Opinion: It doesn’t matter where you stand. If Arizona elects candidates who will ignore our votes, none of those views will matter.
By John Carlson and Tracy Fessenden opinion contributors
Arizonans this election face a choice between candidates who accept reality and embrace democracy and candidates who assure us they do neither.
More than 50 candidates on the Arizona ballot, including those pursuing the highest state and federal offices, have denied or questioned the 2020 election results. Candidates in major races have made election denialism central to their campaigns.
Make no mistake: the results of the 2020 presidential election were not fraudulent. A coalition of leading conservatives, deeply concerned about the harm done to democracy by unfounded claims of a stolen election, has made this case meticulously.
Three recounts certified by Republican state officials and more than 60 lawsuits in state and federal courts (including the Supreme Court) affirmed the legitimacy of the 2020 outcome. Arizona’s own audit by the Republican-led state Senate concluded that President Biden won Arizona by even more votes than officially recorded.
Candidates and their proxies who claim access to secret mule-born evidence of voter fraud or who engaged in the fraudulent electors scheme complain loudly in public but either do not testify or plead the Fifth under oath.
Why? Because they are lying. Their lies fill campaign coffers. And they exploit susceptible voters’ fears that their majority status is being stolen and must be restored – by subverting democracy, if necessary.
People on both sides have defended the truth
