Arizona election officials subjected to violent threats undaunted in defense of elections
With just weeks to go until Election Day, election officials continue to face threats in Maricopa County, Arizona: a county that's been a hotbed of voter fraud misinformation since former President Donald Trump lost to President Biden in 2020.
Trump lost Maricopa County to Mr. Biden in 2020 by 45,109 votes. The former president falsely claimed the election was stolen. Republican Stephen Richer was elected as Maricopa County recorder in 2020. In 2021, he took over the office, which records voter registration and handles ballots by mail in the county. He explains no widespread fraud has been found in the county's 2020 election, which he believes is the "most scrutinized election in human history." Still, allegations of fraud persist.
Reviewing the results of the 2020 election
Richer took office after the 2020 election, when his own party was up in arms over allegations of fraud. It was Richer's first elected office and he knew what to do.
"They just need answers," Richer said he thought. "It's not that complicated of an issue. It's just people are uncertain. They expected Donald Trump to win. I expected Donald Trump to win in Maricopa County. He didn't win. They have questions. As soon as we give them logical, factual answers, all will be well."
But that's not what happened. There were multiple investigations. The Republican-led State Senate commissioned a hand recount of Maricopa County's 2.1 million paper ballots, which reconfirmed Mr. Biden won. Statewide, prosecutions for illegal voting involved a total of 19 ballots.
In May of 2021, Trump said "the entire database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been deleted," calling it an "unbelievable election crime."
Richer remembers being in the office on a Saturday afternoon looking at a database Trump was saying had been deleted.
"The ludicrous nature of it, it just is offensive," he said.
Richer called for the "lies" to stop.
"This is as disprovable as saying two plus two equals five," he said.
Election officials face threats
Richer faced threats after he spoke out and defended the county's results. After a meeting in 2021, Richer says he was heckled and followed to his car.
Three violent threats to Richer have been prosecuted. Frederick Francis Goltz, who pleaded guilty to a charge of interstate threatening communications, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. The others are awaiting trial.
The threats didn't stop after 2020. Just months ago, Richer was booed when he said he didn't believe the 2020 election was stolen.
He's far from alone in facing threats. Republican Clint Hickman served as the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in 2020, which is responsible for certifying the election.
He has been a supervisor on the board for 11 years and was among Trump's most loyal supporters in 2020. Then-President Trump publicly thanked him in 2020 at a campaign rally days before the election. But after all the votes were tallied, Hickman found no evidence of fraud and said so when he and the Republican majority Board of Supervisors voted to certify the county's election. Since then, he says he has been accused of treason and received death threats.
"I've lost count. I have lost count," Hickman said. "And so have my colleagues. And so have election workers."
In one instance, Hickman got a call from Mark A. Rissi, who threatened to "lynch your stupid lying Commie a—."
Rissi, who in the voicemail went on to threaten to hang him, received a two-and-a-half year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to sending threatening communications. Hickman recalled another message he received he called "chilling".
The caller stated, "'We know the restaurants that you are in. And we know where your kids go to school,'" Hickman said.
Ongoing allegations of fraud
Maricopa County Republican Party vice-chair Shelby Busch started a political action committee which investigates what she claims is widespread fraud in Maricopa County's elections.
"What I am doing is, I am shining a big bright light on the disdain and the arrogance of some of the elected officials," she said. "They are elected to represent the interests of the people. And until they are ready to step up and do that, then there will be unrest."
Busch believes state statutes and regulations were violated. She still questions whether signature verification was proper and whether some ballots were collected illegally. In a recent case, a judge disqualified Busch — an administrator in a medical practice — from testifying as an expert because he said she was "obviously unqualified...not even in the ballpark."
"That's one judge's opinion who is a radical leftist who is legislating from the bench and I don't believe that it had any merit in my credibility whatsoever," she said.
"60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley asked Busch if there was any danger in undermining people's faith in the election system by continuing to share unvalidated conspiracy theories about the election.
Busch disagreed with Pelley, saying she believed allegations of fraud have been validated.
"I don't need a government official with a vested interest in disproving information to tell me whether what I have is valid. It's up to each individual citizen, as a member of this society, to review the evidence, to think for themselves and make those decisions," she said.
Busch called for people to determine what's valid and said she doesn't have time to worry about whether people believe her.
"I have what I believe is the mission that I am on, and that mission is for my children and my grandchildren," she said. "I'm not here to make friends. I am here to do a job."
In a speech, recorded on video earlier this year, Busch said she would "lynch" Richer.
"If Stephen Richer walked in this room, I would lynch him," she said in March. "I don't unify with people who don't believe in the principles we believe in and the American cause that founded this country."
Busch later said she was referring to a "political lynching."
"It's referred to as destroying someone's career. It was not ever meant physically in any way, shape, or form," Busch said. "Probably a poor choice of words."
What's next for Maricopa County
Richer, who fought to defend the legitimacy of Maricopa's elections, lost his reelection bid this July during the Republican primary election.
"I've become much more cynical about politics. There are a lot of people who have no lines in the sand. A lot of politicians," Richer said. "A lot of politicians for whom it's like oxygen, that if you told them they weren't going to be reelected, it would be like unplugging them from oxygen. So whichever way the winds are blowing, even if it's highly immoral, that they're on for the ride."
He worries about what may happen on Nov. 5 and in the aftermath that allegations of widespread fraud and threats of violence against election officials could continue.
Fighting election fraud allegations across the country
Arizona isn't the only state dealing with false claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 contest. A group of prominent conservatives, including attorney Ben Ginsberg, spent a year investigating claims the 2020 election was stolen. The group, which includes conservative judges and senators, authored "Lost, Not Stolen," an investigation that exposes election fraud lies.
"The evidence to back up the allegations of fraud and elections being unreliable simply does not exist," Ginsberg said.
Part of the report centers on Trump's swing state lawsuits.
"Donald Trump and his supporters brought 64 cases. They lost 63 of them outright," Ginsberg explained. The case they won related to a small number of ballots "far from outcome determinative," he says.
Election deniers have said that they lost in court because the judges weren't fair.
"Under the rule of law, you have every right to submit your litigation," Ginsberg said. "But under the rule of law, a conservative principle, a Republican principle for as long as I've been practicing election law, you have to accept the rulings of the court."