Arizona GOP election winner refuses to do her job unless state holds "new election immediately"

Arizona Republican Liz Harris said she will not vote on any bills unless the state holds a new election after winning her state legislative race. 

"Although I stand to win my Legislative District race it has become obvious that we need to hold a new election immediately," Harris wrote on her Instagram and campaign website. "There are clear signs of foul play from machine malfunctions, chain of custody issues and just blatant mathematical impossibilities."

On Election Day, 60 of the 223 polling places in Maricopa County — the largest county in Arizona — had issues with their ballot printers, which delayed the count. However, the issue was resolved in a few hours and election officials have confirmed that all legal ballots have been counted. There is no evidence backing up Harris' claims of "foul play."

"How can a Republican State Treasurer receive more votes than a Republican Gubernatorial or Senate candidate?" Harris asked in reference to Republican Treasurer Kimberly Yee, who won her election with more votes than any other candidate on the ballot including all Democrats running for office. However, this is not unusual and Arizona voters have been known to split their votes between the two parties.

"I call on all state legislators to join me in demanding a new election," Harris added in her statement. "I will now be withholding my vote on any bills in this session without this new election in protest to what is clearly a potential fraudulent election."

This is not the first time Harris has tried to overthrow an election. After losing to incumbents Jennifer Pawlik and Jeff Weninger in the 2020 election, Harris started a "Grassroots Canvass Report" to decertify the results of the state legislature and presidential elections, citing baseless allegations of voting errors. 

Last year, she falsely claimed to have uncovered 173,104 "lost" votes and 96,289 "ghost votes" — votes cast from addresses where people don't seem to live — through her canvassing efforts, and claimed that the 2020 election in Maricopa County was "uncertifiable." 

However, election officials and other experts said Harris' methods were "quasi-science," and that her findings were not supported by any evidence, rendering them inaccurate.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Harris' 11-page document was shared widely by conservative media outlets and Republican politicians, but the Associated Press reported in 2021 that "the report doesn't provide evidence for these far-fetched claims, and the county's election results have been certified for months."

The report also based the allegations on interactions with only 4,570 voters in a few voting precincts. Harris claimed that the smaller-scale findings could be representative of the entire county "at a scientifically correlated confidence level of 95%," but Stanford University political science professor Justin Grimmer told the AP last year that her assertions are not true.

"From the description in the report, it is clear that this was not a random sample," Grimmer said. Certain areas of the county were oversampled, and the authors of the report failed to take into account that people who responded to canvassers were likely very different from those who didn't.

"Their sample simply cannot justify their inference to the entire county," Grimmer said. For example, her initial report offered only one example from the 270,000 alleged ballot irregularities. 

The cover of the report also claimed that there was a "vacant lot" in Goodyear, Arizona from which voters cast illegal ballots. However, a local reporter and former election official immediately debunked the claim on Twitter, finding that the address is a legitimate residence that housed three registered voters. She later claimed the references to a vacant lot were a "typo" and changed the image on the cover.

Furthermore, Harris' claims of "lost" votes are problematic according to Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund and a former Maricopa County elections official.

Research shows that when people are asked if they voted months after an election, some will lie and say they did. "Voters will over-report their participation in light of social pressure to demonstrate actions that they perceive as socially desirable," Patrick said.

Claims of "ghost" votes are similarly controversial because people often don't consider the military and overseas voters who are legally allowed to vote from their last domiciled address

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer asked Harris to provide specific examples of irregularities last March, but she never followed up and declined to answer most questions about the report. 

Maricopa is not the only county in Arizona facing election verification troubles. The board overseeing Cochise County has also delayed certifying the results after three conspiracy theorists alleged the counting machines were uncertified. 

Tom Rice, Brian Steiner and Daniel Wood, the three men cited in the case, have previously filed at least four cases with similar claims to the Arizona Supreme Court since 2021 in an attempt to throw out the state's 2020 election results. The court has dismissed all of their cases. 

However, the three men were able to persuade the two Republicans in control of the Cochise County board of supervisors to delay the certification until the Nov. 28 deadline. They say the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission allowed the certification of testing companies to pass, which voided the certifications of tabulation equipment throughout the state. 

Their claim was taken seriously despite Arizona Elections Director Kori Lorick's testimony that confirmed the machines and the testing company were both certified. "The equipment used in Cochise County is properly certified under both federal and state laws and requirements," Lorick told the board. "The claims that the SLI testing labs were not properly accredited are false."

The delay in county certification may potentially jeopardize the entire state certification, which is set for Dec. 5. Once Arizona confirms its results, there will be a recount for the state's attorney general race, where the results were too close to call.

There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud or machine manipulation in the 2020 or 2022 elections.