Statement on Final AG Report on 2020 Election
As Maricopa County Board Chairman now and during the 2020 election, I try to be very prudent with my messaging because I know that it reflects back on all of my colleagues. I also know that sometimes it would be nice to emotionally lash out when it comes to news like this. On this topic though, I have to thread a needle. There are a lot of pent-up frustrations in play here.
I would like our Maricopa County residents to know that I am absolutely disgusted by the revelations that former Attorney General Mark Brnovich failed to do his job as a public servant representing the highest law enforcement elected position in the state. He and his leadership team concealed a report that proved the November 2020 election was conducted fairly, lawfully, and accurately. Not only did he ignore his own investigators in issuing a different, “interim report”, he falsely suggested wrongdoing by Maricopa County, never correcting the record and blatantly never sharing the team’s final report with the public. This was a gross misuse of his elected office and an appalling waste of taxpayer dollars, as well as a waste of the time and effort of professional investigators.
Let me be clear: we should learn from the mistakes that happen in every human-run election. Our County Board has never run from that responsibility, and we damn sure have never ducked an opportunity to apologize if something has gone wrong. Currently, Justice Ruth McGregor and her team are fulfilling an obligation to seek answers to problems in the 2022 investigation, independently from our Board.
For almost three years, this County has answered questions about the 2020 election. For three years we have provided proof from independent investigators that it was run as well as you could run an election under current laws. For three years, my colleagues have been called traitors, cheaters, and liars…and those are just the names I can print. It has been absolute hell on all of us, but I would do it again in a second and I believe that every member of this Board would do it again because all of us stayed within the law. We didn’t try to venture outside of it so we could be called “HERO” to the same people who have ridiculed us at every step.
Unfortunately, the ridicule and threats have not only been directed at my Board and our Recorder, but also at our own election workers. They have made good people scared to work in elections, and they’ve even scared people away from voting the way that Arizonans have voted for decades.
I applaud the current Attorney General, Kris Mayes, for doing what the former Attorney General would not do. I implore everyone who cares about our elections to read what the investigators really found, not a political candidate’s cherry-picked story line.
This report should have been released months before last August’s Primary Election, but it is nonetheless proof of what my colleagues and I have been saying all along. I am grateful to the people who have supported us.
READ: Attorney General's Office Press Release >
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