{"id":1704058,"date":"2022-10-20T13:03:05","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T17:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1704058"},"modified":"2022-10-20T13:03:50","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T17:03:50","slug":"az-election-official-stephen-richer-ran-on-election-integrity-now-hes-accused-of-law-breaking-and-politicking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/az-election-official-stephen-richer-ran-on-election-integrity-now-hes-accused-of-law-breaking-and-politicking\/","title":{"rendered":"AZ Election Official Stephen Richer Ran On Election Integrity, Now He\u2019s Accused Of Law-Breaking And Politicking"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Faz-election-official-stephen-richer-ran-on-election-integrity-now-hes-accused-of-law-breaking-and-politicking%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1704058&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Stephen Richer campaigned in Maricopa County, Arizona, in 2020 on the slogan that he would \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/news\/local\/phoenix\/2020\/09\/30\/maricopa-county-recorder-adrian-fontes-and-challenger-stephen-richer-talk-priorities\/3565529001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">make the Recorder\u2019s Office boring again<\/a>.\u201d By any measure, he\u2019s failed.<\/p>\n<p>The self-styled \u201chardcore libertarian\u201d was elected as a Republican after he drafted a blistering 228-page review of Maricopa County\u2019s 2018 election administration as well as a 48-page audit lambasting the Democrat running the county\u2019s elections. His pledge to be less political than his predecessor Adrian Fontes and restore confidence in elections generated support from Republicans eager to improve election administration in the populous county where more than 60 percent of Arizonans live.<\/p>\n<p>Upon election to the county recorder seat, however, Richer abruptly and completely rejected his previous rhetoric and claims, even defending the integrity of Fontes, the man he said was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/news\/politics\/arizona\/2020\/11\/12\/stephen-richer-unseats-adrian-fontes-maricopa-county-recorder-race\/3762610001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">so important to defeat<\/a>. He now uses his perch as an opportunity to regularly defend the Democrat-run 2020 election in Maricopa County, write op-eds at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/09\/22\/opinions\/trusting-election-health-school-experts-richer\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CNN<\/a> against the type of election audits he conducted to gain power, draft lengthy screeds <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/05\/19\/opinions\/speaking-out-after-trumps-arizona-election-claims-stephen-richer\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lambasting<\/a> Republican leaders and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/f\/?id=0000017b-6062-d290-a57b-ee62cfa80000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">voters<\/a> for their election integrity concerns, and push ranked-choice voting and other efforts critics say are <a href=\"https:\/\/arizonadailyindependent.com\/2022\/09\/18\/ranked-choice-voting-is-a-hot-topic-but-voters-need-to-know-its-downsides\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">disastrous for voter confidence<\/a> in elections.<\/p>\n<p>He even set up a Democrat-funded political action committee to support Arizona candidates who share his views, a move strongly rejected as unethical by ethical election officials. The Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Arizona <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/07\/arizona-county-packed-polls-with-democrat-workers-and-wants-to-bury-the-paper-trail-lawsuits-allege\/\">just sued<\/a> him for packing polls with Democrat workers and seeking to bury the paper trail.<\/p>\n<p>And now he is alleged to have broken the law by using taxpayer resources to advocate against a ballot measure in Arizona that would improve voter identification methods for both unsupervised and in-person voters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUsually it takes a while for people to become co-opted by the system and reverse the positions they ran on. With Richer, it seemed to happen immediately,\u201d said Gina Swoboda, executive director at the Voter Reference Foundation.<\/p>\n<p> Illegal Lobbying Against Voter ID <\/p>\n<p>The latest drama from the man who once pledged to support election integrity is his lobbying against <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/17\/heres-a-list-of-election-integrity-ballot-initiatives-you-should-know\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Arizona\u2019s Proposition 309<\/a>, which would strengthen the state\u2019s existing voter-ID laws. Current law requires only the signature of the voter. Under the proposal, however, voters casting an unsupervised mail-in ballot would be required to add two new pieces of identification: their date of birth and a voter ID number (usually found on a driver\u2019s license or government-issued ID or the last four digits of a social security number). For voters casting a ballot in person, they can no longer present an alternative to a photo ID at the polls, such as a utility bill, but must present a government-issued ID.<\/p>\n<p>The vast majority of Americans \u2014 a whopping <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/403052\/eight-americans-favor-early-voting-photo-laws.aspx\">8 in 10 Americans<\/a>, according to a new Gallup poll \u2014 support voter identification for balloting. This ballot measure is supported by the state\u2019s major conservative groups and all Republican lawmakers, who passed the bill that sent this measure to the ballot. Left-wing groups and Democratic state lawmakers are opposed to the measure.<\/p>\n<p>Joining<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Usually it takes a while for people to become co-opted by the system and reverse the positions they ran on. With Richer, it seemed to happen immediately.&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":605,"featured_media":1704061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1704058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1704058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1704061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1704058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1704058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1704058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}