Election deniers win key races in Arizona's GOP primaries, raising alarms with voting groups

Republican candidates who have espoused election-related conspiracy theories won several primaries in down-ballot races in Arizona this week, in what mainstream voting groups characterized as a concerning trend ahead of November's hotly contested election.

U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, former state Sen. Sonny Borrelli and former Arizona secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem were among those who won their primaries. If they win in November, they will oversee pivotal administrative roles in elections come 2025.

"These results are consistent with what's happening around the country, in that there are significant efforts from people who don't believe in elections to take over the process, " said Alex Gulotta, the Arizona state director for All Voting is Local, a nonprofit voting rights group.

"Folks should be paying attention to these small races, because this is where the democratic process takes place," Gulotta added.

Some voting rights advocates feared election deniers would mire this week's Arizona contests in challenges. Those disputes did not materialize, in part, advocates suspect, because those doubters found themselves on the winning end of several key primary races. 

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes' office refused to comment on specific races, but a representative from his office told CBS News: "Election denialism undermines democracy and there is no evidence, nor has there been evidence, of election wide-spread fraud."

Among the most consequential results from Tuesday's primaries came when voters unseated Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County Recorder who had become an outspoken critic of election deniers. Richer lost to state Rep. Justin Heap, who is aligned with Arizona's right-wing Freedom Caucus.

Heap has refused to say if he thinks Maricopa's elections are free and fair. He has been endorsed by Lake, a frequent purveyor of outlandish conspiracies surrounding the 2020 and 2022 elections. Lake won her Senate primary by more than 16 points on Tuesday. 

Lake, who has still not officially conceded the loss of her 2022 gubernatorial bid, still adheres to the false claim that that election was "rigged." She will face Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in the general election for Arizona's U.S. Senate contest this fall. 

Maricopa has been at the center of an active election conspiracy movement riddled with harassment and threats of violence targeting election workers. Those activists targeted Richer, who has worked as recorder since 2020, for his role administering the 2020 and 2022 elections. Earlier this year, a leader of the Maricopa County GOP said she would "lynch him" if he walked into the room. In a separate episode, the Department of Justice Elections Threats Task Force indicted a Missouri man for leaving a threatening voicemail for Richer, in which the man allegedly told Richer he would "never make it to his next little board meeting."

Maricopa County is a sharply divided and hotly contested swing county that could play a pivotal role in the 2024 presidential contest. Encompassing Phoenix and its heavily populated suburbs, it is home to more than 60% of registered voters in Arizona. If denier candidates win their general elections in November, they will have significant sway over the ways future elections there are administered, voting rights activists told CBS News. 

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which appoints the election director and oversees several aspects of the voting process, is poised for a shake-up. Jack Sellers, a Republican on the Board of Supervisors who was a defender of Maricopa's elections, lost his seat to Mark Stewart, who has questioned the election process in Maricopa. 

Elsewhere in Arizona, Borrelli, the former state senator, defeated incumbent Buster Johnson for a seat on the Mohave County Board of Supervisors. Mohave is a conservative county whose elections board attempted to hand count ballots for the presidential primary and general election after a sustained pressure campaign from state officials in 2022, including Borrelli, who was in the legislature at the time. Johnson was one of the few Republicans on the board who voted against hand-counting ballots. 

Mark Finchem, who was a Trump-endorsed candidate for secretary of state, won his primary for a state legislative seat. Finchem has played an integral role in the movement to subvert the 2020 and 2022 elections, and was reportedly one of five unindicted co-conspirators in the fake electors case brought by the Arizona attorney general in April. The state legislature helps set the rules for elections and may consider proposals to overhaul voting processes. If he prevails in the consistently conservative county in November's general election, he will replace incumbent Ken Bennett, who blocked several restrictive election measures that the legislature has tried to pass since 2020.

If these candidates win their general elections in November, they will be sworn in January 2025.