The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for March 2, 2023
Today’s Links
Articles & Resources:
Votebeat Arizona – Cochise County gives election skeptic recorder near full control of elections
Votebeat Arizona – How an Arizona official is making Cochise County a “laboratory” for election skepticism
Democracy Docket – Cochise County, Arizona Transfers Election Oversight to Partisan County Recorder
AZ Attorney General – Letter from Solicitor General
Election Fairness Institute – Failed AZ Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem’s nonprofit focused on alleged irregularities in mail-in voting
Arizona Mirror/VoteBeat – Cochise County’s elections director resigns after protecting midterm ballots from Republican officials
Arizona Public Media – Recall petitions circulating for Cochise County supervisor
Today’s Script: (Variations occur with audio due to editing for time)
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
Remember our reports on Cochise County, Arizona’s election chaos caused by election deniers on the county board of supervisors? The rural Arizona county of 126,000 is back in the news, because it wants to transfer election oversight to – you guessed it– another election denier.
Back in November, state officials had to stop the Board of Supervisors from requiring 47,284 ballots be counted by hand. Then the supervisors refused to CERTIFY the election until compelled by the Arizona Secretary of State and a county court. This January, the county’s veteran elections director resigned, citing a threatening work environment, and harassment from citizens.
VoteBeat Arizona reports that county supervisors are now proposing to transfer the election director’s responsibilities to County Recorder David Stevens, who volunteered to supervise the November hand count, but had never conducted an election. According to VoteBeat’s reporting, Stevens is a director of the Elections Fairness Institute, a nonprofit run by Mark Finchem, a January 6th participant and failed candidate for Arizona Secretary of State who claimed the 2020 election was rigged.
Monday, the Arizona state solicitor general issued a letter to the Cochise County attorney saying that giving all election responsibilities to ANY county recorder would raise, quote, “serious questions about the legality of the board’s intended action.”
We have links to articles, our past reports, and the solicitor general’s letter at
AmericanDemocracyMinute.org. For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.