Cochise County is close to hiring an election administrator who has repeatedly shared false allegations on Facebook about widespread election fraud, including claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against former President Donald Trump. I’m here.
Bob Bartelsmeyer, the current La Paz County election administrator, was selected by Cochise County Recorder David Stevens. County supervisors plan to appoint him at a meeting on Tuesday. Meeting agenda posted on county website.
“Join the post ‘Trump wins legally in a landslide'” 1 post shared According to Bartelsmeyer in December 2020, “Revealed: ‘Easy math’ shows Biden claims to have 13 million more votes than eligible voters cast in 2020.” read another.
In Cochise, Bartelsmeyer will work in a county in southern Arizona where a Republican-controlled board of overseers is considering changing elections in Republican-backed counties. Proposals include pursuing a potential plan to remove the county’s vote counters due to false claims of vote switching similar to the one shared by Bartelsmeyer in 2020.
Supervisor Ann English, the only Democrat on the board, told Votebeat that hiring Bartelsmeyer means no one will get in the way if supervisors or Stevens try to push for election change. He said he was worried.
“It’s certainly terrifying to think that someone would come along to take over an electoral system that had nothing wrong with the attitude that past elections weren’t fair,” English said.
