Much of Maricopa County's preparation for November has been focused on increasing physical security in the face of high tension and disinformation around previous elections. But officials here are also trying to win voters' hearts and minds. The office of county recorder Stephen Richer has given more than 100 public tours of the county's ballot tabulation facility since he was elected in 2020, just before an onslaught of disinformation questioning President Joe Biden's win culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Arizona, which Trump lost to Biden by some 10,000 votes, was a flashpoint for conspiracy theories about lost votes and illegal ballot harvesting -- many of which AFP debunked.
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00:00the most recent signatures for her to review.
00:05She put her middle name, and that's the one she didn't.
00:09So, when you talked about...
00:12So, what's to stop?
00:14How do you prevent the check-in,
00:18and then they drop off a ballot the same day?
00:21We'll say, nope, already have a vote for this group.
00:24We are the second largest voting jurisdiction
00:26in the United States.
00:27We make up 62% of a state that everyone's talking about
00:31as one of the five or six swing states,
00:33one of the states that could determine
00:35who's the next president of the United States
00:36or who controls the United States Senate.
00:39There's only supposed to be one bubble filled in here.
00:41It has two bubbles.
00:43And so, what happens?
00:44They can probably discern voter intent,
00:47and so they can award that as a vote to Donald Trump.
00:57And we've moved away from the precinct model.
01:02So, in Florida, you have to get...
01:19I think today's tour has helped.
01:22I'm kind of conflicted on if there are problems
01:24because I know there's a lot of people
01:26that will hear one little thing,
01:27and then they blow it up, magnify it.
01:30So, it's hard to know, really, if they're really...
01:33how big the problem really is.
01:35All your belongings in little...
01:37There's a lot of stuff in the media.
01:39You don't really know what's accurate, what's not accurate.
01:42That's kind of why I'm here.
01:43...best job of facilitating this,
01:45and so thank you for communicating with Josh.
01:47We really appreciate it.
01:48I can tell you that being a precinct committee,
01:51we know that a lot of pressure's gonna be on Arizona.
01:57Why do all these people believe all this stuff?
01:59Well, it's because they're getting flooded,
02:0010 to 1, 20 to 1, 30 to 1, with this information.
02:04And then if we're not providing our information
02:06so it's at least a decent chance
02:08that they would come across our information
02:10as well as the latest video that's on Rumble,
02:12then why are we surprised?
02:16We give reports to the Social Security Administration,
02:19and we're regularly using...
02:21Go about coping with that.
02:23Obviously, I'm sure there's personal securities.
02:26I think three people have been arrested
02:27for things that they've said to me.
02:29We've had police outside of our house.
02:32People, when you get into your face at an event
02:34and start, like, spitting on you
02:35and pushing you and stuff like that,
02:37then that's suboptimal.
02:40Workers asked the voters who were in that situation,
02:44Duke, was to deposit it into this server.
02:47The election management server is that server in the glass.
02:51You can actually register before you are 18.
02:54They're trying to lock the man up.
02:58And so our representatives...
03:01And you get back, like, all this, like, automated...
03:04Yeah.
03:06It is sacred.
03:08And the fact that this mail-in balloting's taken over...
03:11We're the hardest-working candidate in the country.
03:13Our whole campaign was so great.
03:14And I would say, okay, Nick, come here, Nick.
03:17I don't like bullies.
03:19I don't have to take it lying down.
03:23It was highly actionable because it was very specific.
03:26It was 100% false.
03:29And it was repeated time after time after time.
03:33...025, something, or something,
03:34the State Department has to do with that.
03:37So, we moved away from the precinct model in 2018,
03:40and now we have the Vote Anywhere Center.
03:42So, any resident from any...
03:43...reminded that I ordered.
03:45Yeah.
03:57This is the one where it says, like, Mickey Mouse, or...
04:00And then these would be back-to-back.
04:02It would be a six-mile season.
04:05Okay.
04:06There's a cable, but...