Defendants are being arraigned at Maricopa County Superior Court in the fake electors case. Kelli Ward, Michael Ward, Nancy Cottle, Samuel Moorhead, Greg Safsten and Anthony Kern have all pleaded not guilty so far. When the judge asked Kern to state his name, he added his legislative title and identified himself as Senator Anthony Kern

Here we go. @MatthewGress stands to make a motion to force a vote on the abortion ban repeal bill. @electjacqparker says he's in violation of House rules and shouldn't be permitted to make his motion. .@TravisGrantham shoots it down, says Gress hasn't been found in violation of any rules

House Speaker @RepBenToma spoke with @JamesTHarris today to talk about yesterday's push in the Legislature to repeal Arizona's pre-Roe abortion ban in the wake of the state Supreme Court ruling that reinstated it. iheart.com/podcast/1248-t… Toma said he's consider a legislative ballot referral that would compete with the @azforaccess abortion initiative.

Don Bolles had a very storied career before he was assassinated in 1976. Here's some of his highlights 🧵

https://twitter.com/brahmresnik/status/1626321273465999360

A grand jury indicted two state tax commissioners based on Bolles' reporting about them taking kickbacks in exchange for state printing contracts. The charges were dismissed, but one was defeated in his re-election while the other chose not to run again.

Maricopa County's official rebuttal of the Cyber Ninjas "audit" of the 2020 election will begin in a few minutes, at 1:30pm. You can tune in on the county's YouTube channel. Here's the county's 93-page report responding to the myriad claims made by @FannKfann's audit team in September: recorder.maricopa.gov/justthefacts/p…

Candidates who filed to run for the legislature or Congress with their new district numbers can't collect signatures online yet, a problem that may persist for more than two months in some counties azmirror.com/2022/01/05/sec… .@SecretaryHobbs's office says there's no way to update the system with the new districts until counties update their voter registration systems and send the info to the secretary of state. In counties that have March elections, like Maricopa, that won't happen for a while.

The maps are approved but the commission's work isn't done. Today's meeting of the @ArizonaIRC begins in a few minutes. You can tune in here: After approving maps on Dec 23, the IRC sent them to the counties in case technical changes were needed. For example, if a district boundary split an apartment building, that line needs to move. They'll be discussing the counties' recommendations today. irc.az.gov/sites/default/…

It's the first work day of the new (election) year, and that means candidates with good numbers are announcing their fundraising hauls for 2021. State law allows candidates to raise money for an entire year before reporting their numbers. In the Dem primary for #AZGOV, @1marcolopez announced that he's raised more than $1m, followed by @aaron4az, who says he's raised $1.16m. No word yet from @katiehobbs, who's expected to have an impressive number boosted by her opposition to the so-called election "audit."

The @ArizonaIRC is about to begin today's meeting, with the goal of approving final maps by Wednesday. I'll tweet out the link to watch live as soon as I have it. For the meantime, follow my tweets throughout the day for redistricting updates. We're still waiting for the next iteration of the congressional maps — Lerner still has some suggestions for her version, I believe — but here's the latest on the legislative districts, LD map 15.0 irc-az.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/vi…

It's Sunday afternoon, and you know what means — redistricting half day! The @ArizonaIRC will meet for four hours starting at 1pm as they strive to approve final maps by Wednesday, their self-imposed deadline.

Tune in here: We've got a new LD map and 3 new CD maps for the commissioners to consider and modify today. The new legislative map is LD map 14.0. redistricting-irc-az.hub.arcgis.com/pages/final-dr…

Just in case you wanted to spend your Friday night looking at redistricting maps (and let's be honest, some of you do) the @ArizonaIRC has new congressional and legislative maps ready to go. LD map 14.0 and CD maps 11.0, 11.1 and 11.2 are here. redistricting-irc-az.hub.arcgis.com/pages/final-dr… LD map 14.0 takes the LD map approved today, adds 5 Latino Coalition districts, shifts some lines around in the West Valley, and moves a few thousand people from LD14 to LD13. irc-az.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/vi…

The @ArizonaIRC is about to begin today's meeting. They're expecting (or at least hoping) to approve their congressional and legislative draft maps today. Here's the agenda, which has a link where you can tune in. irc.az.gov/sites/default/… They've got another meeting scheduled to begin tomorrow at 8am, which doesn't necessarily fill me with hope that they'll finish today. I'm told the meeting was scheduled mainly as a precaution, just in case it's necessary.

Today's meeting of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission will begin in a few minutes. You can tune in here: This is a business meeting for the AIRC, not a map-drawing meeting. But they'll be taking some input from Dem commissioners Lerner and Watchman on changes they'd like to see to the proposed legislative districts in southern Arizona.

The @ArizonaIRC will begin in a few minutes. You can tune in here: Here's a link to the IRC's agenda for today, which has a link to watch via Webex, if you prefer irc.az.gov/sites/default/…

Welcome back for more redistricting fun. The @ArizonaIRC is about to begin today's meeting. The agenda has a link where you can tune in, and you can follow me for updates throughout the day. irc.az.gov/sites/default/… Not everyone on the commission is happy with how yesterday's legislative map was shaking out, so they may take a step back and revert to an older version, with some modifications azmirror.com/2021/10/20/red…

Welcome back for more redistricting fun. The @ArizonaIRC is about to begin today's meeting. Here's today's agenda, with a link where you can tune in. irc.az.gov/sites/default/… IRC mapping consultants are incorporating 8 proposed legislative districts from the Latino Coalition into the map, so expect lots of discussion about Voting Rights Act districts. They're also trying to work out the details of the southern AZ VRA congressional district.

This is simply not true. The "audit" didn't find 57k questionable ballots. They found 57k ballots where they said there might be a good explanation but they didn't know for sure because they failed to properly investigate this.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1445950215928913922

This guy also claims that the "audit" wasn't as thorough as it could've been because the county didn't cooperate and because some evidence was removed and destroyed. This is misleading to the point of dishonesty.

Today's meeting of the @ArizonaIRC is about to begin. There's a Webex link on the agenda if you want to tune in. irc.az.gov/sites/default/… Lots of heavy lifting will get done on the draft maps this week. The IRC had an all-day meeting on Friday to propose changes to the congressional and legislative maps, and they're meeting today, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week to do the same.

In @ElectionInnov press call, longtime Republican campaign lawyer Ben Ginsberg says if audit team tomorrow says they can't definitively say who won Maricopa County, "that's a cop-out." He notes that @FannKfann has said audit team had everything it needed. Ginsberg: “If the Cyber Ninjas report doesn’t produce solid, smoking gun, irrefutable evidence of a fraudulent election with evidence that stands up to scrutiny, that means Trump and his allies have failed.”

Breaking: Maricopa County Supervisor @Steve_Chucri resigns after a recording surfaced of him bashing Board of Supervisors colleagues over the Senate’s election audit Chucri told conservative activists behind a recall campaign against the supervisors that he thought colleagues @billgatesaz and @jacksellers opposed the audit because they were worried it might show they lost their elections azmirror.com/2021/09/21/chu…

.@Steve_Chucri has apologized for leaked comments from March when he slammed Board of Supervisors colleagues @billgatesaz and @jacksellers for opposing an audit and claiming they were worried it might show they lost their races azmirror.com/2021/09/21/chu… In an earlier conversation that was also leaked, Chucri baselessly claimed there were "dead people voting" in the 2020 election