Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who acknowledges Biden's victory and has made election reform a key focus during her 12 years in the Legislature, and Beau Lane, a businessman and political newcomer who has earned the endorsement of Republican Gov. The other two Republican candidates are state Sen. “And I would have been breaking the law at that point and that would have been fine,” she said on the debate carried on Arizona PBS. She said in a televised debate that she would not have certified the election had she been secretary of state, despite it being a requirement to do so absent a court order. His primary competitors include another state House member, Shawnna Bolick, a Trump supporter who contends the 2020 election was deeply flawed. “So for you to say that there’s no evidence, I think the media is willfully disregarding the evidence that’s out there,” Finchem said. He maintains that "fictitious ballots" marred the results. A judge is considering whether to throw out the case.įinchem's claims come despite the lack of valid evidence of any widespread fraud that would have changed the result in Arizona, where Biden beat Trump by just over 10,000 votes. The lawsuit contends they are potentially prone to hacking that can change votes. He backed a controversial and much-criticized state Senate "audit" of the 2020 election results in the state's most populous county and this year tried to get the Republican-controlled Legislature to notify Congress that Arizona wanted to decertify Joe Biden's election win.įinchem also is suing in federal court with a leading GOP contender for Arizona governor to block the use of vote-counting machines in Arizona.
6 and contends Trump lost Arizona because of rampant fraud.
The retired Michigan police officer and current Arizona House member was at the Capitol on Jan. But in Colorado, GOP voters rejected a local election clerk who has been appearing with Trump allies promoting conspiracies about voting machines and instead chose a Republican who vowed to keep politics out of elections.Īnd Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rejected Trump's plea to "find" enough votes for him to win the state, easily survived a primary challenge to advance in that state's May primary.Īrizona's secretary of state race is the most eye-catching and consequential of Tuesday's primary battles, in part because of Republican state Rep. In June, Nevada voters selected former state lawmaker Jim Marchant, who has been repeating the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, to face the Democrat in an open race for secretary of state. So far this year, Republican primary voters have split on whether to put election skeptics on the November ballot.