Rogue MAGA Cochise County Needs To Be ‘Bailed In’ Under Section 3 Of The Voting Rights Act For DOJ Election Supervision

Update to Rogue MAGA Cochise County Supervisors Ordered To Pay Sanctions For Violating State Law.

Cochise County has gone so rogue that the Department of Justice Voting Rights Section must step in as observers and oversee all elections in Cochise County. These MAGA Fascists cannot be allowed to pursue their evil designs to rig elections. Where is the U.S. Attorney for Arizona on this? Cochise County needs to be “bailed in” under Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended. No more fucking around with these anti-democracy MAGA Fascists.

Jen Fifield for VoteBeat reports, Cochise County ready to hire elections director who spread false claims of 2020 election rigging:

Cochise County is close to hiring an elections director who has repeatedly shared false claims about widespread election fraud on Facebook, including claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against former President Donald Trump.

Bob Bartelsmeyer, currently the elections director in La Paz County, was chosen by Cochise County Recorder David Stevens [also an election denier] for the spot. The county supervisors are set to appoint him at their Tuesday meeting, according to a meeting agenda posted on the county website.

UPDATE: The Sierra Vista Herald reports, Bartelsmeyer approved as new county elections director:

[Rogue MAGA] Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby approved Bob Bartelsmeyer, who has voiced concerns that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, as the new county elections director. Supervisor Ann English had concerns about his ability to handle an election in a nonpartisan manner and voted against his hiring.

English asked why approve a candidate who asked that his former employers not be contacted about his employment with La Paz County and Dona County, New Mexico.

“Isn’t that a red flag?” she asked.

County Recorder David Stevens said it was not. Three candidates had submitted applications, but he believed only Bartelsmeyer was experienced enough to handle the job.

English also questioned why she was not contacted or provided information on Bartelsmeyer’s background prior to the meeting.

Judd said she found out who it was when she was contacted by a news outlet.

Crosby restated his election mantra that he believes the lack of certification of the county’s machines and lack of security for chain of custody of the ballots was a problem that “everyone should be concerned about.”

A number of county residents offered their concerns over the hiring of Bartelsmeyer due to his comments on social media of stolen elections such as “You will never convince me that the election wasn’t stolen!!” from May 8, 2021, and another “History is repeating itself. Everything the Dems are doing was done in Germany before Hitler took over,” on March 24, 2021.

Arizona Mirror continues:

“Please join me by posting ‘Trump legally won by landslide’” one post shared by Bartelsmeyer in December 2020 said. “REVEALED: ‘Simple Math’ Shows Biden Claims 13 MILLION More Votes Than There Were Eligible Voters Who Voted in 2020,” read another.

In Cochise, Bartelsmeyer would be working for a southern Arizona county where the Republican-controlled Board of Supervisors is considering GOP-backed changes to the county’s elections. Proposals include pursuing a potential plan to get rid of the county’s vote-counting machines because of false claims of vote switching that are similar to those shared by Bartelsmeyer in 2020.

Supervisor Ann English, the lone Democrat on the board, told Votebeat she was concerned that hiring Bartelsmeyer would mean no one would stand in the supervisors’ or Stevens’ way if they attempted to move forward with concerning changes to elections.

“It certainly is scary for me to think about someone coming in to take over an elections system that hasn’t had any problems, with an attitude that elections in the past haven’t been fair,” English said.

In hiring Bartelsmeyer, the county would also be choosing someone with decades of experience administering elections. Prior to his hiring in La Paz — a rural county in western Arizona — a year ago, Bartelsmeyer said he ran or worked in elections in Mohave County and counties in Missouri, Florida, and New Mexico.

Earlier this year the Cochise supervisors gave Stevens, the Republican recorder who also has doubts about the security of elections, more control of them, including oversight of the elections director position. That was after they illegally attempted to block the certification of Cochise County’s November election and tried to move forward with a plan to illegally hand-count all ballots.

The position is open after longtime elections director Lisa Marra resigned in January, claiming she was maligned and harassed after refusing to move forward with the illegal hand-count plan. The supervisors had planned to move control of elections to Stevens even before Marra left.

Asked on Monday if he supported the supervisors’ attempts to illegally hand-count all ballots and not certify the election, Bartelsmeyer indicated he did not.

“I believe that you must follow state statutes and the elections procedure manual with regard to elections,” he wrote in an email.

Asked how his support for false claims about election fraud in the 2020 election would affect how he runs elections, Bartelsmeyer wrote that in 2020, he was a “private citizen and was at liberty to express my beliefs from sources within the campaign at that time especially with mail in ballots.”

But, he went on to say, that was no longer true. “As an Elections Director, a person cannot express their personal opinions with any campaign as one must be neutral and bipartisan,” he wrote. “My mission is to provide outstanding voter services with integrity, transparency and accuracy in Cochise County.” [Yeah, sure.]

Nonetheless, he has shared his opinion publicly during his tenure in La Paz. On Oct. 27, a few weeks before the Nov. 8 election, Bartelsmeyer shared a Breitbart post saying that GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was polling ahead of her Democratic opponent, adding, ‘You go girl!!’ with a thumbs-up emoji.

From 2016 to 2021, he posted numerous posts in support of Trump, though it’s unclear from publicly available information what position he held at that time if any. He didn’t respond to a follow-up question asking if he still supports Trump, who is running for president again in 2024.

English said Tuesday afternoon that she hadn’t been given any information about Bartelsmeyer’s background in advance of the Tuesday meeting. Republican Supervisor Peggy Judd said that she had received all the information she thought was pertinent to know before the vote, and she planned to support his hiring.

* * *

Stevens has told Votebeat that he does not believe ballot tabulation machines are secure and he believes the county should have a conversation about whether hand-counting ballots would be best. [He is an idiot.] He did not respond to questions Monday about his recommendation to hire Bartelsmeyer.

The original posting for the elections director job asked applicants to identify their political affiliation, according to a story in the Sierra Vista Herald. County officials said at the time that they had misunderstood state law and thought this was required, and said they would remove the question. [Yeah, sure.]

For his part, Bartelsmeyer told Votebeat he believes tabulation machines “are 99.9% accurate.” He said counties should follow state law on hand-counting a percentage of ballots after the election.

But in his 2020 posts, Bartelsmeyer spread false claims about Dominion Voting Systems, a manufacturer of election equipment, and other false claims from former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell about widespread voter fraud in six swing states. One quote he shared falsely said that instances of fraudulent voting that occurred in 2020 were “treasonous.”

Many of his posts were marked by Facebook as misinformation, with a disclaimer added to some posts reminding readers that “election officials have strict rules when it comes to ballot counting, handling and reporting.”

“We must demand election integrity and transparency in the 2020 election for America to survive as a democracy and for the America we know and love!!,” Bartelsmeyer wrote in a Dec. 6, 2020 post.

Most of Bartelsmeyer’s experience was from his 23 years as county clerk in Lawrence County, Missouri, according to a story in the Parker Pioneer, a La Paz County news outlet. In 2010, he abruptly left a spot as elections supervisor in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, after holding the position for less than a year, according to a story in the local newspaper.

When hired in La Paz, a rural county in western Arizona with about 11,000 registered voters, Bartelsmeyer told the Parker Pioneer that the county already had ways to ensure that its elections were transparent and secure and “has done a fine job of conducting elections.”

He would have a much larger population to serve in Cochise County, which had about 77,000 registered voters as of November. He told Votebeat that he wants the job because he is “looking for a new challenge with a serious effort to be a team player in the face of challenges with a larger jurisdiction.”

“I want to make a difference and make a significant contribution to the Cochise County Elections Department,” he wrote.

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who has prominently supported the way elections are run in Arizona, declined to comment on Bartelsmeyer’s past Facebook posts. Fontes’ office provides support to elections directors as they run their counties’ elections.

At least six of Arizona’s 15 counties have seen election directors leave recently, and Fontes has attributed the high turnover directly to the attacks and harassment the directors have faced because of election misinformation, such as the kind spread by Bartelsmeyer.

When Marra resigned, Fontes went on national television and spoke about her resignation and others, calling them an emergency because of the loss of experience.

“We need to end this nonsense,” Fontes said at the time. “But we need to do it with vigor and with strength because I think that is the only language that these terrorists are going to pay attention to.”

Cochise County Recorder David Stevens needs to be under the watchful eye of the DOJ as well. Petitioners trying to recall Cochise County supervisor threatened, harassed (excerpt):

As petitioners rush to gather enough signatures to trigger a recall vote for Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby before the May 3 deadline, some say they experienced harassment and threatening behavior from community members and a local official.

Two incidents that occurred last month are driving the committee to push even harder to get the last remaining signatures.

The Committee to Recall Tom Crosby, who is organizing the recall efforts, has collected just over half of the signatures needed to move the recall forward since January. Just two weeks are left to collect the remainder of the votes.

The recall stems from Crosby’s actions last year: from voting for an illegal hand count of all the county’s ballots before the November election and refusing to certify election results, according to the committee.

Although Crosby was not the only supervisor engaging in these actions, the recall is centered around him because the group leading the effort is from his district, District 1.

Interim elections director has run-in with petitioners

Last month, Interim Elections Director and County Recorder David Stevens confronted two petitioners in their 70s who were collecting signatures on a dirt lot adjacent to the Hereford Post Office. He claimed they were on federal land and thus breaking state law, telling them to leave, according to an article published by the Sierra Vista Herald.

The two petitioners said they had received permission from the postmaster to collect signatures on that lot, according to the article. There was a heated exchange between Stevens and the two petitioners. They said they felt intimidated and threatened by Stevens’ actions, the article stated.

The couple also said they had experienced other incidents of harassment from people who disagreed with the recall effort.

Stevens is at the center of a controversial move made by the county board. In February, the board of supervisors voted to move election director responsibilities to Stevens, who is also the county recorder, after the former elections director resigned due to harassment. The county is now facing a lawsuit from the Attorney General for that vote.

Man followed petitioners while yelling

In another incident, two Sierra Vista retirees were going from house to house collecting signatures for the recall effort. At one house, no one answered the door. As one of the canvassers was walking away, a man came out of the house screaming at her to leave and followed her down the street while yelling.

One of the canvassers told The Arizona Republic she could not get away from the man and felt threatened.

According to a police report, an off-duty police officer told the man to leave them alone.

The Sierra Vista Police Department said it is legal to go door-to-door requesting signatures for a petition.

The two petitioners involved in the second incident reiterated that while these incidents have been happening, they are from a small, albeit vocal, portion of the community. Most people are polite, they said.

Eric Suchodolski of Sierra Vista, who chairs the recall committee, said these actions are driving the committee to push harder to get signatures and educate the public about the recall.

With just a few weeks left, the committee has collected two-thirds of the signatures they need to trigger a recall election. Suchodolski told The Republic many weeks of rough weather made it difficult for volunteers to go out to gather signatures. Petitioners described trying to go out in snow, heavy winds and rain with their paper petitions.

Suchodolski noted the recall effort is nonpartisan with equal numbers of Democrat, Republican and Independent voters in District 1 signing the petition.

Earlier from the Arizona Mirror, ow David Stevens is making Cochise County a ‘laboratory’ for election skepticism.

These MAGA Fascists tell themselves “we’re down here in the southeast corner of Arizona where no one from the state or the federal government ever comes, so we can get away with whatever we want.” Well it’s high time the U.S. Attorney for Arizona and the Department of Justice Voting Rights Section pays these yahoos the attention they deserve.