NEW: In 2020, as President Trump tried to overturn his loss to Joe Biden, the institutional guardrails of American democracy held — barely.

A @ProPublica investigation found that, ahead of the midterms, Trump has systematically demolished those guardrails. 🧵 @propublica The people and protocols that held the line in 2020 are gone. In their place are 2 dozen political appointees in positions that could affect elections: 10 who actively worked to reverse the 2020 vote, and the rest who are associates of such people. READ: propublica.org/article/trump-…

JUST IN: Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell sends cease/desist letter to the America First Legal lawyer representing Recorder Justin Heap, saying Rogers has no authority to represent Heap in a lawsuit he filed against the supervisors & demanding he voluntarily withdraw it. BREAKING: Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell sends cease/desist letter to America First Legal lawyer telling him to withdraw the lawsuit he filed on behalf of Recorder Justin Heap against supervisors for control of elections.

UPDATED,🔗 to letter:
votebeat.org/arizona/2025/0…

“Why does AZ take so long to count ballots?”
“Why is FL able to do it faster?”
“Cooking the books!?” etc.

There is an actual answer. Do you want to know it?

If you really want to know the answer, so you can form an informed opinion on if you want changes, read this🧵 Multiple state laws in AZ (focused on voter convenience and security) converge to create our ballot counting timeline.

States that count faster have different laws.

Other Western states w/ similar laws take just as long to count, but no one cares.

I’m watching the Maricopa County Republican and Democratic party chairs review the results of the testing they just did to make sure the county’s ballot tabulators are working properly and accurately for the November election. Both political parties in Maricopa County just signed off on the pre-election ballot tabulator testing for November’s election, which found the machines were counting ballots 100% accurately and working properly.

I’ve been kicked out of many govt meetings in my time, but I believe the most important meeting I have ever been told to leave was last month.

I had received prior approval to attend, drove 2 hours, arranged a videographer. I knew I would be the only reporter there… 🧵 This meeting had to do w/ the 13 ballot propositions on AZ's Nov. ballot - including abortion, immigration enforcement, open primary elections…

At the meeting, they would be debating how to translate them into an audio recording for Navajo voters who don’t speak English well..

On Walter Ringfield Jr., arrested for stealing the election security key.

- He was not a Senate employee/was not interning for a certain Senator that he told a security guard he was there to see, according to Dem Senate spokesperson. That senator says he does not know him.

... - He WAS the same person who filed a statement of interest to run for Senate as a Democrat, even though he was not qualified and registered unaffiliated. Earlier info from Recorder was incorrect.

- He was registered Democrat for a week back in Sept. 2016, otherwise unaffiliated.

You may have seen my post Monday about the Iowa man sentenced to prison for threatening two AZ election officials.

That man will stick with me for a while. His story gave me a deep understanding of how we ALL got here (& where we are going).

So I want to tell you, too🧵 First, though, please read this about his victims.

Maricopa County Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman told the judge an emotional story about what the threats have done to him and his family.

Most important to me was capturing all of that, here: arizona.votebeat.org/2023/8/29/2385…

Still seeing claims that the main cause of Election Day problems in Maricopa County was shrunken ballot images (some claiming the county did this purposefully).

Once again, that is not possible.. Why? It takes a bit to explain so follow me. Ballot tabulators (the machines that scan your ballots to count your votes) are very sensitive. Even errant marks cause the tabulators to be rejected.

The image has to be perfect on the page for the tabulator to read it...

There's a dispute that's been happening behind the scenes about Maricopa County's Election Day problems that I've been watching unfold for months.

Now that I have all sides of the story, I'm ready to tell it. 👇👇👇 Maricopa County has maintained that there was nothing that should have signaled some of its ballot printers would fail on Election Day in Nov, causing widespread problems.

But the company that made the printers say the risk was clear.

A 🧵, and story: arizona.votebeat.org/2023/7/27/2381…

Watch the Kari Lake trial, starting here, search "Lake" or "Hobbs" and click on the eyeball.

superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/calendar/today/

Here's what you need to know about why this is happening: arizona.votebeat.org/2023/5/17/2372… Lake's attorney is giving opening. He doubles down on claim that the county workers didn't verify voter signatures on mail-in ballots at all.

Showing a video he says shows worker moving too quickly to check sigs - but in doing that is acknowledging that this activity happened.

Kari Lake is granted trial, starting Wednesday.

Her claim, according to the judge, is that the higher-level employees reviewing voter signatures on mail-in ballots conducted no signature verification at all. He tells her to prove it with evidence & prove she lost because of it. Her briefings so far have acknowledged that hundreds of ballots were rejected for bad signatures.

The number of early ballots rejected for “bad” voter signatures more than doubled for the midterm, my analysis here found: arizona.votebeat.org/2023/3/30/2366…

It’s been one month since Election Day.

We still don’t have all answers from Maricopa County on what caused machines to reject thousands of ballots. County officials have said answers will come later.

Voters didn't want to wait until later. Neither did I.

So I didn’t. A 🧵 For a month now, I’ve interviewed poll workers & observers, election tech experts.

I examined the technical guides/user manuals for the county’s ballot printers & tabulators

Finally, two people closely familiar with the county’s equipment agreed to talk.

Here’s what I found.

Breaking: Cochise County just voted to delay certification until another discussion Dec. 2. Today is the county's deadline to certify. This sets up a legal battle.

Here's how it will play out: arizona.votebeat.org/2022/11/22/234… I'm at Maricopa County's certification meeting, and we are monitoring a discussion in Mohave County right now.

Crowd outside Maricopa County supervisors board room sings Amazing Grace as they wait to be let into meeting where supervisors are scheduled to certify the election. There’s one man screaming with a megaphone but the others in the crowd were trying to drown him out by singing patriotic songs. We are being let in now.

🧵 What happens now that two Arizona counties have postponed certifying their elections?

The answer is they will be forced to certify. Here’s how this will all play out. arizona.votebeat.org/2022/11/22/234… I spoke with several election lawyers who all said the same thing. They have a non-discretionary duty to certify, under state law. County supervisors have no choice.

If they don’t by Monday, SOS Office will sue.

Election deniers are putting pressure on county supervisors in several AZ counties to not certify their midterm election results. Will all counties vote to certify by the Nov. 28 (next Monday) deadline?

Here's what I'm watching ... 👀👀👀 Cochise County discussed their election results on Friday. The supervisors decided not to vote and to discuss again on Nov. 28.

Many public speakers told supervisors the vote-counting machines weren't properly certified, but state elections director testified they were.

While Maricopa County was blowing up, Cochise County decided to move forward with its 100% hand count against court order.

Someone called me last night to tell me the Republican recorder just decided to do the random draw for the hand count anyway. By 5 p.m., the Secretary of State's Office had been alerted that an appeal to the order had been filed.

I knew the supervisors had held a 1 p.m. emergency meeting to most likely file the appeal but didn't realize they would just move forward without the court hearing the case?

Live updates from Maricopa County: 17,000 voters put their ballots into the secure box after the machine rejected them yesterday, or about 7% who voted in-person. There were 7,000 provisional ballots total, which is lower than in 2020, which to me shows that the ballot scanning issue did not cause more provisional ballots.

Maricopa County Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates takes questions at the central elections center. There are a lot of reporters here.

Maricopa County says vote-counting machines aren't working at a bit more than 10% of vote centers. There's two machines at each of those, so some have at least one machine working.

Waiting on word on what's going on, but in the meantime, tips for voters... If you get somewhere and the machines aren't working, the workers may tell you to put your ballot in the slot below the machine.

THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY.

A bipartisan team will transport your ballot to central count & it will be counted there.

If you don't want to do this...

🧵I filled out a web form for Clean Elections USA, the AZ drop box watchers accused of voter intimidation, expecting to get on an email list.

Imagine my surprise when I was given access to a discussion board & nationwide contact list w/ 4500+ names/emails.

Here's what I found: Clean Elections USA is trying to mobilize thousands of volunteers to collect evidence of "ballot mules" for the creators of "2000 Mules," (True the Vote) to pass to conservative sheriffs across the country.