The Daily Agenda: On vigilantes and voter intimidation
The Daily Agenda: On vigilantes and voter intimidation
Elections don't have to be like this ... The debates are over ... And we feel for Stephen.
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Armed vigilantes dressed in tactical gear and hyped up on lies about how the 2020 election was stolen are staking out ballot drop boxes in Arizona and posting up outside the main ballot counting facility in Maricopa County.
They’re confronting voters and accusing them of being “mules” who traffic ballots. They’re harassing poll workers as they arrive at work while snapping pictures of them. And their online brethren are sending death threats to election officials and spewing online hate at local news reporters.
The Department of Justice and the FBI declared Arizona a hotbed for threats against those who administer elections.
Republican leaders, taking their cue from Donald Trump, aren’t denouncing the vigilantes — instead they’re denouncing the drop boxes and cheering on the vigilantes.
Since we last published, Arizona has garnered national and international headlines over the vigilantes who are staking out ballot drop boxes. The Secretary of State’s Office referred several complaints about voter intimidation to the FBI and Department of Justice.
The drop box stakeouts were organized, at least in part, by a group called Clean Elections USA, which Steve Bannon has promoted on his podcast. When ABC15 reporter Nicole Grigg asked a few of them what they were doing, they clammed up, and group leaders attempted to distance themselves from any members who had harassed voters. (Meanwhile, the Arizona Citizens’ Clean Elections Commission asked the Attorney General’s Office for help in trying to keep the group from using a similar name.)
While it’s not illegal to stand on a sidewalk and film people dropping off ballots, when you’re armed with tactical gear and making allegations, it can quickly veer into voter intimidation, not to mention the potential for violence. But deciding when, exactly, someone has crossed that line can be tricky. As the Republic noted, elections officials are “currently evaluating” where that line should be drawn.
There’s no good reason for vigilantes to camp out at the boxes in tactical gear — unless intimidation is the point. The Maricopa County drop boxes are under video surveillance, which is livestreamed, and in Yavapai County, where groups have also been keeping tabs on the popular rural drop boxes, the boxes have cameras mounted on them.
Elections didn’t used to be like this. And in other states, they still aren’t.
Of the more than 1,000 threats nationwide against people involved with elections that the FBI reviewed, Axios reports that the majority are happening in a handful of states like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Colorado, where Republicans stoked audits, recounts or public disputes over the 2020 election results at Trump’s behest. And as Rolling Stone recently reported, Trump is already assembling a legal team and preparing to contest the results of elections that don’t go his way in a handful of swing states, in a kind of “dress rehearsal” for 2024.
For those of us who live in swing states, especially swing states held by Republicans, elections are becoming more dangerous and more fraught — and it doesn’t look like the fever will break anytime soon.
Law and Order Republicans: Cochise County supervisors are poised to vote today on that plan to hand count all ballots (alongside a machine tabulation), even though their own attorney said it’s illegal, the Legislative Council confirmed it’s illegal and the Secretary of State’s Office is threatening to sue, Votebeat’s Jen Fifield reports.
Not a good morning for anyone: On “Good Morning America,” Kari Lake tried to pivot away from talking about the stolen 2020 election and, when asked if she would limit mail-in voting, she declared she didn’t know what she would do to secure elections. Katie Hobbs, meanwhile, spent half of her six minutes on the show debating debates and the other half fielding questions about border security and Talonya Adams. Lake also attempted to dodge questions about what kinds of unpopular and unnecessary changes she would make to election law, as well as dancing around specifics on her abortion policy during her Clean Elections interview-in-lieu-of-debate on Channel 7 (which was moderated by conservative radio commentator Mike Broomhead, a controversial decision).
Don’t call it a comeback: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters is surging in the polls after Republicans throttled their spending on Masters’ behalf, Politico reports, citing a Mark Kelly campaign operative declaring “there’s still a good chance that we would lose.”
The friends you keep: Indigenous leaders are calling out Lake after her campaign manager, Colton Duncan, tweeted “Happy Indigenous People’s Day” along with a painting depicting “a human sacrifice by an ancient Mesoamerican civilization that lived thousands of miles away from Arizona,” the Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small writes. And a staffer for Masters recently served as chief operating officer of an extreme Christian nationalist group, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
No rally though: Former President Barack Obama cut an ad endorsing Hobbs while stressing that “democracy itself is on the line.”
Some things are more important than party: The Republic's Mary Jo Pitzl zeroed in on a handful of well-known Republicans who are crossing the aisle to publicly support Democrats over election deniers in their own party, but don’t count outgoing Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers among them. He told the Republic’s Tara Kavaler that while he’s officially endorsing independent Clint Smith against Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, and is “very strongly against” Mark Finchem for secretary of state, he’s not officially endorsing any Democrats.
1,996 “mules” to go: Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced that a grand jury had indicted two more women in Yuma County for ballot harvesting in the August primary election, which was also the local municipal election, for delivering a handful of ballots in San Luis, which lacks regular mail service, bringing the total number of arrested “mules” in Arizona to four, all from the 2020 primary. And it’s worth remembering, there’s nothing illegal about the votes, which all came from real, legal voters — only the method of delivery.
A decade after SB1070: The Guardian details the fear and disillusionment among Arizona’s progressive Latino activists, who feel the Democratic Party is taking them for granted, saying they’re “particularly disappointed” with Hobbs’ lack of campaign events, debate ducking and inability to name a thing she has learned from the Latino community. Meanwhile, the New York Times wrote another “Where’s Hobbs?” story over the weekend.
“We need real reasons to vote for candidates, not just reasons to vote against the other side,” said Arianna Alicia Reyes, a 21-year-old Phoenix resident who works in food service and has spent her off hours volunteering to register voters, told the Guardian.
Even judges change their minds: A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed course after declaring AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward didn’t have to turn over her texts to Congress’ Jan. 6 committee. The panel had originally enjoined a lower court ruling upholding the subpoena for her phone records, but changed its mind over the weekend, saying she must turn over the records, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. She can still appeal, but time is running out.
Debate season is over: Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton and Republican Kelly Cooper sparred over who was most extreme on abortion during their Clean Elections debate for Congressional District 4, and Cooper reluctantly said he would have certified the 2020 election.
Slam dunk on the fourth try: More than 68% of voters plan to back Prop 211 to shine a light on dark money, according to a new HighGround poll. Only about 14% of those surveyed planned to oppose the measure.
There were lots of warning signs: Eyad Atallah, a professor at University of Arizona’s Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences Department, tells the Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller that he spent the last 10 months so afraid of the grad student who threatened him and others and ulitmately murdered Thomas Meixner that he bought a bulletproof vest and considered buying a gun. He decided to speak up as the university has faced criticism that it didn’t do enough to protect staff from the killer.
“What else can I do?” Atallah said. “I didn’t stop this event — maybe something that we talk about, something that is legislated, something that is done policy-wise, makes this not happen again.”
Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer got heated in a text message to Kari Lake and Mark Finchem’s attorney, Tim La Sota.
The author of a long profile about Richer in The Federalist, apparently didn’t bother to call Richer for comment, but did get some messages he sent La Sota after he appealed a court ruling shooting down the election-denying duo’s lawsuit attempting to ban machines from counting votes in Arizona.
Its a dystopic parallel universe when Repugnicants like Stephen Richer and Liz Cheney repeatedly show up as heroes while Democrats keep causing “ where’s Katie” parlor games to appear. Thanks for covering it all.
If US history is any indication, one of these vigilante poll-watchers will someday be appointed Chief Justice of the SCOTUS. And if you're wondering what I'm referencing, go ahead and do a search for "William Rehnquist operation eagle eye."