Rudy Giuliani wants lawmakers to seize Arizona’s 11 electoral votes. Is he nuts?

The Great Arizona Quest to Uncover a Conspiracy continued on Monday as nine Republican legislators convened a “hearing” into voter fraud in the state’s election.

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani urged the Republican-run Legislature to throw out the results of the election and seize control of the state’s 11 electoral votes. 

“In your state, a lot of the fraud had to do with the mail-in system as it did in other places,” Giuliani told the self-appointed panel.

Then he spent the next five hours presenting witnesses, not a single one of whom provided any actual evidence of fraud in the mail-in system, in the voting machines or anywhere else in Arizona’s election.

Meanwhile, at the state Capitol, the results of an election that saw 80% turnout were certified, with Republican Gov. Doug Ducey saying, “We do elections well in Arizona. The system is strong.”

Election is false because they say it is?

If only he could convince his fellow Republicans of that. On Monday, the Arizona Republican Party flatly declared Arizona’s vote “A FALSE ELECTION!”.

And state GOP Chairwoman/Chief Conspiracy Crackpot Kelli Ward was in court with yet another  lawsuit, this one asking to examine early ballot signatures.

It was an entire cavalcade of clown cars. Instead of donning red noses, however, these Republican leaders should be wearing red faces. 

After weeks of complaining, five lawsuits, and the first five hours of Monday’s “legislative hearing’’ – held at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix because it isn’t actually a legislative hearing – these Republican leaders have yet to produce a single shred of evidence that fraud was afoot in Arizona’s election.

The highlight of the day was the Giuliani shuffle, held appropriately enough in the Hyatt’s ballroom.

Basically, Giuliani is urging an illegal overthrow of the state’s election results. He wants the Legislature to declare the vote invalid and substitute its own electors, presumably people who will throw the state’s election to Donald Trump. This, in violation of a state law that says the voters choose the state’s electors.

“I don’t see how any decent honest person can let this happen,” Giuliani said, of allowing the election results to stand.

All conspiracy, no proof

Then he laid out a series of unproven conspiracy theories, outright lies and clear misunderstandings of how things work to back up his claim that Arizona’s election was phony.

Chief among them:

… That 1.9 million voters in Maricopa County cast early ballots but their signatures were never verified.

His evidence: an as-yet produced video of an unnamed election worker saying nobody checked the signatures.

Never mind that the county elections workers spent the second half of October and right up until the election verifying signatures on early ballots.

… That there is “substantial evidence” that Dominion Voting Systems software was manipulated to ensure a Joe Biden win in Arizona. The machines, Giuliani contends, are “completely vulnerable” to hackers.

“Your vote,” Giuliani’s expert witness said, “is less secure than your Venmo account.”

Never mind that Arizona’s voting machines aren’t even connected to the internet.

…That hundreds or even thousands of Arizona voters who received early ballots did not actually request early ballots.

But most Arizona voters are on the Permanent Early Voting List and thus are automatically sent ballots. 

… That “a few hundred thousand” of the state’s four to five million “illegal aliens” voted.

But the state’s total population is only 7.2 million. So is he saying that five out of seven of us are here illegally?  Or that every undocumented immigrant in Arizona voted? The Pew Research Center estimates there are 275,000 unauthorized immigrants living in Arizona. 

… That an anonymous email from someone who “appeared to be an IT specialist”, claims that 35,000 votes “were embedded” with every Democratic candidate on the ballot in Pima County.

An anonymous email that provides no proof?  No wonder this hearing took place in a ballroom rather than a courtroom.

FRAUD? Then how did they get elected?

Then there was the Pima County poll worker who complained that a homeless guy was allowed to vote, that some guy stood outside a polling place ready to offer legal help in case any Democratic voters were turned away and that there were more Democrats observing the vote count than Republicans. Possibly … because homeless guys are allowed to vote if they are registered, people can stand outside polling places and offer legal help to voters who encounter problems and Democrats provided more observers than did Republicans?

The poll worker also noted that her own ballot was counted, “but I don’t know if my ballot has the people that I voted for.” 

Possibly because we have a secret ballot in this country and the state can’t compile a database of how people vote?

It all adds up, in the eyes of the GOP, to FRAUD.

Just ask Trump legal advisor, Jenna Ellis.

Just ask state Sen.-elect Wendy Rogers, who knocked off Sen. Sylvia Allen in this year’s GOP primary and went on to win the general election.

Yet I’m guessing Rogers – who after five losses finally won an election – will be going to the Legislature in January despite the election being “stolen”. 

There is, after all, always room for one more in the clown car.

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For anyone wondering which legislators attended Monday’s hearing, they are: Reps. Mark Finchem of Oro Valley, Bret Roberts of Maricopa, Nancy Barto of Phoenix, Leo Biasiucci of Lake Havasu City, David Cook and Kelly Townsend of Mesa, and Sens. David Gowan of Sierra Vista, Sonny Borrelli of Lake Havasu City, and Sylvia Allen of Snowflake.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from The Arizona Republic can be found here ***