The Republican who now leads the Arizona county elections department targeted by a GOP audit of the 2020 election results is slamming Trump and others in his party for their continued falsehoods about how the election was run.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer called out Trump as “unhinged” in a tweet Saturday after Trump accused the county of deleting the election database. Richer became the recorder in January after defeating a Democrat for the position.
Richer and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors say that statement is just plain wrong. In recent days, both he and the board have begun aggressively pushing back at what they see as continuing falsehoods from Republicans who question Trump’s loss.
“Enough with the defamation. Enough with the unfounded allegations,” Richer tweeted Thursday. “I came to this office to competently, fairly, and lawfully administer the duties of the office. Not to be accused by own party of shredding ballots and deleting files for an election I didn’t run. Enough.”
Republican Senate President Karen Fann and the Republican Senate hired a private group of auditors named Cyber Ninjas out of Florida to oversee a partisan overview of the Maricopa County 2020 election, conducting a hand recount of all 2.1 million ballots.
The Republican Senate demands access to administrative passwords for vote-counting machines and internet routers. County officials say they have turned over all the passwords they have and have refused to give up the routers, saying it would compromise sensitive data, including classified law enforcement information held by the sheriff’s office. The county says the passwords the Senate is seeking are maintained by Dominion Voting Systems Inc., who says it cooperates with auditors certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and did so for two prior audits of 2020 results in Maricopa County, but won’t work with Cyber Ninjas.