PHOENIX — Maricopa County Chairman Bill Gates was the first to tell you he was in an odd position.

A Republican activist who once served as an election attorney for the Arizona Republican Party, he is now the target of violent and other intimidation by far-right extremists.

“This is not about partisan politics. This is not about conservatives versus liberals. This is about truth and lies,” Gates told NPR.

He can’t believe he’s being attacked by a member of his own party. “

The drama began when President Biden narrowly won Maricopa County and Arizona in 2020 and continues today.

In Gates’ case, the cascade of deception followed a similar pattern, with election officials counting all votes on election night because Arizona law states that most mail on ballots cannot be processed and counted until that day. It started with the debunking of the claim that it can and should be aggregated. rear.

Gates held two press conferences in the week ending Tuesday to expose that and other notable misinformation. He and other election officials repeatedly addressed and countered misinformation they saw circulating on his social media and elsewhere.

Gates told reporters last week, “One of the reasons why it takes days for all the votes to be counted here is because of mail-in ballots.”

Fight back against mistrust

Arizona was one of the first states to implement mail-in and early voting in the 1990s and was widely supported by Republicans at the time. Far-right party activists now claim, without evidence, that the same process is vulnerable to fraud here and across the country.

Gates has been generally praised by Democrats and independents for his deft handling of the election in the face of attacks from his own party.

Many of them were on Election Day in the Phoenix area, where some voting machines were temporarily denying votes because they were later diagnosed with printer problems.

“No wonder people don’t trust the system. It just adds fuel to the fire.”

She cast a new ballot in person and was told it would be counted at the Maricopa County Counting and Election Center that evening. But Hawes, a longtime conservative voter, saw this as another example of possible fraud.

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I just want to know my vote count,” Hawes said.

The issue was resolved Tuesday afternoon, affecting 17,000 of the more than 1.6 million votes cast in Maricopa.

However, attempts by radicals to use this glitch to sow suspicion have not really worked. Because county technocrats repeatedly stepped in front of the television cameras and quickly took to social media to explain what happened and patiently answer questions.

They often took news crews to warehouses to watch Democratic and Republican poll workers post ballots.

One big difference from 2020, though, is the overwhelming number of police outside.

Helicopters with spotlights flew overhead as dozens of police officers on horseback patrolled the streets around the center on Tuesday night.

The center itself looks like a fortress. A newly built permanent black security fence surrounds its immediate perimeter. His SUV line of police buffers it from a temporary chain link fence along the street.

Even Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone is baffled by the need for such enhancements to voting facilities. It’s a sign of the times, but he doesn’t think it represents American values.

“This is not a reflection of that,” Penzone said in an interview. need the opportunity to vote in a free and thoughtful country.”

Maricopa County used to have strong Republican support, winning the recent election by a narrow margin.

It’s no coincidence that for Gates, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, this is the zero point for the movement to stop stealing.

“Many people have decided to spread lies and spread misinformation in preparation for the Maricopa County election. [so] If not, important and true of It’s the swing county of the country,” Gates said.

He and other election officials have been consistently targeted with death threats since 2020, but he says he won’t back down.

“What really gives me energy is all the workers here. The 3,000 workers here are just trying to do the right thing. They choose to work in election administration. did,” he says. “It’s so noble and so attacking.”

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