While speaking on former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s WarRoom, Catherine Engelbrecht and Greg Phillips of True the Vote said they plan on fighting the results of the Arizona 2022 general election.
“Now is the time to fight. It’s not wait until the end of 2023 into the primaries of 2024. Now is the time. We stand here today, and we fight. We cannot give this away,” Phillips said.
During Bannon’s interview, the two spoke about the issues they have seen in Arizona’s general election, specifically the printer issue seen in roughly 70 voting centers around Maricopa County, which resulted in voters being unable to pass their ballot through the onsite tabulation machines. This issue led to roughly 17,000 ballots being placed in “box 3,” a storage unit within the tabulators for safe keeping until a bipartisan team would pick them up and count them at the Maricopa County tabulation center.
In response to this situation, Engelbrecht said she does not understand how anyone could be confident in Arizona’s election results.
“What we are asking people to do now is if you voted in Arizona and you were turned away in line, you were asked to fill out a provisional ballot, you voted in a ‘door three’ scenario, or you had any other situation occur that didn’t sit right with you, we want to hear about it,” Engelbrecht said.
True the Vote has a voter fraud hotline, which Engelbrecht encouraged anyone who experienced anything questionable in this election to call. She said any evidence compiled through the hotline will help form arguments to use against Arizona.
Philips also takes issue with the fact that Katie Hobbs, the Democrat nominee for governor and current secretary of state, will be in charge of certifying the election.
“How in the world can America, Arizona, the world, anyone you want to look at possibly believe that Katie Hobbs should get to certify her own stolen election? If that’s, in fact, the way this goes,” Phillips said.
Like other members of the Republican Party, Philips argued that Hobbs has a duty to recuse herself from election duties, although she has refused to do so thus far.
Furthermore, Bannon said that when all is said and done, this election should not be certified unless the results are “high and tight” and suggested that Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) call a special legislative session to address the issues seen in this election.
The Arizona Sun Times reached out to Ducey and state House Republicans for a comment Monday but did receive a response before publication.
Kim Quintero, the State Senate Republican Caucus spokesperson, told The Sun Times that even if Ducey or the legislature called a special session now, there might not be much the Senate could accomplish regarding this election. With an emergency clause, a bill signed by Ducey would go into effect immediately and could potentially change how Arizona’s election is currently being processed. However, an emergency clause needs a two-thirds vote, or 20 votes in the state Senate, to pass, and Quintero said she believes this would not be possible. The emergency session could still introduce legislation to prevent issues seen in the 2022 election from occurring again, but Arizona would likely not see those in effect until the next cycle.
Watch Bannon’s full interview here.
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Neil Jones is a reporter for The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Neil on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips” by Shawnna Bolick.
