PHOENIX — In a key Arizona county, the battle over the last two elections is still raging months out from the next one. No one is feeling that more than Stephen Richer.
Richer, one of the most outspoken Republican defenders of the election process in the country, is simultaneously trying to prepare to manage the vote this fall in Maricopa County, the largest in the battleground state of Arizona, while fighting to keep his job.
The typically sleepy race for Maricopa County recorder is heating up, with Richer and his GOP opponents — one of whom is backed by a cadre of MAGA-aligned election deniers — squaring off for their first and only debate Monday just over a month out from the primary.
“No, the election was not stolen,” said Richer, the only candidate to directly answer the moderator’s question Monday about whether the 2020 or the 2022 elections were stolen.
Asked whether former President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results and Kari Lake’s refusal to accept her 2022 defeat in the governor’s race were catalysts for election denialism in the state, Richer was unequivocal.
“I think that a lot of this has been from the fallout of the 2020 election and from the 2022 election, because two people have been very prominently unwilling to accept the results of those elections, and that’s unfortunate,” he said.
Richer’s main primary challenger is state Rep. Justin Heap, who has dodged questions about whether the 2020 election was fraudulent. But he’s endorsed by many of Arizona’s most prominent election deniers, including Lake, who is running for the Senate. Don Hiatt, a long-shot candidate who worked in information management technology, has more explicitly sown doubt about the 2020 election.
Timothy Stringham, an attorney and Naval Reserve officer, is running as a Democrat.
“I’m running for this office because Maricopa County’s elections made us a national laughingstock,” Heap said at Monday’s debate. Heap attacked Richer during his closing statement, saying, “He was the man in charge, the chief elections officer during the worst-run election in Arizona history,” referring to the midterm elections in 2022, when Democrats won key races for governor and the Senate.
Arizona will once again be a critical part of the national map in November, hosting competitive presidential, Senate and House contests. But ahead of the general election, the July 30 GOP primary for Maricopa County recorder could take on a similar level of importance.
“For a race that almost no one knows about, this is one of the most important races in Arizona,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist in Arizona.
Maricopa County has been the focus of a flurry of conspiracy theories and lawsuits ever since the 2020 election, in which Joe Biden became the first Democrat to carry Arizona at the presidential level in 24 years.
It has turned the under-the-radar race for Maricopa County recorder — an office that processes deeds and oversees the voter file and other parts of elections — into a proxy race for the direction of the GOP. Richer has become a top target for right-wing Republicans, regularly booed for saying the 2020 and 2022 elections weren’t stolen.
Heap, a member of the state House Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee, has sponsored election reform legislation since he assumed office last year. At a committee meeting on Jan. 24, Heap said there would be consequences if trust in elections isn’t restored.
“My biggest concern when it comes to our elections is not the possibility of fraud. It is the lack of trust and confidence that the voters feel about our election system,” he said. “The reality is if we can’t trust our votes in our election, then the only thing left is violence. That is where our society will go if we lose trust in our elections.”
Democratic state Rep. Laura Terech, who serves with Heap on the elections panel, warned Heap’s voting record indicates he’d be an activist county recorder.
“You look at his votes, and they tell a really clear story,” said Terech, who plans to step down from the Legislature at the end of the month. “I worry that we would be making decisions based on lies and misinformation rather than on data.”
Heap has been championed by Lake, a strident Trump supporter who pushed unfounded claims about a rigged election after she lost her race for governor against Democrat Katie Hobbs two years ago. She particularly blamed Richer for her loss, saying he intentionally printed ballots of the wrong size to jam tabulators on election night.
Richer sued Lake alleging defamation, claiming in his lawsuit that he “and his family have been the target of threats of violence, and even death, and have had their lives turned upside down” because of Lake’s “knowing and malicious falsehoods.”
Richer’s tenure and problems in the most recent election were frequently discussed at Monday’s debate. Ballot printers and vote tabulation machines malfunctioned during Arizona’s 2022 election, drawing baseless claims of malicious activity. The malfunctions were later traced to printers’ struggling with the new thick paper election officials used, a change driven by conspiracy theories about ink running on thinner paper in the 2020 election.
Heap also echoed some of the claims made by Lake and other Republicans in the state during Monday’s debate.
“From half the voting centers going down on the day of to a three-week delay before we knew who had won the election, it has become clear that ensuring the right of every citizen to have confidence in their vote, regardless of party, has become the civil rights issue of our time,” Heap said.
About 60 of the county’s 223 voting locations reported related problems in 2022, not half.
Richer was quick to remind Heap and the debate audience that the Maricopa County recorder’s office doesn’t deal with day-of voting.
“If you want to have a role in in-person voting, then you should run for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; if you do not appreciate the distinction, then you have not done your homework,” Richer said.
Richer has continued to face a slew of attacks off the debate stage. On Monday, he posted a video on X of Shelby Busch, the chair of Arizona’s delegation to the Republican National Convention next month, saying she would “lynch” him if she had the chance. The video stemmed from a livestreamed event on Rumble, a conservative video platform, in Mesa on March 20.
“This gentleman over here was running for county recorder, and he’s a good Christian man that believes what we believe,” Busch said, referring to Hiatt, who was in the crowd. “We’re going to run a good Christian foundation campaign, and we’re going to treat each other well, and we’re going to get through this together, right? That’s unity.”
“If Stephen Richer walked in this room, I would lynch him,” she added.
Richer said in his post: “This isn’t healthy. And it’s not responsible. And we shouldn’t want it as part of the Republican Party.”
In a statement to NBC News, Busch said: “Everyone knows I don’t like Richer. The statement was a joke and was said in jest. I do not condone and would never condone violence against anyone.”
