Thread by @weareoversight

For months, Donald Trump & his supporters have claimed—falsely—that the 2020 election was stolen. Lawmakers are pushing legislation to make it harder for people to vote based on this “big lie.” Arizona is leading the charge. Here’s how we’re investigating. #FOIAFriday

Last November, President Biden won Arizona’s 11 electoral votes. Some of Donald Trump’s supporters questioned these results, although there was no evidence of any serious irregularities.

Some Arizona legislators demanded investigations into their state’s election results. Rudy Giuliani and several Arizona lawmakers held an unofficial “hearing” in which participants made unsubstantiated allegations about the election’s integrity.

So, last November, we submitted records requests to the offices of the Arizona legislators who pushed for these investigations as part of our larger investigation into efforts to undermine the 2020 election results.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…

Then, in December, a group of Trump supporters in Arizona tried to replace the valid presidential electors from their state — who had been chosen by voters in free and fair elections — with a bogus slate of pro-Trump electors.
azcentral.com/story/news/pol…

We filed records requests for these documents and uncovered copies of the phony electoral certificates sent to Congress by Trump supporters in Arizona and six other states.
americanoversight.org/american-overs…

On January 6, 2021, a heavily armed mob invaded the U.S. Capitol. The riot happened after thousands had been riled up by Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, in which his supporters repeated the “big lie” that the election was stolen.

Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem participated in the demonstration and later spread conspiracy theories about antifascist agitators being behind the violence.

As part of our investigation into state officials who attended the Jan. 6 rally, we requested Finchem’s communications.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…

In 2021, legislative pushes to curtail the vote popped up across the country.

Arizona is leading the charge, with proposals to restrict early and mail-in voting and even to allow the legislature to overrule state election results and choose its own slate of electors.

For example, SB 1069 would purge names of people who don’t vote frequently from the state’s permanent early voting list, which determines who automatically receives a ballot by mail.

Another proposal would eliminate that early voting list altogether.

House Bill 2720 would allow the legislature to overrule the state’s popular election results and choose its own slate of presidential electors. If enacted, this would undermine the democratic process by allowing lawmakers to simply overturn the will of Arizona voters.

These proposals not only threaten to make it harder for people to vote to disenfranchise thousands, they also fuel the lie of widespread voter fraud—a lie that supporters of Donald Trump leaned on to claim the election was “stolen.”

We’re seeking records from more than a dozen Arizona lawmakers connected to such anti-democratic proposals, including impact analyses of new bills and communications between bill sponsors and external parties, that are tied to voting-restriction efforts.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…

We’re not done yet. On March 31, AZ Senate President Karen Fann announced a new audit of the votes in Maricopa County would be led by the firm Cyber Ninjas, whose founder circulated lies that the 2020 election was rigged and supported the "Stop the Steal" movement.

The state Senate’s audit of Maricopa County votes is yet another official action that is purportedly about election “integrity” but in reality serves a narrow political agenda — in this case, the continuation of the “big lie” that the election was stolen.

So this week, we launched a full investigation and filed 19 public records requests for key documents related to the audit, including contracts and communications with the cybersecurity company Cyber Ninjas.
americanoversight.org/american-overs…

This won’t be the last of our efforts to expose threats to democracy in Arizona. Stay tuned for the latest updates here: americanoversight.org/jurisdiction/a…