Maricopa County Recorder responds to Trump

Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Recorder, made his first appearance on Arizona Horizon, and he discussed the ballot audit. He has been very outspoken. At one point over the weekend in response to a false statement by former President Donald Trump, who claimed Arizona’s voter registration database had been wiped out.

Richer responded with his tweet saying, “Wow. This is unhinged. I’m literally looking at our voter registration database on my other screen. Right now. We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country. This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5. If we don’t call this out…”

We talked with him about the audit and when the line was drawn. He said when people started accusing his staff of violating the law, he had to step in. He felt it went too far. Richer said they were going along “quietly” and “happily” until many lies and accusations came out that said they were violating the law.

He said there are two ways to respond to the questions about the election. He said you can lead them to believe there might be something or you can tell them that they are unfounded.

We talked about why so few in the Republican party are not able to say no. Richer also talked about the responses he has been getting. He said most of them have been positive but that he has also gotten some negative responses.

Some people are calling for a recount of his election. He said, jokingly, that if there was a race to start with, it should be his race because his was the closest race. He said he won by about 5000 votes out of millions.

We talked about how the President said before the election that if he loses, it was because it was rigged. Richer said he doesn’t understand why he would say that because the same electron, 4 years before, made him president.