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Matt York/AP
Democrat Adrian Fontes, who beforehand ran elections for Arizona’s largest county, has been narrowly elected to supervise voting in the whole state as secretary of state, based on a race name by The Related Press.
Fontes defeated Republican Mark Finchem, a far-right candidate with ties to the extremist group the Oath Keepers, who was on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Democrats, present and former election officers and democracy consultants made it clear main as much as the election that Finchem successful this down-ballot race may lead the state down a darkish path.
“Democracy as we all know it could not survive in Arizona,” former President Barack Obama warned throughout a pre-election rally for the state’s Democratic slate.
The race name, which got here late Friday, makes Finchem the newest election denier to be defeated this cycle in a secretary of state race in a aggressive state, following losses by Republican candidates in Michigan, Minnesota and New Mexico.
Matt York/AP
Finchem was a part of a coalition of GOP secretary of state candidates throughout the nation who all ran on the false premise that the present election system was corrupt. Finchem, who had the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, had known as for an overhaul of Arizona voting that may restrict entry.
Finchem criticized the state’s election administration as counting continued on previous Election Day, and alluded to some type of conspiracy involving Fontes.
However ultimately, it was Fontes, the previous county recorder for Maricopa County, Ariz., who received.
Now, because the state’s prime voting official, he’ll be confronted with tips on how to fight election denialism in a single the nation’s epicenters for it.
Shortly after voting led to 2020, and through the finish of Fontes’ time period as county recorder, one of many extra well-known vote-counting conspiracies, dubbed “SharpieGate,” bloomed in Maricopa.
Half a yr later, the Cyber Ninjas started their broadly discredited “audit” of the vote there (which additionally confirmed that Biden received).
In an interview with NPR earlier than voting ended, Fontes stated he wouldn’t be shy in calling out voting disinformation.
“We will take off the gloves,” Fontes stated. “I am not afraid to name out election denialists for the liars that they’re. … And I am additionally not afraid to let people know that there aren’t any two sides on this battle. There’s one aspect. There’s the American aspect. The opposite aspect is illegitimate.”
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