Pro-Trump disruptions in Arizona county elevate fears for the 2024 vote
With Arizona again likely to be central to Donald Trump’s electoral strategy, an incident late last month has revived fears that officials responsible for running Maricopa County elections will be #targeted with a campaign of #threats and #abuse — or worse.
“This was an organized, coordinated attack,” said one top county official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.
“It was a dress rehearsal for the election.”
Since the 2020 vote, the Maricopa supervisors
— most of whom are Republicans
— have faced relentless public ridicule, conspiracy theories and death threats for signing off on the results and refusing to go along with Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome.
Trump’s razor-thin loss of the state
— a mere 10,457 votes of nearly 3.4 million cast
— thrust its most important battleground county into the heart of national efforts to undermine confidence in elections.
Arizona voters in 2022 narrowly defeated Republican candidates for governor and other statewide offices who made election denialism a centerpiece of their campaigns.
The issue remains a major animating force for the state’s GOP, and Republican lawmakers have even gone so far as to
try to break up Maricopa County
in a move widely seen as retribution for the county’s role in Trump’s defeat.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/18/trump-maricopa-arizona-supervisors-election-denial/