'Fighting for democracy here': Election audit pits Maricopa County Republicans vs. Arizona GOP senators
PHOENIX — There was a time when battles between Arizona Republicans were largely settled behind closed doors.
As Maricopa County’s top GOP officials made clear last week, that era is over.
At a news conference inside the board's chambers, two members of the GOP-led Board of Supervisors, the recorder, the treasurer, the school superintendent and the cowboy hat-wearing assessor stood side-by-side a Democratic sheriff last week, as leaders unleashed a live-streamed lashing of the Republican-led Senate for its ongoing support of a conspiracy-laden recount that violates basic auditing standards.
The Republican county officials condemned the recount as a bizarre “grift” by those seeking to raise and make money off of it. They accused Senate Republicans of allowing themselves to be manipulated by outside forces seeking to undermine confidence in the 2020 election and do long-term damage to future elections and government institutions.
It was a remarkable public rupture that pits those responsible for the results against seemingly everyone else in their party from the Arizona Legislature to Mar-a-Lago.
But perhaps the most extraordinary thing wasn’t what was said, but who said it.
The Republicans who dominate county government — caretakers of the party who have spent years advancing conservative policies, served as precinct committeemen, and worked in libertarian think tanks — took turns attacking the senators and GOP members of Congress pushing an effort they see as damaging public confidence in elections and hurting their party’s credibility.
Now facing unprecedented pressure from former President Donald Trump, GOP lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and in the state Legislature, and many of their own constituents, county officials have emerged as a powerful line of defense against Trump’s “Big Lie.”
It was the old school GOP establishment making a stand — maybe a last stand — against a new GOP shaped in the image of Trump that freely traffics in reckless conspiracy theories and baseless allegations of election fraud.
The situation is reminiscent of an earlier intraparty war that broke out in the mid-2000s and plunged the board into a years-long civil war that pitted the Board of Supervisors on one side and former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas on the other. Based in part on a complex conspiracy alleged by Arpaio and Thomas, that conflict cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, eroded public confidence in the county as an institution and led to Thomas’ disbarment.
County leaders present and past fear a repeat of those consequences, but on a more sweeping scale, with higher stakes.
For today’s county elected officials, who largely work outside the spotlight running the fastest-growing county in the nation, the senators had long ago passed any credible effort to discover improvements to election administration. They were instead engaged in political performance to placate Trump and his supporters.
Unlike state lawmakers and Republican U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar — two Trump allies who have been championing the recount — these county officials do not represent safe Republican congressional districts that allow them to play to the most extreme elements of their party.
They also must produce annual budgets, hold regular elections and provide services to residents. And it is county elections workers whose integrity is under fire from the audit supporters.
In a more direct sense, their credibility is on the line in an audit widely discredited by election experts across the country.
“The truth is, they go to the state Legislature and enact laws, and then they go home, they’re not responsible for implementing the policies,” said former county supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican who served on the board for 18 years and like all members of the board more than a decade ago was targeted by Arpaio and Thomas.
“But at the policy level, where the rubber hits the road, the county actually is responsible for spending that money in many ways: criminal justice system, public health. They have a little better information, they’re there full-time nearly versus seasonal legislators. … They’ve seen the whole system and so they have obviously more confidence in what happened in the election.”
County officials face re-election every four years — not two, like state lawmakers and members of Congress. Their success relies less on partisanship and more on camaraderie and delivering basic needs to their large districts on everything from flood control management to road maintenance and public health and safety.
Supervisor Bill Gates, a Republican who came of age politically in the 1980s, has found himself on the front lines time and again since November.
In one remarkable moment, Gates did not return a call from Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who left him a message on Christmas Eve as Gates was running an errand to a pharmacy.
Gates didn't recognize the phone number and let the call go to voicemail.
Giuliani's attempt to speak to Gates came after Arizona Republicans had subpoenaed the ballots and election machines and the board had voted to sue the Senate. One day earlier, on Dec. 23, Trump urged Georgia’s chief elections investigator to uncover “dishonesty” in the election there to undo Joe Biden's win.
Unusable?: Maricopa County's $6M voting systems could be unusable after audit
"Bill, it's Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's lawyer," Giuliani said in the message obtained by The Arizona Republic. "If you get a chance, would you please give me a call? I have a few things I'd like to talk over with you. Maybe we can get this thing fixed up. You know, I really think it's a shame that Republicans sort of are both in this, kind of, situation. And I think there may be a nice way to resolve this for everybody."
Gates didn't call Giuliani back.
“We don’t do what is easy, we do what is right,” said Gates, who spent six years on the Phoenix City Council before his election to the county board, and who represents an evenly divided purple district that spans from Phoenix to New River.
By any typical measure, Gates would be considered a “good Republican.” He has served as a GOP precinct committeeman, secretary of the county Republicans, and as an attorney, he ran the party’s Election Day integrity efforts in 2006 and again in 2008, when former Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ran for president.
“This thought that I’m this squishy person — No, I think I’m a reasonable, conservative Republican,” he said. “That’s how I see myself. But I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I believe in getting stuff done.”
Support for the audit is a GOP purity test
Even so, Arizona’s audit has emerged as a purity test in a party that lately appears to value loyalty to Trump more than the traditional GOP values associated with former President Ronald Reagan and others. In that respect, it is akin to Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., getting bounced from congressional GOP leadership after she repeatedly condemned Trump over the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol rather than making the GOP case against Biden.
It has become a mechanism for state Senate Republicans in safe districts or those considering runs for statewide office to insulate themselves when they face voters again in 2022.
“They perceive their fortunes as being tied to those who supported former President Donald Trump,” said professor emeritus Richard Herrera, who studies politics and voter sentiments at Arizona State University.
Some of those Republicans, Gates said bluntly, don't even believe what they’re saying.
“They think this is what they have to do to be reelected, and I’m not going to do it,” Gates said in an interview.
He recalled a phone call with Senate President Karen Fann last November, as senators and county supervisors fielded a crushing volume of emails and phone calls from angry, pro-Trump voters.
“She said, ‘Look, Bill, we know there’s nothing to this, but we’ve got to do something, will you guys do an audit?”
Fann did not respond to The Arizona Republic’s attempts to reach her for comment.
Who is supporting the audit, and what's in it for them?
Publicized by national right-wing media, Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward and conservative state lawmakers, the recount has become the cause célèbre of Trump stalwarts confident it will provide evidence that Trump lost unfairly.
With Trump at the top of the ticket, Republicans lost the presidential race in Arizona by the closest margin in the country. They also handed over a U.S. Senate seat to Democrats, along with their party’s majority in the chamber.
More than 2.1 million ballots from Maricopa County, where the races were decided, were counted, validated by a partial hand recount, and then certified by the Board of Supervisors, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and others.
Other audits found no issues but that wasn’t enough to satisfy state Senate Republicans, who took the ballots and hundreds of election machines by subpoena for their own recount.
Fann, a Prescott Republican once seen as a more moderate force at the Legislature, hired a firm to conduct the review that was founded by a Trump supporter who promoted conspiracy theories as part of the Stop the Steal movement.
She has cast the recount as a way to mollify those concerned the election was unfairly conducted and to determine if the state Legislature should pass new election laws.
But the exercise is also stoking the rage and elevating fundraising efforts by those who are spreading lies of a stolen or deeply flawed election ahead of the 2022 cycle.
“This is not personal,” Fann said during a televised meeting about the recount that county officials refused to attend.
"This is about our jobs as elections officials. It is our jobs that we have to answer to our constituents, to the voters, to the taxpayers."
Ariz. election audit: Will legal action shed light on questions swirling around?
Representation looks differently for the county supervisors than for legislators.
A poll this month by GOP consulting firm HighGround found a majority of Arizona voters — 55% — do not think there was significant voter fraud in the presidential election.
But when it comes to Republicans, 78% believe there was enough fraud to compromise the integrity of the election. Broken down by gender, about 82% of Republican women and 75% of Republican men believe there was significant fraud.
“You look at who elects the senators — well, it’s those people,” said Republican political strategist Chuck Coughlin, noting each of the 16 districts held by GOP members has historically been safe for the party.
“They’re all elected in the primary, and it’s over,” he said.
The emails and phone calls that have made elected Republicans so uncomfortable are coming from those types of voters, Coughlin added.
The easy thing for those Republicans to do, said Gates, was to launch another audit.
“But eventually, the music stops playing: unless you put Donald Trump back in the White House, these people will never be happy," Gates said.
From his resort in Florida, Trump is weighing in with emailed statements. He heaps praise on Senate Republicans and commends One America News Network, whose reporters are raising money around the audit. He has criticized those who have shown less enthusiasm than he’d like. He’s also amplified lies.
“The entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED! This is illegal and the Arizona State Senate, who is leading the Forensic Audit, is up in arms,” Trump wrote to supporters on May 15.
In the state Senate, there is no will to back down from the review.
Senate Majority Leader Rick Gray, R-Sun City, defended the recount as a reasonable response to those who were concerned about the election results. Like his colleagues, he accused the supervisors of obstructing their efforts and emphasized the Senate has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the election was run appropriately.
For subscribers: Gov. Ducey stays quiet about Ariz. audit as recount is set to restart
“We were just merely trying to prove to our voters that they could rely on the system,” he said. The review could help state lawmakers identify areas in voting procedures that could be changed: “And we can't do that if we don't know what really happened," he said.
Republican Sen. Sine Kerr, a longtime Republican from Buckeye, and dairy farmer with deep ties in the agriculture industry, said the outcry from the public required a response.
The electoral review, she said, would be the best way to address constituents’ concerns. Kerr said the results — whatever they are — will be accepted by Republicans.
This saga, she predicted, would have little bearing on Republicans’ prospects in the 2022 midterm elections.
“We always come together and find a way to come together and do the work that's before us to get the voters activated, energized, excited about voting for our candidates,” she said.
Sen. J.D. Mesnard, a Chandler Republican who once presided as House speaker, said he supports the concept of the review and notes county officials faced no backlash when they audited the election results.
“Folks have lots of doubts, I don't see the harm in, as objectively as we can within the midst of all our biases, take a look,” Mesnard said. “People believe some interesting things out there … The truth is the truth.”
Away from the state Capitol, in Washington, D.C., Biggs and Gosar have voiced support for the recount. They recently called on a top Justice Department official to allow the review to continue, writing in a letter with congressional colleagues it would “clear the air and restore election confidence.”
Gosar said in a statement to The Republic the review provides another mechanism of electoral transparency for voters.
“There is nothing to lose and much to gain,” he wrote. “All I expect of the current audit is a confirmation of the processes and results. No different than a corporate audit at the end of the year … Ultimately I want full confidence in the system.”
Who is speaking out against the audit?
County Republicans have exhausted reviews of the election practices and are refusing to engage in state senators’ demands for internet routers and passwords.
Republican Supervisor Jack Sellers, the board's chair, said at the news briefing the county would stop responding to future requests “from this sham process.” He told state senators to finish the review and be prepared to defend it in court.
“If that means I get beat, then I still got beat for doing the right thing,” Sellers, a former GOP precinct committeeman, state committeeman, and Chandler City Council member, later told The Republic.
Sellers represents a sprawling purple district in the East Valley and eked out a win in 2020 by just 403 votes out of more than 470,000 cast. His district’s profile, divided evenly between Republicans, Democrats and independent voters, forces political positioning that is pragmatic and bipartisan.
“You really need to be successful somewhere in the middle if you’re going to be successful in that district right now,” he said.
At this point, success is defined by protecting public trust in the institution, not winning re-election, he said.
Sellers recalled a private meeting with other county elected officials that took place ahead of that now-iconic news conference. The emergency gathering took place after county officials got a letter from Fann that demanded a meeting to address “serious issues” with their failure to respond to the Senate’s initial subpoenas, and other issues.
They would fight back together: “They all said, the integrity of Maricopa County was at stake here, and we’re gonna be united," he said.
County Recorder Stephen Richer, a fierce limited-government conservative who won his race in 2020 by unseating a Democrat, has called Trump’s lies “unhinged” and has called on Republicans to stop fostering the claims.
“Would it be much easier to demonize a faceless entity that was just, you know, the black box that, you know, spit out election results,” Richer asked. “Probably, but I still think that would be irresponsible. … When they accuse me and my team, who I really like, I think are good people, I think are hardworking people, I think are knowledgeable people, of breaking the law, then. … I have to stand up.”
Richer is not a confrontational person by nature, he said, and doesn’t relish standing against Trump and Senate Republicans, many of them his friends.
"And I don't think the board relishes this," he said. "I get, you know, a lot of voice messages every day from people I do not know, telling me ... 'Go (expletive) yourself.' That's not fun."
Supervisor Clint Hickman, who describes himself as a Reagan Republican, said GOP lawmakers’ actions reflect a “total indifference or ignorance to the jobs” county supervisors perform on behalf of 4.5 million residents.
That county Treasurer John Allen, Assessor Eddie Cook, and Superintendent Steve Watson stood alongside board members to speak out against lawmakers’ actions underscored the seriousness of the moment.
“This is not their space, but they believe in the processes and the people that work for the county — enough so that they would cost themselves votes in other elections, I’m sure," Hickman said.
Cook, a former Gilbert councilman with a background in technology, was alarmed by the Senate's hiring of the company selected to perform the audit, as well as the budget of just $150,000. The amount, he noted, is well below the cost of a professional audit of this scope.
“What the county did was by the book, by the numbers,” Cook said of the county's handling of the election.
“The odd part about this is that you have great business leaders in the county that have done everything that the statutes put in place and still, the Republican Party at the state level believes that there’s something wrong with the county — as though the county is hiding something. They’re not hiding anything.”
What does this mean for 2022?
It’s unclear how the spectacle of the review will impact the political environment for Arizona Republicans, whose identity has been in flux with the emergence of the more strident wing of the party that has gained traction in the era of Trump.
If anything, political experts said, the review could reinforce the notions voters already hold about the election.
For Republicans taking their cues from Trump, the fight against the 2020 results will never end, experts said.
In a purple, political battleground like Arizona, statewide candidates must demonstrate appeal across the spectrum, just as Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and U.S. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly have done.
As polling suggests, claims of electoral fraud are not widely held and most voters could be suspicious of candidates who participated in advancing the so-called “Big Lie,” though it may benefit Republicans in safe GOP areas.
Coughlin, the political consultant, forecast that GOP candidates who make election fraud a centerpiece of their campaign “should understand the electoral cul-de-sac they are living in” since just 42% of Arizona voters believe there was fraud.
“That is clearly not a majority,” he wrote in a blog accompanying the poll. “That is a losing proposition on the General Election ballot in 2022.”
But in more localized, legislative races, the electoral review could help Republicans, said Herrera, the ASU professor.
"There are a lot of safe seats, and so even Republicans who don’t support this audit and don’t support any of these Republican efforts, in 2022, when they’re faced with a Republican who did all that, and a Democrat, they’re probably not going to vote for the Democrat.”
Beyond political ideology, GOP leaders’ refusal to accept the election results is inspiring other calls for recounts across the nation and eroding trust in the democratic process.
And it is hardening a foundation for the losers of all future elections to contest, whether they’ve truly won or lost.
Gates, the county supervisor, draws comparisons to GOP state senators’ approach to that of developing democracies.
“I never imagined that I would be a part of that here: fighting for democracy here, never could I have imagined,” Gates said. “That’s what I've been doing alongside my colleagues, without a doubt. I don't think that's hyperbole to say that.”
Have news to share about Arizona politics? Reach the reporter on Twitter and Facebook. Contact her at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com and 602-444-4712.