Bill Gates/maricopa.gov
By Camila Pedrosa | Cronkite News
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates told a national panel Wednesday he has “great concerns about the future” of election integrity in Arizona, after threats following the 2020 election and as election deniers run for Secretary of State in 2022.
Gates was joined on the McCain Institute panel by local officials from other states that became the focus of election challenges in 2020, after former President Donald Trump pushed baseless claims that election fraud cost him a second term.
In the frenzy that followed Trump’s charges, election officials found themselves and their families the targets of threats and needing police protection for doing a job that the moderator said is “supposed to be relatively boring.”
“This isn’t a partisan issue at all, this is a leadership issue,” Gates said about the decision to support Arizona election workers’ certification of the election.
