Journalists’ Roundtable: Arizona Senate releases 2020 election recount records to FBI and more

It’s Friday, which means it is time for another edition of Journalists’ Roundtable, where we discuss Arizona politics. This week, Steve Goldstein subbed in for “Arizona Horizon” host Ted Simons, and he was joined by Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services, Dennis Welch of CBS 5 and 3-TV, and Jim Small of Arizona Mirror.

This week’s topics included:

• Senator Petersen turned over Senate ballot recount information to the FBI/HSI looking into the 2020 election
• Dispute between the Board of Supervisors and Recorder Heap continued
• Representative Schweikert accused Representative Biggs of anti-semitism 
• Senator Mesnard’s marijuana smoke legislation
• Representative Grantham is out of the CD5 race because he’s been called into active duty
• Representative Stanton gets a primary challenger
• Noble poll on Attorney General, Save Our Schools campaign, and State Schools Superintendent GOP primaries

Senator Petersen turned over Senate ballot recount information to the FBI/HSI looking into the 2020 election:

Howie Fischer: “We thought it was all buried, and now Trump is back in office, and he has the Department of Justice, which he told to go after this stuff. They’ve gone ahead and subpoenaed these audit records. Now, what’s in there, we’re not sure, we know there are a lot of notes…what we know isn’t in there, of course, are the ballots, because state laws require them to be destroyed…23 months after the election.”

Jim Small: “Trump and his allies can’t handle that he lost in 2020 in Arizona, and nationally, and so we’re gonna relitigate this stuff all over again. We’re gonna hear the same lies brought up about the election…all these things that have been debunked.”

Dennis Welch: “This does have an effect on voters, and on the public…2/3rds of voters still have trust in election systems, however that number had dropped from 70 something percent to 60 something percent…average voters, average people who are busy working everyday, getting on with their daly lives…they see these headlines, and it kind of filters in there.”