Arizona GOP Candidate Mark Finchem Nurtures Ties to Extremists Engaged in Voter Intimidation – By David Corn (Mother Jones) / Nov 4, 2022.
And he’s vying for a job overseeing the state’s elections.
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If Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona and a QAnon-friendly election denialist who was recently accused of antisemitism and who days ago attended a conference with conspiracy theorist extremists, wins on Tuesday, he will soon oversee all the state’s elections, including the upcoming 2024 presidential contest. That possibility has long had Democrats and democracy activists worried. And in the weeks before Election Day, Finchem’s ties to far-right fanatics who have engaged in armed acts of voter intimidation have provided even more reason for concern.
In Arizona, as early voting has been underway, several right-wing groups have tried to deploy volunteers—sometimes armed—to monitor ballot drop boxes. This effort has included taking photos or videos of voters and posting online information about them. One group called Clean Elections USA, which is led by Melody Jennings, a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, has staked out drop boxes in Maricopa County to watch for so-called “mules”—people who illegally dump multiple ballots at these collection sites. The “mules” conspiracy theory has been championed by conservative activist and one-time felon Dinesh D’Souza in his widely and fully debunked 2000 Mules pseudo-documentary. (The truth: Mules don’t exist.) And in Yavapai County, a group associated with the Oath Keepers militia and another outfit called Lions of Liberty mounted “Operation Dropbox” to monitor all the collection boxes in that county and have their “patriots” report alleged incidents of “ballot box stuffing” to the county sheriff.
The League of Women Voters late last month sued Clean Elections USA, the Oath Keepers-related organization, and Lions of Liberty, claiming these mules-hunting activities amounted to “voter intimidation” and sought an injunction to halt their dropbox surveillance programs. The Yavapai County groups agreed to suspend their operations and were dismissed from the case. Days ago, US District Court Judge Michael Liburdi, who had been appointed by former President Donald Trump, issued a temporary order curtailing Clean Elections USA’s actions, and the group agreed to refrain from confronting voters within 75 feet of the drop boxes and from openly carrying weapons within 250 feet. “It is paramount that we balance the rights of the defendant to engage in their constitutionally protected First Amendment activity with the interest in the plaintiffs and
