Richer said: “The reality is: the facts, the truth, the law have never been on the side of the people who accuse us of mass fraud in our electoral system.”
Maricopa County GOP candidates debate election security
In a debate on June 24, 2024, Republican candidates for Maricopa County Clerk Stephen Richer, Justin Heap and Don Hiatt will discuss election security and their views on whether voter fraud has occurred in the past.
The Republic
Stephen Richer, the county clerk of Maricopa County, lost his re-election bid in the recent Republican primary because he refused to lie about the 2020 election.
It was not stolen.
And he won’t say it was stolen.
And he is doing his best to correct those who falsely claim it was stolen.
No matter how many billions they are worth.
Richer repeatedly refutes claims like those of Musk
Richer has already reached out to X (formerly Twitter) to politely point out the misinformation being spread by billionaire social media platform owner Elon Musk.
He did so again recently when Musk said Arizona refused to remove illegal voters from its voter rolls.
It is a claim from an unfounded lawsuit that Musk could have researched or – even better – paid someone to do research for him. After all, he is a billionaire.
But no.
Richer has been dealing with allegations of this kind since 2020.
There were about 50 lawsuits alleging voter fraud. Not a single one – none at all – held up in court.
Election officials bear the brunt of misinformation
Last weekend, Richer appeared on television to once again refute Musk and debunk the Arizona Republican Party, doing so on-site with Channel 12’s Brahm Resnik and also with MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin.
Richer said of Musk, who has nearly 200 million followers on social media: “When people like Mr. Musk post on Twitter or talk to news outlets and they’re just full of innuendo, lies or misinformation, it’s offices like mine and the 150 full-time employees in my office that feel the knock-on effects of that.
“And I’m telling you that some of the knock-on effects take the form of, ‘Hey, I’d like to know more about what Mr. Musk is posting,’ but others take a very ugly and very violent form.”
He added: “The reality is: the facts, the truth, the law have never been on the side of the people who accuse our electoral system of mass fraud.”
Richer says these lies destroyed the AZ GOP
Richer also pointed out the impact these lies had on the Republican Party in Arizona.
He said, “We are the party of Abraham Lincoln and we are the party of Ronald Reagan… and we have distorted all of that just to fixate on this one lie, which is that the election was stolen.”
“But yet it has become such a central aspect of what it means to be a Republican here in Arizona that when I didn’t want to get involved in it, it meant disqualification for me in the 2024 primary. For many Republicans, it meant disqualification for the 2022 primary for governor and the U.S. Senate.
Richer loses: And shows what election integrity looks like
“The catch, however, is that it also makes it more difficult to win a general election in a contested state like Arizona.”
Asked what that means, Richer said: “So not only have we fallen for this lie. Period. We also keep losing general elections.”
“The Republican Party of McCain, Jon Kyl, Jeff Flake and Doug Ducey has been hollowed out, and I think that’s one of the many sad side effects of Trump’s presidency. The destruction of the Arizona Republican Party.”
What happens to Republicans who oppose Trump?
What does this mean for someone like Richer and other Republicans who have positioned themselves as opponents of Donald Trump?
People like former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney and the many Republicans who served in Trump’s administration say he is unfit?
People like retired U.S. Marine Corps General and Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, his former National Security Advisor and retired Lieutenant General HR McMaster, and former National Security Advisor John Bolton?
Richer was asked how he would vote this year.
He said: “I will never vote for anyone who believes these lies when it comes to something as fundamental to our system of government as, ‘Was the 2020 election stolen?'”
Reach Montini at [email protected].
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