By Joe Miller · August 3, 2022
This Week: More MAGA Election Deniers Prevail in GOP Primaries Across the Nation
Over the past week, MAGA Republicans continued their ongoing campaign to nominate and support election conspiracy theorists planning to re-make future elections. During primary elections held in five states last night, election deniers prevailed in nearly every race called (so far). Trump’s ticket in Arizona, led by Kari Lake, swept the GOP primary while Trump ally Tudor Dixon won in Michigan, election conspiracist Kris Kobach won in Kansas, and MAGA candidate Eric Schmitt won in Missouri. These lawless nominees pose an imminent threat to free and fair elections, especially in Arizona and Michigan.
In Arizona, voter fraud conspiracies from 2020 hung over the primary. False claims alleging that felt-tip pens would not be counted circulated ahead of the election (accompanied by #SharpieGate), causing confusion among poll workers. Days before the primary, gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake alleged that “stealing” occurred and told her supporters not to trust the results long before any ballots were counted. In an effort to combat misinformation, local elections officials announced that counties could take several days to finish tabulating ballots, especially given an increase in last-minute early ballots being submitted.
Ahead of Michigan’s election, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said her office would not tolerate any effort to obstruct the certification of primary election results, as GOP election inspectors who tried to stop Detroit’s vote count in 2020 returned for the primary. At the last minute, Trump endorsed long-time election denier and Betsy DeVos ally Tudor Dixon for governor, sealing her successful bid for the GOP nomination. Following her victory, fellow candidate and Jan. 6 defendant Ryan Kelley refused to concede.
In Kansas, hard-right Republican state legislator Dennis Pyle launched an independent bid to unseat popular Democratic Governor Laura Kelly, complicating an already highly-competitive race for the new GOP nominee, state Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
Elsewhere, in ongoing Republican efforts to subvert the will of voters:
Just over a quarter of Georgia voters saw their travel time to a ballot drop box increase from the 2020 election after state Republicans imposed severe voting restrictions last year, according to a new NPR report. This week, a group of Georgia Republicans asked numerous local election boards to cancel thousands of Georgia voter registrations using a new power bestowed by the same restrictive voting law.
A Wisconsin sheriff is seeking to end online ballot requests instead of seeking charges against a local election denier who committed voter fraud and reported himself to make a statement. In other news, GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels said “everything is on the table” in terms of decertifying the state’s 2020 election results, during a heated debate with Rebecca Kleefisch. Kleefisch was recently endorsed by Mike Pence following Trump’s endorsement of Michels last week. Stay tuned for Wisconsin’s own primary next Tuesday, as a host of MAGA candidates face off in the latest Trump-Pence proxy brawl on Aug. 9.
And finally, in Nevada, conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have inflamed public suspicions about rural counties’ voting machines. Rural Nye County advanced a proposal to count 20,000 ballots by hand this fall, after GOP Secretary of State nominee Jim Marchant convinced the Nye County commissioner (who was charged with domestic battery last week) to consider switching to paper ballots, in yet another MAGA attempt to re-shape elections with less than 100 days to go until the midterm elections.
