The results of the Maricopa County ballot audit have many elected officials demanding accountability and action. Arizona State Rep. Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix), who is running for Arizona secretary of state, issued a statement denouncing the fraud that the audit uncovered, and recommended conducting a statewide audit.
Bolick said in a recent campaign update, criticizing Democratic election officials Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, “Who is surprised that Secretary Hobbs and the former Maricopa County Recorder Fontes bent the rules last year, taking advantage of COVID to consistently undermine our election processes? It didn’t stop in 2020. They continued to obstruct the State Senate’s audit to serve justice. Then we saw how Maricopa County refused to turn over election routers despite a subpoena, but it went deeper. Throughout the audit report, it was clear that at almost every point Maricopa County was uncooperative in providing important context and information. They disrupted the audit processes by deleting logs, files, and important documents from the Election Management System.”
Bolick has been out at the forefront of combating election fraud. She served on the House Elections Committee her first two years in office. In January, she introduced HB 2720, which would keep better track of ballots and what stage they were at, create digitized images of ballots, allow for election observers, penalize the county recorder and county supervisors if they suspend video coverage of elections, require jury trials for election lawsuits so partisan judges can’t easily dismiss them, and expand the power of certifying election results from the secretary of state to include the legislature. A new Joint Legislative Election Oversight Committee would oversee presidential elections, instead of leaving it all underneath the secretary of state, with the legislature determining who the electors should be, then sending the list to the secretary of state for certification, but not to pick its own winner.
Bolick’s bill would combat the type of activity that the Democrats are trying to enact at the federal level, HR 1. She said on the Seth Leibsohn show, “There will not be a republic left” if HR 1 is enacted, citing circumstances like same-day voter registration that was allowed during the 2020 election in Arizona, something that was not authorized by statute. HR 1 implements automatic and same-day voter registration and limits removing voters from registration rolls.
Her bill invoked a strong opposition by Hobbs, who is now running for governor. Hobbs told Fox 10 that she would lobby Gov. Doug Ducey not to sign it. She said, “Why would we even hold a presidential election if that’s what we’re going to give the legislature the authority to do?”
Bolick also introduced HB 2501 this past year, which she co-sponsored with Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills). It clarifies that a public official is subject to legislative subpoenas. It was meant to address the defiance from the Maricopa County Supervisors who refused to respond to legislative subpoenas regarding the 2020 election, forcing the legislature to take them to court. Unfortunately, neither of her bills were heard in a committee.
Bolick denounced California’s liberal voting laws back in April 2020, perceiving well before the 2020 presidential election that loose election laws had the potential for massive fraud. She warned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) about expanding her state’s laws to the federal level, “We’ve seen them fail, leave elections vulnerable to fraud, and harm our American system of federalism. I’ve got a message for her: Don’t California our other states.”
Bolick served on a national task force put together by the Public Interest Legal Foundation that set up security recommendations for voting by mail. She put forth a comprehensive argument last year against moving to all mail-in voting, citing unnecessary risks and costs. She cited a poll by Pew Research Center which found that 65 percent of Americans reject conducting all elections by mail.
State Rep. Bolick told the Arizona Sun Times that she has received death threats for speaking out against election fraud. She said leftist political commentator Keith Olbermann called her a fascist, and even President Joe Biden and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have criticized her.
But she said she is not backing down, because she believes that it is her responsibility based on concerns from constituents that “election fraud must be addressed.” Bolick added she received over 57,000 emails about the 2020 election between November 2020 and January 2021, compared to a typical monthly volume of roughly 1,000 emails.
“I am going to respect the wishes of Arizona voters and forge ahead to fix the current system. We need to ensure all legal votes are cast and counted. More importantly, all voters must present a legal ID accompanied with their ballot,” she said.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Shawnna Bolick” by Timon Harper. Background Photo “Arizona Capitol” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
