Arizona Republican who fought Trump’s false election claims loses primary

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• Amna Nawaz:

  The 2020 presidential election was decided by a handful of states, none closer than Arizona, where President Biden's margin of victory was fewer than 11,000 votes.

  The close race meant that Arizona became ground zero for lies that the election was stolen and illegitimate.

  Stephanie Sy has this update on what's happened since.

• Stephanie Sy:

  In the last four years, the integrity of Arizona's election system has sustained repeated attacks from conspiracy theorists and allies of former President Trump.

  One of its staunchest defenders is an elected Republican, Stephen Richer, who, as recorder, oversees voter registration and mail-in ballots in Maricopa County. His pushback to election deniers angered many in his own party. And, last week, he lost the GOP primary as he sought a second term.

  Stephen Richer joins me now.

  Recorder Richer, thank you for joining the "News Hour."

  You have faced death threats for your vocal defense of democracy in the 2020 election, yet you decided to run for a second term. And, of course, last week, you lost in the primary to a candidate backed by election deniers. How did you take that? And does it mean the election fraud lies are still dominating the GOP as we head into this next election?

  Stephen Richer (R), Maricopa County, Arizona, Recorder: It's still a significant portion of the conversation, and there's certainly still a lot of people who believe inaccurate information about the 2020 election and the 2022 election. So there's a lot of work to be done.

  I'm going to continue doing it to the best of my abilities over the next five months. And I would love to instill confidence in the process in as many people as possible before I head out. But I'm sad to be leaving my team, to be leaving this important office, but I'm also very excited to be able to move on from some of the unpleasant parts that you mentioned and to try a new adventure.

• Stephanie Sy:

  Your opponent in the primary, Representative Justin Heap, was recruited by one of the Arizonans behind the so-called fake elector scheme to try and change Arizona's votes to the Trump column in 2020.

  While Heap avoided outright election denialism in his campaign, do you think he represents a big enough threat to elections that you're planning to actively support his Democratic opponent over him, Stephen?

• Stephen Richer:

  Oh, I haven't made any determination as far as that. I don't know how he would govern or how the Democrat running in this race would govern.

  My focus is going to be on the next four months in ensuring that we deliver a fair, lawful, transparent 2024 general election. And then it will be in someone else's hands to steer the office forward. And that, of course, could take a different approach. And if it's unlawful, then people will sue. And if it's not as good, then maybe people will look back fondly on some of the transparent things that we did.

• Stephanie Sy:

  Speaking of the law, Heap did support some of the election reforms in the state legislature that were proposed by election denialists.

  Have any changes to the election system in Arizona happened that have helped or hurt election integrity, in your view?

• Stephen Richer:

  For all of the talk, there actually hasn't been that much change to how elections are administered.

  There hasn't been any sea tide change in terms of you can't tabulate ballots by machine anymore, or you can't have mail-in ballots, or we're not doing having early voting or something along those lines, although all of them have been proposed.

• Stephanie Sy:

  So, no drastic changes.

  In the remainder of your term, and you talked about wanting to safeguard voter trust, what are your plans in the next couple of months to build trust?

• Stephen Richer:

  To keep doing what I have been doing throughout this past three-and-a-half years, and we have put so much effort into explaining this process.

  We have done livestreams, we have done tele-town halls, we have done virtual tours of our facility, we have done over 200 tours of our election facility. It's my sincerest wish that the average Arizona and feel good about the election in terms of how it's administered, feel confident in the results. And we're going to keep working towards that with the only weapon that we have at our disposal, which is more and more information.

  And so we will keep doing that. And I just really hope that there are enough people out there who can still be convinced by facts and logic.

• Stephanie Sy:

  Allow me to zoom out for a moment to the national picture, Stephen.

  A group of Arizona Republicans, through their support behind Vice President Harris. You have said in the past you would support Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump in November. Should we assume that you are planning to vote for V.P. Harris? And if so, will you be actively helping in her campaign?

• Stephen Richer:

  I certainly won't be actively helping, and I haven't decided how I'm going to vote yet.

  But as I have said before, I am a long time Republican, but there are a number of comments and actions that the former president has made with respect to my office that have given me great pause and have had some very negative effects for the people working here in my office and for election administration throughout the country.

  Those are unacceptable in my book. And so it's an election that's causing me great anguish as a long time Republican voter.

• Stephanie Sy:

  Stephen Richer, the recorder of Maricopa County, thanks so much for joining the "News Hour," as always.

• Stephen Richer:

  Thank you.