The Election Denier's Playbook, Part Three: Election Denial on the Ballot

During the 2022 midterm elections, nearly 300 candidates who refused to accept the 2020 presidential election results appeared on ballots, reaching about 60 percent of voters nationwide. That meant Arizona saw its fair share of election deniers competing in races that would have a direct role in administering future elections in the Grand Canyon State.

The Arizona offices they sought were not minor. Races for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and county board of supervisors all featured candidates who had embraced election denialism.

During the 2022 midterm elections, Kari Lake quickly became a household name, but for all the wrong reasons. The former Phoenix television news anchor quickly gained national attention for being a Trump loyalist and for her outspoken views on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Lake ultimately lost the race for governor in 2022 to then Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs by roughly 17,000 votes. Rather than accepting the outcome, Lake responded in true election denier fashion — loudly disputing the results. It was a tactic she pulled straight out of the playbook of her most prominent endorser: President Trump.

After Hobbs was declared the winner, Lake not only refused to concede, but she embarked on an aggressive legal crusade to overturn the election results. She brought forth challenges in Maricopa County Superior Court, the Arizona Court of Appeals, and even the state Supreme Court. Lake’s baseless claims ranged from allegations of defective printers producing ballots that were too faint for tabulators to read, to issues with signature verification, to the idea that thousands of fraudulent ballots had been added to Maricopa County’s vote totals. None of Lake’s claims were ever substantiated.

Another Arizona politician who loudly denied the 2020 election results was Mark Finchem, who threw his hat into the 2022 race for Arizona’s top election post as secretary of state. As a state representative, Finchem had participated in the rally leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He claims he was in DC to deliver evidence of election fraud in Arizona to the state’s congressional delegation and to then-Vice President Mike Pence, but that evidence never led to any results being overturned. Finchem’s presence in DC on January 6 drew scrutiny from Arizona lawmakers and groups who felt his involvement that day was indicative of where his political loyalties lied and demonstrated a disregard for democracy.

Unsurprisingly, when it came to his 2022 race for Arizona secretary of state, Finchem earned Trump’s endorsement. But it wasn’t enough to secure him the job. Finchem ultimately lost to Adrian Fontes, who was previously the Maricopa County Recorder. Alongside Kari Lake, Finchem filed legal challenges seeking to overturn the results, but his case was thrown out for lack of evidence.

Election deniers are often copycats. Abe Hamadeh, who ran for Arizona Attorney General in 2022, had plenty in common with Kari Lake and Mark Finchem. On the campaign trail, he spread conspiracies about the 2020 election and made promises that, as Attorney General, he would prosecute the alleged election fraud of 2020 and take steps to secure the 2024 election in a way that would ensure a Trump victory. He ultimately lost his race for Arizona Attorney General to Kris Mayes by less than 300 votes. An automatic and mandatory recount confirmed that Mayes had in fact won fair and square.

Free and fair elections are foundational to a functioning democracy, and no attorney general should ever promise to deliver one for a specific candidate.

Following his defeat, Hamadeh claimed that equipment failures, subsequent errors in the management of polling places, and mistakes in ballot tabulation had led to an incorrect vote count. Hamadeh filed four lawsuits over the next year, all of which were denied.

The 2022 election was marked by clear patterns: election deniers running for some of the state’s highest offices, being soundly rejected by voters, and then continuing to insist, without evidence, that they had won anyway.

2022 also demonstrated how conspiracy theories can turn into real-life voter intimidation. In May 2022, Dinesh D’Souza, a political commentator, released a movie claiming that “mules” — people paid to illegally collect and drop off ballots — had successfully swayed the 2020 election results in Biden’s favor. Despite being full of obvious falsehoods, the movie sparked a movement of people who spent weeks watching drop boxes across Maricopa County. Some of these observers were armed, masked, and affiliated with known extremist organizations. Unsurprisingly, many voters felt intimidated by the presence of these observers, and several observers were eventually placed under restraining orders.

It took a lawsuit and over two years for D’Souza to admit that the film’s findings were based on faulty analysis. But by then, significant voter intimidation had already taken place, and damage to confidence in Arizona’s election system was done.

If the 2022 midterms carried one lesson, it was this: voters are not interested in candidates who run on a platform of election denial. Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, and Abe Hamadeh talked about the 2020 elections incessantly on the campaign trail, and all three of them lost. Judges rejected their attempts to overturn the results of their own elections, and eventually, the news cycle moved on.

It’s easy to dismiss these high-profile election deniers as sore losers, but it’s not that simple. There’s a far more insidious motive to their message. The 2,000 mules fiasco is a straightforward case – a prominent denialist spread false information that prompted individuals to act, ultimately resulting in voter intimidation. But election deniers who seek elected office send a more complicated message. By refusing to accept election results, they normalize that behavior and set the stage for others to follow suit.

Equally concerning are instances where deniers enter elected office and pivot their false claims to dismantle nonpartisan election administration, deplete programs which strengthen election security, and advance policies that would make it hard for eligible citizens to vote. Trump’s flagship bill, the SAVE Act, is a prime example.

The SAVE America Act, which has so far failed multiple times in Congress, would disproportionately harm young and older voters, voters of color, disabled voters, and voters with low incomes who may lack easy access to or the means to obtain documents like passports and birth certificates. This law would require ongoing erroneous voter purges that could block even long-time registered voters from participating, and there have been many state-level bills proposed that would cause similar harm.

Their logic is simple: the harder it is for people to vote and the more disheartened they feel about the system, the easier it is to win. That’s why, even when false claims seem absurd or laughably untrue, we can’t let them go unchecked. Not when our democracy is on the line and the impacts from election denialism can be both immediate and felt years down the road.

2022 showed that despite the many attempts to weaken it, our democracy can still hold strong as long as people are engaged, active, and willing to participate. And that's just as true now as it was four years ago.

As we head into this year’s midterms, the ACLU of Arizona is looking for committed volunteers to join us as Democracy Defenders. By working together, we can ensure that this year’s elections are free and fair, that every eligible citizen is able to vote, and that each and every voice is heard. Start by signing up here -- we will be in touch with training opportunities and additional information soon!