Mark Finchem
Mayes is suing Cochise County to stop it from giving the recorder full authority over elections
Attorney General Kris Mayes has filed a lawsuit against Cochise County, the members of its board of supervisors and its county recorder over a plan approved last month that gives the recorder full authority over all election matters. Mayes’ office and the Cochise county attorney had both warned the board that the move was legally […]
Mark Finchem sanctioned in ‘groundless’ lawsuit to overturn the 2022 election
A trial court judge has said Republican secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem will be forced to pay attorney’s fees in what the judge called a “groundless” lawsuit that aimed to overturn his election loss. Finchem challenged his loss to Adrian Fontes, who won by about five percentage points — more than 120,000 votes. Finchem […]
Mark Brnovich’s office debunked election fraud claims. He kept those conclusions secret.
While conspiracy theories continued to spread online about alleged voter fraud, former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s Office had already concluded that those allegations were factually inaccurate — but he kept those conclusions hidden from the public. Kris Mayes, who was elected to replace Brnovich in November, released three documents on Wednesday that showed that […]
Sanctions for bogus election lawsuits spurs GOP proposal to protect attorneys from punishment
Angry at lawyers being disciplined for making baseless election fraud complaints in Arizona courts, a Republican legislator says the State Bar of Arizona and the Arizona Supreme Court should be barred from punishing those attorneys and be heavily fined if they do so. The bill from Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, prohibits both the State Bar […]
How David Stevens is making Cochise County a ‘laboratory’ for election skepticism
David Stevens had never supervised a ballot count. He didn’t know how he would count nearly 50,000 ballots by hand, who would help, or where he would find enough space to do it. But that didn’t dissuade him. Less than a month before the November election, Stevens, the Cochise County recorder, told the county supervisors […]
‘Negligent in every way’: AZGOP spent $530K on a bus tour and party
Hundreds of red, white and blue balloons were suspended over the massive ballroom inside the swanky Scottsdale Resort at McCormick Ranch in the early morning hours of Nov. 9. But rather than fall onto a joyous crowd of Republicans cheering on their candidates in the midst of a “red tsunami” sweeping GOP candidates to victory […]
Rusty Bowers detailed Trump’s pressure campaign in private J6 Committee testimony
Mesa Republican and Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers detailed the pressure put on him by former President Donald Trump and his loyalists in an attempt to unconstitutionally change the state’s electors from Joe Biden in a newly released deposition transcript from the Congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. “Rudy, you’re asking me […]
Mark Finchem talks about Ali Alexander, the Capitol attack and Trump ties in J6 deposition
Oro Valley Republican Mark Finchem has been publicly tight-lipped about his whereabouts on Jan. 6 and his connections to #StopTheSteal organizer Ali Alexander, but his testimony to the Congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection gives new insight into a man who has been instrumental in misinformation around Arizona’s electoral process. On Friday, the U.S. […]
Arizona GOP candidates’ lawsuits were a grab bag of flimsy claims
After hearing a hodgepodge of claims from three losing GOP candidates alleging inaccuracies in the midterm election, Arizona judges rejected many of the most far-reaching and unsubstantiated claims, but are allowing other claims to move forward. While judges in Maricopa and Mohave counties this week shot down most of gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s claims and […]
Mark Finchem’s ‘frivolous’ bid to overturn the election is booted from court
A Maricopa County Court Superior Judge rejected Mark Finchem’s attempt to overturn his election loss by more than 120,000 votes, ruling Friday that opened the door for possible sanctions against the Republican’s attorney. Finchem had been seeking to overturn his loss last month to Adrian Fontes, who won by about 5 percentage points. Finchem said […]
When you tell voters to ‘get the hell out,’ prepare to lose embarrassingly
Kari Lake performed historically badly in her bid to be governor. And there’s no debate about why she and her merry band of MAGA extremists lost all of the top statewide races this year: Republican voters abandoned them. Not that they could ever admit that, of course, as Lake and her allies have spent the […]
Finchem response to motion to dismiss rife with errors, evidence-free theories
In a filing riddled with errors and new evidence-free claims of forgery and election malfeasance, the attorney for failed GOP secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem says there are no grounds for a judge to dismiss the challenge to the election results without conducting a hearing on the claims. Finchem is seeking to overturn his […]