Election deniers could make deep changes to Arizona voting

Phoenix: Gathered at a table in the state Capitol a little less than two years ago, two Republicans and a Democrat took part in a ceremony proscribed in state law that made official Joe Biden’s 10,500-vote victory in Arizona’s 2020 presidential contest.

While sifting through pages, pen in hand and cameras rolling, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey stopped to silence the “hail to the chief” ringtone on his cell phone. It was a call from President Donald Trump, who was in the midst of a frenetic fight to reverse the results of the election he had lost. Ducey continued signing the papers, in what some saw as a dramatic affirmation of democracy at work.

How a similar scene would play out in 2024 if the three Republicans running for the top statewide offices win in November is anyone’s guess. Each has said they would not have signed off on the 2020 results if they had held office at the time. Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor, and Mark Finchem, running for secretary of state, have signaled support for vastly overhauling election rules.

Lake, Finchem, and Abraham Hamadeh, the attorney general nominee, are running for offices that play a central role in administering or certifying elections and earned Trump’s support by spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election.

Multiple reviews in battleground states, including in Arizona, dozens of court cases, and Trump’s own Department of Justice have found there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Despite that, Republican candidates up and down the ballot continue to deny the legitimacy of Biden’s election. Several are running for governor, secretary of state, or attorney general in some of the battleground states where Trump disputed his loss, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.

The possibility of those candidates winning in November raises questions about what they might do regarding elections and certification of results once in office, especially in regard to the 2024 presidential race. Arizona’s candidates for top statewide office offer a window into that possible future.

Image courtesy of (Image: NYT)

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