here?” Not surprisingly, Hamadeh did not have an answer, because multiple audits and court cases during the past two years have disproven all the claims that he, Lake, Finchem and the other election deniers continue to make.
These false claims of election fraud are corrosive to our democracy — and they are meant to be. Over the past two years, election officials throughout Arizona have been harassed and threatened for simply doing their jobs. In July, Yavapai County Recorder Leslie Hoffman and Elections Director Lynn Constabile resigned due to the ongoing nastiness and threats they were enduring. In Maricopa County, Recorder Stephen Richer has had his life threatened and been relentlessly attacked by election deniers. If we are going to tackle the vital issues that we all face as a state, we must work together, no matter what our party may be. We cannot do that if we elect people to office who in the future will refuse to accept election results they do not agree with, because they cannot accept fact over fiction.
So what do we do about it?
Unlike the current Attorney General who has done little to nothing to protect elections officials and workers, I will prosecute anyone who seeks to interfere with our elections process through fear and intimidation. County elections officials and the thousands of Arizonans who assist in running elections should not fear that someone like Abe Hamadeh will lock them up and “put handcuffs on them.”
We cannot give in to fear and harassment. One thing that anyone can do is to consider assisting with the upcoming election. Over the next month, there are many temporary, paid jobs available with county election departments throughout Arizona. You can work as a poll worker, a truck driver or one of many positions in a warehouse. There are also plenty of volunteer election day jobs available with various community and political groups. Whatever you choose to do, you will be participating in our democracy and standing up to those who seek to undermine it.
We are at an inflection point in Arizona. Over 110 years ago, the founders of our state wrote in Article 2, section 1 of our state constitution that “(a)ll political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed …” Arizona’s future belongs to the people, and not to election deniers who seek to discourage people from voting and then overturn election results they do not agree with.
