Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer questions election officials during a Jan. 5, 2022, hearing at the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. Photo by Michael Chow | Arizona Republic/pool photo
By Kira Lerner || Arizona Mirror
During the first few days that Arizona’s Maricopa County began tabulating early votes, County Recorder Stephen Richer ran between interviews and meetings, responded on Twitter to dozens of voters with questions about the election and held a press conference for reporters.
He managed this all while overseeing a staff and volunteers who were verifying voters’ signatures and beginning to count the hundreds of thousands of ballots already received.
As the midterm election approaches, election officials across the country face an immense workload combined with changes in the nature of their jobs. They are fielding unprecedented threats stemming from conspiracy theories about voter fraud as well as massive numbers of public record requests, yet must conduct the fundamental part of their job: Administer the election.
“We feel stretched thin as an operation and I know there are people in the department who have been burning the candle at both ends,” Richer said.
Richer, a Republican and former lawyer and business person, assumed office in January 2021 as Maricopa County became the center of a national firestorm over alleged voter fraud. Richer said many of his job functions are not what he expected when he ran for the position.
Despite the audits and dozens of lawsuits that all proved that Maricopa County, one of the most populous in the nation, ran a smooth and accurate election in 2020, Republican candidates for the top three statewide offices in Arizona all still allege that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
But the prospect of these Republicans winning in November isn’t discouraging Richer, who said he maintains hope that they won’t enact the extreme voting policies that they have discussed while campaigning.
