Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2021
CONTACT: press@secure-democracy.org
Republicans, Conservatives, & Local Election Officials Reaffirm 2020 Election Was Fair and Secure, Raise Concerns About Election Reviews
As calls for partisan investigations of the 2020 election continue from former President Trump and his allies based on unfounded conspiracy theories, Republican and conservative leaders, as well as local election officials, are raising concerns about starting more wasteful, politically-motivated Arizona-style election reviews and correctly reassuring Americans that the 2020 election was secure and fair.
ARIZONA
Former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R): “I think they should maybe just call it quits. I don’t think that it’s going to serve any purpose. It’s not going to change the election. The votes have been certified. Biden is the president. It’s not changing. I say move on.”
Former U.S. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ): “It’s amateur hour. It’s horrible for democracy.”
Arizona State Senator Paul Boyer (R): “Who wouldn’t support an audit? But the way they’re doing it, it’s embarrassing. It makes me embarrassed to be a state senator at this point...I feel like we’re in this fantasy land. I still have yet to see any evidence [of fraud], and I don’t think it’s coming.”
Arizona State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R): “I wanted to review our election processes and see what, if anything, could be improved. Sadly, it’s now become clear that the audit has been botched.”
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (R): “The rules for Maricopa County are meant to ensure expert, nonpartisan administration of the county’s election. They are good rules. They promote confidence in the process. The Cyber Ninjas are unchecked by sensible rules that promote accuracy and fairness. This is extremely troubling. Whatever the Ninjas ultimately produce should be greeted with extreme skepticism.”
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Jack Sellers (R): “It’s clear the people hired by Arizona Senate leadership to supposedly bring integrity to our elections are instead just bringing incompetence...What we heard today represents an alternate reality that has veered out of control since the November General Election. Senate leadership should be ashamed they broadcast the half-baked theories of the “Deep Rig” crowd to the world today.”
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Bill Gates (R): "It's time to say enough is enough. It is time to push back on the big lie. We must do this, we must do this as a member of the Republican Party, we must do this as a member of the Board of Supervisors. We need to do this as a country, otherwise we’re not going to be able to move forward and have an election in 2022 and believe the results.”
FLORIDA
Governor Ron DeSantis (R): “What we do in Florida is, there’s a pre- and post-election audit that happens automatically. So, that has happened. It passed with flying colors in terms of how that’s going.”
Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee (R): “Florida’s election in 2020 was accurate, transparent, and conducted in compliance with Florida law. Florida has already conducted both pre and post elections audits, and we are confident in the security and integrity of our 2020 election results.”
Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Mike Bennett (R): “They’re auditing because they were hoping for this big fraud that they hope that they can find, and I don’t think it’s there. It’s really a shame of what they’re having to go through out there, but I don’t expect that in Florida.”
GEORGIA
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R):“At the end of the day, it's been 10 months now and I think I'm alarmed and I think most people are alarmed that we're still talking and still facing these issues of election disinformation...It really at the end of the day hurts the social fabric of our nation.”
Gabriel Sterling, Chief Operating Officer at the office of the Georgia Secretary of State (R): “This “audit” in Arizona is another step in undermining confidence in elections. This process is neither transparent nor, likely, legal. Any “findings” will be highly suspect now that chain of custody has been violated by partisan actors.”
MICHIGAN
Michigan State Senator Ed McBroom (R): "Most of the rigorous debate over additional audits comes from fears surrounding the technology used and its vulnerabilities as allegedly demonstrated in Antrim County. Without any evidence to validate those fears, another audit, a so-called forensic audit, is not justifiable."
Cheboygan County Commissioner Michael Newman (R): “There is no information or gain that can be made from this audit. Things will stand as they are.”
NEVADA
Office of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske (R): “The Civil Rights Act of 1960 requires state and local election officials to maintain, for 22 months after the conduct of an election for federal office, ‘all records and papers’ relating to any ‘act requisite to voting in such election. A decision to transfer or release custody of voting records to a third-party auditor would potentially violate this provision of federal law.”
PENNSYLVANIA
Former U.S. Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA): “Most of the Republicans I know, at the very least, have misgivings and, at worst, are like me and realize this is just really a blunder of epic proportions. Why bring the Arizona clown show to Pennsylvania?”
Former Congressman Jim Greenwood (R-PA) and former Pennsylvania Secretary of Administration Murray Dickman (R): “Most Pennsylvania Republican State Senators seem hell bent to follow in the unguided footsteps of their brethren in Arizona into Trump lunacy land to perform a so-called “forensic audit” of the 2020 election. The Commonwealth Republican Leadership should reject such a crazy idea.”
Pennsylvania State Senator Dan Laughlin (R): "The current attempt to discredit the 2020 election results runs headlong into an unmistakable truth. Donald Trump lost Pennsylvania because Donald Trump received fewer votes."
Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw (R): “I have received many calls, emails and messages from Pennsylvania residents (and non-residents alike) who have voiced concerns about the fairness of our elections and have called for an election audit. At first blush, an audit sounds like a good idea, but after any reasoned thought into the ramifications such an undertaking may trigger, this will not be a productive undertaking.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt (R): “The 2020 General Election was already audited - twice. What Mastriano is requesting isn’t an actual audit at all, nor does it address his complaints which are about election procedures/decisions by the PA Supreme Court and PA Department of State...We have an obligation to protect the custody of all of our voting equipment and will not give that equipment to a third party, especially as it will result in its decertification.”
York County President Commissioner Julie Wheeler (R): "That's a lot of money that we don't have, that's not in the budget...That's going to be a burden that's placed on our taxpayers in order to get new machines."
Tioga County Commissioner Erick Coolidge (R): “I would rather we spent time or money in arenas that change the quality of life of those we represent.”
Tioga County Solicitor Chris Gabriel (nonpartisan): “This is not a political issue for us. This is a nuts and bolts local government issue. We just want to be able to run our elections...We are therefore following the Secretary's directive because we have a responsibility to ensure that our citizens can vote in the next election. That is not political, it is simply our job.”
TEXAS
County and District Clerks Association of Texas President Lisa Johnson (R): “It’s really frustrating to see them continually make elections more difficult to hold without feeling like you’re being attacked by certain people.”
Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen (nonpartisan): “People are looking to be relevant. But the November elections were safe and secure.”
Adam Haynes, Policy Director of the Texas Conference of Urban Counties: “Our main concern here is the cost. We expect an audit in every election going forward...You’re asking counties to prove a negative…It is exceedingly difficult if not impossible to prove a negative…That is property taxes that are paying for these procedures...Whatever system you set up, costs your taxpayers those tax dollars…This bill will increase property taxes on your taxpayers.”
Keith Ingram, Director of Elections Division at Office of the Texas Secretary of State: “Texas had an election that was smooth and secure.”
Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley (R): "The conspiracy theorists who want to come up with all these ways or reasons why this election wasn't right— they might very well find something else [to doubt]. It's time to move on."
WASHINGTON
Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman (R): “I’m very concerned because it just continuously undermines and questions the validity of our election system. It concerns me because people start losing faith in our election system, they start losing faith that the people who are elected in that system are legitimate, and it undermines the representative form of government that we have here in this country.”
WISCONSIN
Wisconsin State Senator Kathy Bernier (R): “I’m sorry, but there is not a reason to spread misinformation about this past election when we have all the evidence that shows otherwise.”
David Delininger, former state representative, judge, and chair of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (R): “Because of the fanfare and notoriety of these investigations, people are beginning to lose confidence in the fairness and accuracy of election results. I hate to point to the Jan. 6 riot in the Capitol, but if people lose confidence in our elections, there will be more events like that.”
Former Wisconsin State Senator Dale Schultz (R): “What’s going on here is fear — fear of Donald Trump. We have to appear to be doing something, or we’re going to be punished by Donald Trump and his followers. It’s appalling.”
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS & OTHER OFFICIALS
Matthew Germer, elections fellow at R Street: “Texas legislators have more important issues to address than auditing the 2020 election. Senate Bill 97 not only enables sore losers to instigate audits based on subjective ‘irregularities,’ but it also requires counties throughout the state to conduct costly reviews of the 2020 election without grounding the request in any evidence or rationale whatsoever. This bill seems less like a solution to a well-defined problem and more like a fishing expedition intended to manufacture controversy.”
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): "We'll either hasten down a poisonous path where only the winners of an election actually accept the results or show we can still muster the patriotic courage that our forebears showed, not only in victory, but in defeat...If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral...We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes with a separate set of facts and separate realities.”
U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT): “It’s pretty clear. The election was fair. It wasn’t the outcome that the president wanted, but let’s move on.”
U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY): “What is happening in Maricopa County is not an “audit.” It is an effort to subvert democracy.”
Former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R): “There are best practices for doing audits and trying to count votes and seeing how things went...Short version: They weren’t followed. If you’re trying to do this for the right reasons, they failed miserably. But if you’re trying to sow some distrust and keep doubts going and you want to make some money and notoriety, you can maybe call this a success.”
Former U.S. Department of Homeland Security advisor and Election Assistance Commission chairman Matthew Masterson (R): "It's an audit in name only. It's a threat to the overall confidence of democracy, all in pursuit of continuing a narrative that we know to be a lie."
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R): “I think it would be better if he accepted the results of the 2020 election. And I think that would be better for the country. There hasn't been any type of substantive evidence that has come forward.”
Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (R): “It’s clear these are bad faith efforts, not fact-finding missions but rather political stunts to keep the lies of the 2020 election alive.”
Republican Accountability Project and Republicans for Voting Rights Director Olivia Troye: “The fraudit…was just a complete waste of taxpayer’s money.”
Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele: “It’s just mass confusion and noise, which is what they want at the end of the day.”
Benjamin Ginsberg, Republican attorney and former co-chair the Presidential Commission on Election Administration: “...the ramped-up efforts to initiate partisan reviews of ballots and voting machines in several states are being used to bully election officials into relinquishing the control and chain of custody of official records and equipment, in likely violation of their duties under federal and state law. The ongoing Arizona “audit” is the most notable, but in just the past month, partisans in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have attempted to seize ballots and equipment, despite the lack of any evidence of fraud that would warrant such extrajudicial, and costly, fishing expeditions this long after the election.”
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Secure Democracy is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works to build confidence in our elections and improve voter access across the United States. We educate policymakers and the public about what it takes to safeguard our voting systems. We use sophisticated survey and messaging research to inform our strategy and we collaborate with state leaders, election administrators, policy experts, and allies to ensure that all eligible citizens have the freedom to vote how they choose.