Maricopa County (Ariz.) Supervisor Clint Hickman, reportedly under pressure from his party to potentially change the 2020 election results, announced Thursday that he will not seek re-election. .

“I will not seek another term as county supervisor representing District 4,” said Hickman, a Republican who represents cities such as Goodyear and Avondale. stated in a statement.

“I have decided to focus all my energy on my wife, my children, my family, my work, and my friends. I couldn't be more excited,” Hickman continued. “Dear voters, thank you for trusting me to serve the West Valley. Never forget that as voters, you have the power to choose your representatives.”

Hickman previously made headlines in 2021 after it was reported that then-Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward contacted Hickman about the accuracy of the 2020 election results.

The Arizona Republic reported that Ward sent a text to Hickman a few days after the election asking him to “at least hire an independent computer expert” to make sure there were no problems with the county's vote counting. It is said that

Hickman was chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors at the time, which gave him the authority to certify or postpone the 2020 election results.

“Not someone who already works there,” she reportedly wrote. “Assuming no one deleted the folder in which the ambiguous ballot scans were stored, these ballots could be counted manually. If the folder was deleted, the federal data forensics team You could potentially undelete a folder and track the person who did it. What if election fraud was as simple as dragging votes from one folder to another?”

Ward reportedly called the claim “BS.”

The White House switchboard called Hickman twice in January 2021, and the operator asked the president to call him back.

Hickman told The Arizona Republic that he believes former President Trump will call for changing the 2020 election results or promoting election conspiracy theories.

“I didn't want to be in that space,” Hickman told the magazine.

Fellow Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates praised Hickman in a statement, saying working with him for more than seven years was “one of the greatest honors and privileges of my career. ” he said.

“As chairman in 2020, Clint Hickman faced intense pressure from party leaders to ignore his oath and refuse to certify the results of the presidential election,” Gates said. said in Post on social media. “Chairman Hickman’s courage in the face of this pressure and his commitment to doing the right thing inspired me and his colleagues to do the same.”