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In Arizona, alleged voter intimidation at drop boxes worries officials

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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With early voting underway in Arizona, a swing state and epicenter of election distrust and denialism, public officials are worried that menacing bands of activist observers hunting for fraud will harass and intimidate voters.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who oversees elections here, referred to federal and state authorities a report of intimidation after a voter complained he or she was approached and followed by a group of people after attempting to drop off a ballot at a drop box Monday. The referral was announced Wednesday night.

State elections officials spoke with the voter, said Sophia Solis, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state.

Hobbs made the referral to the U.S. Justice Department and the Arizona attorney general. A spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed to The Washington Post on Thursday that it received the referral but declined to comment. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Arizona Republican slate packed with Trump-backed election deniers
The complaint stemmed from a Monday night encounter at a drop box in Mesa, an eastern suburb of Phoenix.


The complaint was made on the secretary of state’s online platform Monday evening, records obtained by The Post show. The records do not identify the person who filed the complaint.
“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” the complaint said. “They took ... photographs of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film.”

Former president Donald Trump and his allies nationally and in Arizona have urged supporters to monitor outdoor drop boxes, intended to serve as safe and convenient tools to deposit ballots.
They have sought to undermine the faith and trust in drop boxes, citing the “2000 Mules” film, which purports to use cellphone geolocation data to prove “mules” illegally gathered and submitted ballots in Arizona and other states. The film has been widely discredited, in part because the data is imprecise. Yet it has taken hold here and elsewhere, prompting Republican activists who dispute the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election to launch homegrown patrol and monitoring operations, complete with online sign-up sheets advertised on social media.
Ballot collectors are ‘mules.’ Skeptical reporters are ‘terrorists.’
The secretary of state’s office did not identify the alleged harassers, and Solis did not say whether they were affiliated with any organized group.







One man monitoring another drop box, this one in downtown Phoenix, told a local ABC television affiliate on Wednesday evening that he was with Clean Elections USA Group. Citing “2000 Mules,” the group asks followers to pitch in “to safeguard our elections with a legal presence at every ballot box in each and every state that has them.”
That group was not named in the secretary of state’s referral to authorities, said a person familiar with the complaint who was not authorized to publicly speak about it.
Bill Gates, chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said there’s a balance between the right of citizens to observe the election process and the rights of voters and elections workers to participate, too, without fear of harassment.

“I believe that citizens observing elections activities are vitally important to the transparency of the system,” he told The Post on Thursday. “What I don’t support is when it reaches the point of harassing other voters or elections workers.”


Gates said the board and the county recorder are seeking advice from their attorneys about the types of specific activities that constitute intimidation of voters at drop boxes and of election workers.
In the wake of Trump’s narrow loss in Arizona in 2020, baseless claims have gripped many Republicans, giving rise to a slate of GOP nominees on the November ballot who have doubled down on debunked assertions of widespread fraud and Trump’s notion of a “stolen election.” Some of those candidates are locked in tight contests from the top of the ticket on down, including GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Hobbs, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, is running against Lake.

 
Deplorable:

With early voting underway in Arizona, a swing state and epicenter of election distrust and denialism, public officials are worried that menacing bands of activist observers hunting for fraud will harass and intimidate voters.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who oversees elections here, referred to federal and state authorities a report of intimidation after a voter complained he or she was approached and followed by a group of people after attempting to drop off a ballot at a drop box Monday. The referral was announced Wednesday night.

State elections officials spoke with the voter, said Sophia Solis, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state.

Hobbs made the referral to the U.S. Justice Department and the Arizona attorney general. A spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed to The Washington Post on Thursday that it received the referral but declined to comment. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Arizona Republican slate packed with Trump-backed election deniers
The complaint stemmed from a Monday night encounter at a drop box in Mesa, an eastern suburb of Phoenix.


The complaint was made on the secretary of state’s online platform Monday evening, records obtained by The Post show. The records do not identify the person who filed the complaint.
“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” the complaint said. “They took ... photographs of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film.”

Former president Donald Trump and his allies nationally and in Arizona have urged supporters to monitor outdoor drop boxes, intended to serve as safe and convenient tools to deposit ballots.
They have sought to undermine the faith and trust in drop boxes, citing the “2000 Mules” film, which purports to use cellphone geolocation data to prove “mules” illegally gathered and submitted ballots in Arizona and other states. The film has been widely discredited, in part because the data is imprecise. Yet it has taken hold here and elsewhere, prompting Republican activists who dispute the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election to launch homegrown patrol and monitoring operations, complete with online sign-up sheets advertised on social media.
Ballot collectors are ‘mules.’ Skeptical reporters are ‘terrorists.’
The secretary of state’s office did not identify the alleged harassers, and Solis did not say whether they were affiliated with any organized group.







One man monitoring another drop box, this one in downtown Phoenix, told a local ABC television affiliate on Wednesday evening that he was with Clean Elections USA Group. Citing “2000 Mules,” the group asks followers to pitch in “to safeguard our elections with a legal presence at every ballot box in each and every state that has them.”
That group was not named in the secretary of state’s referral to authorities, said a person familiar with the complaint who was not authorized to publicly speak about it.
Bill Gates, chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said there’s a balance between the right of citizens to observe the election process and the rights of voters and elections workers to participate, too, without fear of harassment.

“I believe that citizens observing elections activities are vitally important to the transparency of the system,” he told The Post on Thursday. “What I don’t support is when it reaches the point of harassing other voters or elections workers.”


Gates said the board and the county recorder are seeking advice from their attorneys about the types of specific activities that constitute intimidation of voters at drop boxes and of election workers.
In the wake of Trump’s narrow loss in Arizona in 2020, baseless claims have gripped many Republicans, giving rise to a slate of GOP nominees on the November ballot who have doubled down on debunked assertions of widespread fraud and Trump’s notion of a “stolen election.” Some of those candidates are locked in tight contests from the top of the ticket on down, including GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Hobbs, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, is running against Lake.

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