A friend of PoMoCon who wishes to remain anonymous writes the following brief report on the electoral problems in Arizona. He’s had the time & interest to read a lot of the documents concerning the 2020 elections, the various complaints, the electoral rules, & the reports that came out of the scandal. He’s persuaded that the system is a mess, but that there is no corruption on the scale of stealing an election.
Arizona did pass electoral reform after 2020, focused on mail-in ballots, requiring among other things improved ID & controls, & purging the list of people sent ballots automatically, so inactive voters didn't get them (a situation ripe for fraud). Democrats challenged the new rules in Federal Court & lost.
The State Senator who authored & led the fight for the legislation is very knowledgeable on the voting process & wanted further reforms. She decided to give up her seat & run for Secretary of State (Katie Hobbs' job), which oversees the election process & sets statewide rules. She initially supported the “cyber ninjas” audit but eventually decided, quite properly, that it was complete nonsense, & said it should be stopped. Bad mistake to say that, because the MAGA folks then hated her, & she lost in the primary to Finchem, an ignorant lunatic but 100% MAGA. We might have had a SecState who knew what she was doing, was very aggressive & smart; instead, we now have the Democratic hack who was the Recorder for Maricopa County in 2020, before he lost that race to a Republican in 2021!
Arizona has a long tradition of liberal rules around absentee ballots. In 1991, the GOP-majority legislature voted to adopt a presumption for mail-in voting. So in the last election, 79% of state ballots were mail-in. Lots of voters in the state have never entered a voting place, especially if they’re moving here from other states. That wasn't a problem for a long time, because of GOP domination; there were no close elections, so it was no drama if it took officials several days to get a final tally.
Arizona is differences in other ways you might find startling: The sheer size of the ballot here. Arizona has more elective positions by far (all judges are elected, for instance) than any other state I know. I think there were some 60 offices or positions to vote for. Arizona is also very liberal on allowing referendum questions, so we had some ten of those this year. Elections are run by the county, which is responsible for creating the ballot. I also had to make selections for local offices & the county has to print about three dozen variations of its core ballot to meet the needs of all the cities in the county. This makes counting more difficult. In addition, the Arizona GOP, led by Kelli Ward (MAGA) insisted on their voters either voting in person or delivering mail-in ballots on Election Day.
All this is a long-winded way of saying further electoral reform was stalled because in the narrowly GOP-held Senate, the MAGA types were demanding a virtual end to mail-in ballots, voting on Election Day, & hand tallies. The Democrats didn't want any reform & the non-MAGA Senators were not convinced the reforms were feasible. They might be right: Let's just think through the MAGA proposal.
In the 2020 Presidential election, there were about 3.3 million votes, of which about 2.6M were by mail. Given population increase since, it'll be maybe 3.5M in 2024. Of that, about 2 million were in Maricopa. The first thing you would need to do is increase polling locations four times, which means finding the people to man them to handle the crowds, check ID & registration, &c. At the back end, for hand tallies, you need two individuals (one R, one D) to review the ballot &, in some form, tally it. Remember, in Maricopa at least, it can be 60 tallies on one ballot. How long will each ballot take? Then the tallies have to be collected in some form—by hand, which would take forever, if not, by some electronic device which the MAGA detest. Who is doing the input? Who is overseeing? You also need to have some process to resolve any dispute between the two initial reviewers regarding a particular ballot. There's more, but you get the gist. It wouldn't be easy, plus you are going to piss off a lot of voters in both parties who like mail-in. The other thing is, I guarantee a hand count will be less accurate than a machine one.
That said, I think the current process is ridiculous & think we should look at the Florida reforms for what may be applicable in the circumstances here. But good luck with that, even if the GOP continues to hold the Governor & legislature, unless Trump gives the signal for MAGA to back off its current position.
In retrospect, indulging the MAGA folks with the forensic audit was a terrible mistake. I read the “cyber ninjas” report, the Maricopa response, & the relevant election laws & rules. The auditors simply had no idea what they were doing. Trump lost the election here fair & square. Even their hand count confirmed the Maricopa tally. But it didn't make a difference, because the MAGA folks only hear what they want to hear. Yes, they may be frustrated, but that is no excuse for being stupid & sloppy.
This largely makes sense to me & fits with various other reports from Arizona. For the numbers in the election & other notes from people who know Arizona politics, you can read Jon Gabriel’s reports.
Now, a further few things that need emphasis. I hope you will not think me self-important if I add, my predictions that Ms. Kari Lake would win the gubernatorial election & Mr. Blake Masters the Senatorial were wrong. More importantly, the GOP is losing most of the statewide offices. The only big victory is the Treasurer, Mrs. Kimberly Yee, who won more votes than anyone else in the state. This is important evidence for vote-splitting against GOP candidates supported by Mr. Trump. MAGA has failed in Arizona in 2022. I liked Mr. Masters, but he is down by 5%. I wish he hadn’t lost—I wish he had done better during the campaign—now, I hope that he will prove his dedication to public service by organizing for electoral reform, as well as reform of the state GOP, along with Ms. Lake, & that he will prepare for the next Senatorial election in 2024. This was his first run for office, & he aimed very high; he came close, but his campaign is also a a disappointment. Mr. Masters was badly outspent, almost by an order of magnitude in the general elections, numbers I saw were 72 to 9 million. This is also a grave failure on his part, as well as on the part of Senate Majority Leader McConnell. The consequences seems to be that the GOP will not win the Senate (after failure to take a seat in Nevada & losing one in Pennsylvania).
The last note on Arizona is that the voters preferred the GOP to the Democrats in the House races, such that the state Congressional delegation, which used to be 5-4 Dem, will now be 6-3 for the GOP. This is also a measure of the failure of Mr. Trump’s preferred candidates statewide—the split-ticket voters show how divided & incompetent the state party really is in Arizona.
I thank him for the report, and the reflections on what paper-ballots only and similar reforms would actually mean in AZ. Would love to hear more of his reflections on how the FLA reforms could apply.
However, I am not happy with some of the blanket statements here about the attempted audits, and presented without links--the use of the "cyber-ninja" tag, the "complete nonsense" characterization, and the suggestion by ommission that these audits found nothing suspicious, which I know is not the case. I do not know AZ politics, and only dipped into the confusing reports on the audit efforts here and there, but this does not seem the full story; and in no sense is it an entry-way into the full story--we are just invited to believe his authoritative dismissal statements as authoritative. Links, sir, links.
Not happy with Titus's "MAGA failed AZ" statement either. It's kind of parallel to someone like Deneen saying "Liberalism has failed." Uh-huh. And? Does this "failed" thing just go away? Do we just classify its adherents as failure-tainted people? I definitely want DeSantis to be the 2024 nominee rather than Trump, but I have far more respect for what those who call themselves MAGA have done for the GOP, and know they must have prominent seats at the conservative table everywhere going forward.
Carl, I neither stated nor implied what you are reading into my statement about the Arizona electoral results. I'm for facing realities; it seems we're close to a full picture of the elections. For people interested in the electorate, the schism is very important. I draw your attention to my mention that it was a serious mistake for the national party not to have funded Mr. Masters, in favor of whom I have written repeatedly. I hope to learn more about some of the other closely contested elections.
As for my friend, he allowed me to say that he is a Trump voter, in both elections, & that he voted for the MAGA candidates in the general, though not necessarily the primary, this year. You have, of course, a right to your reservations, but you'll have to take my word for it that he has a right to speak as he chooses to speak, not least because he did a lot to learn what went on before he came to conclusions. You can put some of his qualifications down to disappointment in the election & the indignation any good citizen feels & probably you'll come around to thinking this is someone you could reasonably agree & disagree with on the major issues. I think it is useful to our readers to know his opinions along with his report precisely because we are not in a position to offer something official. Our readers, of course, may have different political opinions.