Maricopa County leaders keep pushing back against election denialism in Arizona

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/28/ [login to see] /maricopa-county-leaders-keep-pushing-back-against-election-denialism-in-arizona
For the last two years, Arizona has been a hive of election denialism.

State Senate Republicans spearheaded a deeply flawed review of the 2020 vote in Arizona's largest county, keeping Maricopa County in the spotlight for months.

Former President Donald Trump was in the state just last week to stump for a slate of election-denying Republican candidates, including gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake and state Rep. Mark Finchem, who's running for secretary of state.

Despite the discredited review and false claims about the 2020 election, this year's primary, coming up on Tuesday, isn't all that different in Maricopa County.

"For all the noise that has been made regarding election administration, from the user's perspective it's going to look very similar to the 2020 experience," said Stephen Richer, a Republican who is the Maricopa County recorder.

Richer is quick to point out that the election review, for all its flaws, found nothing off with Maricopa County elections, as the county thoroughly debunked claims of wrongdoing. The review also confirmed Trump lost the state in 2020.

"I think that we've had more scrutiny over the Maricopa County elections process than any jurisdiction in the United States," Richer said. "And, you know, that process has been found to not be fundamentally flawed."