Maricopa County is now offering virtual tours of its election centers, which County Recorder Steven Richer, a Republican, hopes will help bolster confidence in the integrity of elections.

The Maricopa County Counting and Election Center offers tours to the public but is closed during election season.

You can now tour the building online Clicking on buttons during the tour will reveal more information about the different rooms and machines.

Richer said he hopes increased transparency will curb conspiracy theories about voting fraud.

“Obviously, not everyone who has doubts about the election process is going to use this to say, 'Oh my goodness, everything has changed,' but little by little things are changing, and that's kind of been the story of the last three and a half years,” Richer said.

Maricopa County, Arizona's largest county, has been an epicenter of false fraud claims in the 2020 and 2022 elections after Republicans lost several close statewide races.

The county's ballots were examined in a lengthy audit ordered by state Republican lawmakers after former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, including narrowly losing Arizona. The audit found no evidence of fraud and instead widened Biden's margin of victory in the state.

Richer himself has filed a defamation lawsuit against unsuccessful Republican candidate in the 2022 gubernatorial race, Kali Lake, who claims Richer engaged in election fraud.

Lake defaulted in the lawsuit, which is still in discovery.

Richer said he hopes people won't get caught up in claims of election fraud again this year.

“I don't know if we'll still be doing this in 2025 or if people will have moved on to something else. I mean, we've been talking about this for the last four years and I don't know if people will be fatigued at that point and ready to move on to something else,” he said.

Richer acknowledged that some transparency measures are based on the belief that more information will increase voter trust, but that it won't necessarily work for everyone.

Arizona's primary election will be held on July 30th.