Arizona – A Stolen, Rigged, and Incompetent Electoral System

Election integrity is a movement that has grown out of evidence that our election system is at times dishonest and criminal, often rigged, and incompetent.  As such, continued problems undermine public confidence in our electoral system.

We apparently are not alone as controversy swirls around the recent Brazilian election which has brought huge crowds into the streets.

It is most interesting that those that attack the election integrity movement do so right in the face of evidence that refutes their own arguments.  In Arizona for example, many attacked Kari Lake as “an election denier”, only to see her apparently lose in a screwed-up and botched election that will taint the results and fill the courts for years.

Election denier has become a common but not easily defined term.  No one is denying an election, they are questioning the results. It is applied selectively.  Note the man purported to take the place of Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries has denied the validity of previous elections.

So he can become Minority Leader in the House, but Kari Lake should not be governor?

But one need not be “an election denier” to reasonably argue that for example, Arizona’s recent election cycle was so full of mistakes and problems, that the net result is to undermine public confidence in our election system.  This appears self-evident. Our state has made an international spectacle of itself in both the 2020 and 2022 elections and we seem no closer to solving our issues than we did before.

What if election results are altered by just sheer incompetence?

Let’s take just a moment to define our terms more precisely. When one suggests elections are “stolen” it means illegality has taken place.  To steal is to violate the law by taking property from its rightful owner.  To steal an election is to use illegal means to take an election that rightfully belongs to someone else.  Examples of illegal behavior are voting twice, voting in the place of someone else, voting using the name of a deceased person, paying money for a vote, voting unregistered or as an illegal alien, falsifying voter records,  changing election laws by administrative fiat instead of through the legislature, miscounting ballots, counterfeiting ballots, and violations of the chain of custody of ballots. This is not an exhaustive list of all possible violations, but it covers the bulk of the problems.

To date,  the evidence that elections are stolen has not been strong enough to sway decisively public opinion. Some of the evidence is circumstantial but still compelling, such as the use of cell phone data in the movie 2000 Mules. To be sure, there have been some low-level prosecutions for example in Yuma Country, but courts have been reluctant to inject themselves into the fray, either because of the lack of persuasive evidence or lack of courage.

In many cases, judges are elected themselves and thus beholden to the political power structure.  Indeed, those holding elected legislative positions, those holding elected executive positions, and those holding judicial elective positions (that would include judges appointed by political authorities), all live in the political ecosystem. Therefore, it is hard to find any truly independent authority willing to investigate and prosecute violations of election law.

Election rigging means manipulating the rules of the game in such a manner as to create an outcome favorable to one side.  This may include some violations of law, ethics, or just rules of fair play.

We think there is more evidence of rigging than stealing, but we remain open to the latter.  In a way, that is not good.  Stealing can be dealt with but rigging is often legal.

For example, if the press is overwhelmingly in favor of one party, it might be considered an “in kind” contribution and hence a legal violation.  But that is hard to prove and our side does it too.  Since most journalists come from university training, they mostly have the same worldview and opinions, with no conspiracy needed to coordinate their activities. They pretty much act like fish in a school, turning and weaving almost without the necessity of command.  It is intellectually instinctual for them to behave this way. This certainly is a violation of journalistic ethics, but given the low level of journalistic ethics, and really no sanctions for ethical violations, the press can and does put its massive thumb on the scale to create a favorable outcome.  It does so constantly and without any guilt or penalty.

Likewise, social media companies can influence elective outcomes, such as Search Engine Manipulation Effect.  For example, if Google arranged news stories so that when one searches for information about say Kari Lake, the first 10 articles or so are negative, the neophyte researcher will conclude she is a fiend of some kind because that is what is sorted to be read.  No law was violated here because Google is a private company that develops its own algorithms.

About the only remedy is an attempt to break up its monopoly status but conservatives, being free market types, are hesitant to do that. Thus, we are trapped by our own ideology, and attempts to violate beliefs in the free market may come back to haunt us in other areas if we press too hard on the issue.

One of the most vulnerable of the “rigging” techniques might be the violation of using tax-free foundations for partisan political efforts.  And, direct corporate payments (Zuck bucks) to election officials have been outlawed in a number of states.

When Twitter or Instagram takes down conservative opinions and bans them outright or shadow bans opinions, of course, it is putting its thumbs, elbows, and kneecaps on the electoral scale.  There is a decent argument that these companies should be treated as common carriers like phone companies.  Would any of us tolerate having a phone conversation we might be having with a friend be terminated because the phone company listening in, found the conversation inappropriate by some standard?

In most areas of rigging, there is not much for us to do but found our own organizations and means of communication.  In fact, The Prickly Pear was formed precisely for this reason.  We would love to see more independent, citizen-driven journalism. This is not a job to be left to the young, often university-brainwashed, activists. Journalistic ethics have always been tenuous in American history, and competition is the only real answer.

Competition is a better way to handle the issue and that is what is so exciting about what Elon Musk is doing at Twitter.  However, it is frightening in a sense, that our system became so closed and captured it required a renegade billionaire to set it straight.  How many liberty-loving billionaires are there?

Perhaps the most egregious area where rigging takes place is the use of public, and taxpayer money, or forcibly extracted union dues, to be used in a partisan fashion.  It is just not right or just to take money by force from someone, says the Supreme Court, and use those funds to hammer the exploited over the head with their own money.

Even worse, is the direct use of taxpayer money by government agencies seeking to influence election results. Recent examples abound, such as the use of money by the FBI to purchase dirt on a Presidential candidate, leak stories to the press, and spy on them and their campaign.  This action likely crossed the line from “rigging” into “stealing”, because it may be illegal.  If not, a statutory remedy is needed.

Or, recent events showing our government agencies colluded with social media, to promote one idea of “truth” and suppress any other view of “truth.”  Even the State Department has become involved in this process as well as other Federal agencies that supposedly are assisting in voter turnout.  Of course, all their efforts are to turn out one side.

Government should be neutral in the election process.

As to competence, just look at the mess in our own state.  With all kinds of time to prepare,  machines could not count, printers could not print, ballots could not be received, and people had to wait hours in line, almost exclusively in heavily Republican precincts.  Whether intended or not, this is voter suppression.  It is amazing that the incompetence was not evenly distributed, but concentrated in Republican precincts.

People have children to pick up, and jobs to report to and do not have unlimited time to run around town attempting to find a precinct where equipment is functioning properly. It really is voter suppression as many have sworn they could not vote.

And how about checking signatures?  Against what standard are they checking?  These are mostly volunteers anyway doing this, or poorly trained bureaucrats. They are not forensic experts in handwriting.  And besides, have you noticed the rather marked difference in your signature today and how it appeared 20 or 30, or 50 years ago? Signatures change.

Far better to go back to what worked. End mail-in balloting except in the case of special cases such as service members on overseas assignments and those so disabled they cannot physically get to the polls. Give people the day off from work, and we all vote on the same day.  Show up at the polls with a government-issued photo ID, just as anyone is required to do at the airport.  A quick glance can determine who you are, just as if you are taking a flight, booking a room, or doing anything else normal people do.

Very early on in our history as a publication, we supported Stephen Richer, who vowed to “make the Country Recorder’s office boring again”.  To our chagrin, and most Republicans, he not only has failed miserably at the technical execution of his job, but he has involved himself unnecessarily in partisan inter-party squabbles that are not part of his job description.  What a disappointment he is. The same can be said for Bill Gates and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.  Their incompetence has made an international spectacle out of Arizona. 

And as to Kati Hobbs, supervising a contested election to which she herself is a party, seems like a clear conflict of interest.  When there is a clear conflict of interest, a declaration to remain fair is not sufficient.  That would not work if you were a trustee or a judge.  If you have a conflict, recuse yourself.

Arizona has two years to get its act together before 2024.  Trying to fix our mail-in ballot system has not worked.  We should go back to what works, voting in person at a local precinct.

It may be true that mail-in balloting is so entrenched in Arizona, that given narrow margins in the legislature, hopes to revamp the system are chimerical. If so, Republicans need to start training shops now for how we too can game the system like the Democrats.

As to the other problems, prosecution of voting crimes should no longer be in the backwater of our legal system, and violations of tax codes by tax-free advocacy foundations need to stop.

In addition, politically partisan efforts by government departments need to stop.

Republicans keep losing either because of the process or the message.  We need to get much better at both if we expect to win.