Arizona Republicans worry about election audit consequences: 'This is turning into a mockery'
The Arizona ballot audit is raising political pressure, but it's some Republicans who are feeling the squeeze.
The slow tally of 2.1 million Maricopa County presidential ballots has Donald Trump's approval, but it is deepening divisions within the GOP.
It has riveted the attention of the former president, who is bent on overturning the results. The U.S Justice Department is worried about the security of ballots and potential voter intimidation.
Arizona may have become a punch line for late-night comedians joking about volunteers searching for evidence of conspiracies linked to bamboo fibers and ultraviolet lights, but the stakes of this exercise should not be downplayed, election experts warned.
Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, said America held fair elections in the midst of a pandemic, but Republicans incensed about Trump’s loss to Joe Biden are damaging the process in a way that foreign nations sought to do.
“We should be very proud of ourselves as a country, and instead we're still litigating over who won,” he said. “There's plenty of evidence that Russian intelligence was behind promoting election fraud stories. … We have people from within our own country who are looking to undermine our democracy because one person can't accept that he could ever lose an election.”
The audit by a private firm at the behest of the Republican-controlled state Senate is testing ideological unity for the GOP.
Pro-Trump figures formed an organization dedicated to examining election integrity in eight states, including Arizona.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who dismissed accusations of a stolen election, could be the next casualty in the intraparty battle over loyalty to Trump, her GOP leadership role in the House of Representatives at risk.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, angered Trump by accepting Biden’s win, cementing the sense of betrayal felt by many on the far right and complicating his political ambitions after his term ends in 2023.
Some Republicans familiar with Arizona elections said the audit and its associations with right-wing conspiracies that the election was stolen are doing serious damage.
“I just want it over. I think Arizona needs to move on and not be the center of more of this political gossip,” said Betsey Bayless, Republican secretary of state for five years beginning in 1997.
Jan Brewer, a former Republican governor and Trump surrogate who served as the state’s election czar before her ascent to the governor’s office, typically speaks her mind. She didn’t want to talk about the audit. Neither did former GOP Secretary of State Michele Reagan, who cited her role as a justice of the peace.
“Let this be completed, and then we can talk about what the findings are,” Ducey said Thursday, adding that he was “focused on my day job."
"No one has been a more vocal advocate for Arizona elections than the governor – from the state Capitol to the Oval Office," said CJ Karamargin, a Ducey spokesperson. "The Senate is a separate, co-equal branch of government and has been granted the ability to examine the ballots by the court, another separate and co-equal branch of government. The executive branch has not been involved in the process."
Former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, who rose to become the No. 2-ranking Republican in the chamber, made clear he’s not associated with the audit and sees little upside to it.
“It is always the case that when there are serious controversies within a political party, it doesn’t do the party any good,” Kyl said during a phone interview. “And I think the divisions within the Republican Party will not reflect well on the party's chances of success in the next election. That's pretty obvious.”
The candidate fields are already taking shape for 2022’s races, which will draw hundreds of millions of dollars and national attention as Republicans hope to maintain control of the governor’s office and state Legislature and unseat Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., in a race that could decide control of that chamber.
“The Legislature should be focused on the challenges facing the state,” Kelly told The Arizona Republic on Thursday when asked about the potential consequences of the audit.
All four of the state’s U.S. House Republicans played varying roles in trying to set aside the election results despite the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency declaring the election the “most secure in American history.”
For months after the election, Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs helped promote the narrative of a stolen election. Gosar repeatedly touted “Stop the Steal” events. Biggs called the results in Pennsylvania “fraud, pure and simple.”
Rep. Debbie Lesko and 100 other House Republicans joined a lawsuit brought by Texas officials in December seeking to block the election results in four states. The Supreme Court quickly dismissed the case.
Hours after Trump supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Rep. David Schweikert joined 146 other House Republicans in voting to set aside election results in Pennsylvania. Unlike his three Arizona GOP colleagues, he did not seek to set aside his own state’s results.
Arizona election audit: Recruitment of ballot counters raises partisan concerns
Arizona’s state government remains in Republican control. Biden’s margin in Arizona, about 11,000 votes, was the narrowest in the country.
After Trump's claims of widespread fraud, his supporters in GOP-controlled states have dug into the issue. Georgia passed a raft of voting restrictions.
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three other key presidential battlegrounds, have Democratic governors and are unlikely to indulge Trump’s conspiracy claims.
Though Arizona GOP lawmakers are aligned with Trump, Ducey’s relationship with the former president is fraught.
He ignored a phone call from Trump while he certified Biden’s victory. The public snub came as Ducey’s political ambitions may lie outside Arizona.
As head of the Republican Governors Association, Ducey leads the effort to help the party in the next cycle in 38 gubernatorial races, a post that connects him with some of the party’s most influential donors.
He has done little to publicly shape or condemn the effort to recount the Maricopa County ballots. There is no public indication Ducey sought to dissuade state Senate President Karen Fann from pursuing the recount.
Asked Thursday how the audit is reverberating nationally, the governor inaccurately responded, “This is an issue in every state, and it’s been an issue in the last several elections.”
Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who has been critical of the audit, said she received death threats, and Friday, the governor ordered state police protection for her and her family.
Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Chucri, a Republican, said he supported initial reviews of the county's tallies because it seemed important to uphold public confidence. The audit isn't doing that, he said.
"Your average citizen says this is turning into a mockery," he said, noting inconsistencies on timing and methods. "I just don't know who's in charge or how it's going. ... I'm not sure this is giving people confidence."
Other Republicans maintained the audit's significance is being overblown.
“I literally think that very few people are paying attention,” former Rep. Ben Quayle said.
“I’m very politically involved, and I’m not paying attention to this audit," he said. "You guys are paying attention to it because you have to, but nobody else is paying attention to this.”
Asked what the long-term consequences of the audit could be, state Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, said, “Hell if I know. … I haven’t given it much thought. I’ve honestly been too busy to care.”
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