The Arizona Senate Committee on Elections aka the Senate Election Deniers Committee, held a sham elections deniers presentation from the MAGA/QAnon election deniers conspiracy theory organization We The People yesterday on “Election Mechanics” from Shelby Busch.
The Senate Election Deniers Committee is chaired by White Christian Nationalist and MAGA/QAnon election denier extraordiaire Wendy Rogers, and the vice chair is the former spokesperson for the QAnon conspiracy theory Cyber Ninja “Fraudit,” Ken Bennett. It also includes Wendy Roger’s sidekick, MAGA/QAnon election denier Sonny Borrelli, and our MAGAt Troll Boy, John Kavanagh. Nothing good can come from this QAnon conspiracy theory generating committee. Its mere existence and membership is an affront to decency and good governance.
We the People, which been saying there is widespread election fraud in Maricopa County since 2020, just gave a presentation to Senate elections committee after they said they got data from the county about ballot rejections, voter sigs, etc.
I've asked the county for details. https://t.co/H3KC7V6XJr
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) January 23, 2023
Shelby Busch is now MCRC vice chair. Busch, also the lead of We the People USA Alliance, was a key local figure in the “Stop the Steal” saga, appearing as an anon character in Patrick Byrne’s Deep Rig book. On Republican Briefs, she campaigned off of this:https://t.co/hrXScSJXha https://t.co/XvqeDeWMk2 pic.twitter.com/i6Gt4XqK98
— AZ Right Wing Watch (@az_rww) January 15, 2023
Here is the sham election denier presentation from Shelby Busch.
As one would expect, the Queen of MAGA/QAnon election deniers, election loser “Krazy Kari” Lake, was all over it for her deranged election denier followers.
Screenshot for blocked. pic.twitter.com/tCciXHvqgp
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) January 24, 2023
This is the entire purpose of the Senate Election Deniers Committee: to generate or to perpetuate wild conspiracy theories not grounded in reality, and to undermine public confidence in elections. These MAGA/QAnon election deniers are the enemies of democracy. They should not be serving in public office, and their conspiracy theory clown show antics should not be taken seriously.
This hearing Is non-sense. It’s merely an excuse to throw around large numbers and claim they mean there is any doubt as to the validity and content of ballots. Poisoning the well of public opinion has never been so blatant and obvious.
and at 18:40 Wendy Rogers lays down the authoritarian rule of the committee to shut up the opposition. Basically, she’s shutting down any dissent or comment on her disinformation and propaganda efforts. She’s basically running a show trial.
While the Arizona Senate goes full MAGA/QAnon election denier conspiracy theories chasing rabbits down the hole, our new Attorney General is turning Brno’s politically weaponized Election Integrity Unit (EIU) into a legitimate investigative unit (you should expect the GQP extremists in the legislature to defund the EIU now that a Republican election denier attorney from True The Vote does not head the unit).
The New York Times reports, “Voter Fraud Unit in Arizona Will Shift Focus to Voter Rights”, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/us/politics/arizona-voter-fraud-attorney-general.html
Arizona’s new Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, is redirecting an election integrity unit her Republican predecessor created, focusing its work instead on addressing voter suppression. The shift by Ms. Mayes is one of her first acts since she took office this month.
The unit’s former leader, Jennifer Wright, meanwhile, has joined a legal effort to invalidate Ms. Mayes’s narrow victory in the November election.
“Under my predecessor’s administration, the election integrity unit searched widely for voter fraud and found scant evidence of it occurring in Arizona,” Ms. Mayes said in a statement provided by her office on Monday. “That’s because instances of voter fraud are exceedingly rare.”
The former attorney general, Mark Brnovich, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate last year, created the office to investigate voter fraud complaints in Arizona, a battleground state.
Ms. Mayes said in the statement that she did not share the priorities of Mr. Brnovich, whom she described as being preoccupied with voter fraud despite isolated cases. The office has five pending voter fraud investigations, as of late October, and a spokesman for Ms. Mayes said on Monday that there was no plan yet for how to proceed with them.
Ms. Mayes said that protecting voting access and limiting voter suppression would be at the forefront of her administration.
“I will also use this unit to protect elections officials, election volunteers and poll workers against threats of violence and against interference in our elections,” she said. In addition, the unit will seek to defend vote-by-mail rules, which she said “90 percent of Arizonans enjoy and in many cases depend on.”
Ms. Wright, a former assistant attorney general who had led the election integrity unit for Mr. Brnovich, announced last week that she had begun a new role as a lawyer for Abraham Hamadeh, the Republican who lost to Ms. Mayes and is planning to continue his legal efforts to try to overturn the election.
Ms. Wright referred questions on Monday about her new role to the campaign of Mr. Hamadeh, who was part of a group of prominent election deniers seeking statewide office in Arizona during the midterms.