The board of auditors, which Gates was elected six years ago, is generally responsible for bureaucratic chores such as zoning, animal control and clearing dirt roads. Gates said the board used to be “important, but kind of sleepy.” The gig was ostensibly part-time. (He also works as an attorney for a golf company.) As a grade school student, Gates gave impassioned speeches praising Gerald Ford to his classmates, and as a teenager he played the school’s Republican club. established. His love of the party was a central pillar of his identity, and he knew he was part of the state’s Republican establishment. Then the party changed under his feet. Trump has focused on Arizona since the early days of his first presidential campaign, and his rowdy populism has worked well here. Gates voted for Trump in 2016. Although he felt the former president was rude and on the verge of attacking him, he liked the judges he appointed and the huge tax cuts he passed.

In 2020, Arizona backed Joe Biden, but Maricopa’s vote pushed it to the limit. Amidst allegations of fraud, counties ordered audits one after another. All of them supported the result. Gates was alarmed when some Republican colleagues he thought were his friends began repeating false claims that the election was stolen. It seemed to him that he was mad that they had lost, and that he was trying to shift the blame. “But as a board, we have no choice,” Gates said. “We ran elections, we accredited elections. During a raid on the US Capitol, a group set up a guillotine outside the Arizona State Capitol and released a statement calling for additional election audits and investigations. “We pray for peace, but we fear no war,” he concluded.

In February, all 16 Arizona Republican state senators charged the board with contempt and demanded the commissioners be arrested. Gates filmed something like a hostage video in his office and basically said, “If you’re watching this video, I’m in jail.” He wanted the American public to understand how things were spiraling out of control. He thought that if they wanted to take a walk, I would let them take a walk. At the last minute, one Republican senator defied his colleagues and avoided arrest. The Senate then hired an inexperienced partisan firm called Cyberninja to conduct further audits of Maricopa’s ballots, a process that was widely ridiculed. It took place at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Arizona, and Gates could watch from his office window. he never visited. “There were multiple signs posted there that said they were doing harm to the supervisory board,” he said.

Gates and Richer, also a lifelong Republican, were trying to stay out of political strife. As the audit progressed, they decided they needed to issue a stronger statement. They held a press conference, where Gates walked in front of the crowd’s cameras and said, “I’m Bill Gates. I’m the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Joe Biden won in Maricopa County.” “We stood up and hoped many others would stand up,” he said. “And with a few exceptions, it hasn’t really happened.” Cyber ​​Ninja audit confirms Biden’s victory. Less than a year later, a wave of election-denying candidates won the state’s Republican primary anyway.

Trump’s allies continued to scrutinize the 2020 election, and Gates knew that the level of attention for this year’s campaign, and for Trump personally, would be enormous. He and Richer pledged to hold elections as transparent as possible. His 24-hour live feed was already available, showing multiple angles of the ballot vault and the room where voters’ signatures were checked. They added more cameras to their feed. The tally itself takes place in a secure room and is also covered by multiple live feeds. Even the wiring of the tally machine was exposed so that an observer could clearly see what was connected to what. They posted a YouTube video in Spanish and English explaining the machine’s security features.

Arizona has a decades-long history of voting by mail, and that’s how most voters in the state vote. Recently, some Republican candidates have begun to argue that mail-in ballots are unreliable. (Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, who has reportedly voted early 28 times since 2004, has advocated limiting and abolishing early voting.) Richer was concerned about more votes being cast before Election Day. -Even if counties increase the number of polling places, lines can get longer as people vote. The night before the election, he showed me into the hallways of the Maricopa County Tally and Election Center. The building in downtown Phoenix was fenced off for protesters. Richer’s hair was unkempt and he had dark circles under his eyes, but he spoke quickly and accurately. He stopped in front of a wall covered with a large map. “These show where people voted in past elections,” he said. “We try to make decisions based on historical data. Unfortunately, voting behavior is changing these days.”