The following are remarks made at the March 1 Pinal County Board of Supervisors meeting:
These days we’re witnessing the unraveling of the propaganda campaign within Fox News, and the propaganda spewed by Arizona’s former Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
A “Big Lie” propaganda campaign that’s brought us to an unprecedented level of distrust in our voting system. A campaign that victimized all of us.
Distrust that we’ve heard expressed within this Board of Supervisors venue. Calls for purging our voter registration rolls, for replacing vote tabulating systems, denouncing vote by mail. Distrust sowed by everyday citizens and by leaders of the challenged Grand Old Party.
Thankfully, a majority of Democrats, Independents and principled Republicans outside of Pinal County voted their belief in our system, and elected into office believers in and practitioners of truth-telling.
Truth tellers like our new Attorney General Kris Mayes who a few days ago released previously undisclosed AG investigation reports that investigators “did not uncover any criminality or fraud” in the 2020 election.
Nonetheless, despite that investigation’s conclusion, “Big Lie” advocates within the GOP-controlled Legislature are pushing so-called election reforms on the unsubstantiated premise of “serious vulnerabilities” involving signature verification and transportation of ballots from drop box locations.
Mr. Chairman, I agree with Attorney General Mayes that the people of Arizona had a right to know before the 2022 election that the “Big Lie” fraud claims were baseless; and that the AG’s office and all of us, including all Pinal County elected officials have a solemn duty to acknowledge those lies as we begin a new election season.
Optimist that I am, I challenge all county officials to amplify the AG investigation’s findings among our county’s voters as we seek to re-establish trust in Pinal County’s elections.
