Following the conclusion of the midterm elections in 2022, a high-ranking election officer in Maricopa County, Arizona, went into hiding on Sunday due to concerns regarding his safety.
Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates acknowledged to the local Fox affiliate KSAZ-TV that he relocated to an “undisclosed location” with a security detail from the sheriff’s office. Gates was accompanied on the transfer by deputies from the sheriff’s office. The county of Maricopa, where the city of Phoenix is located, has a population of more than 4.4 million people, making it the most populated state.
Gates, who has always identified as a Republican, has spent his whole adult life working in the Maricopa County Elections Department and has been a stalwart supporter of the elections in the county.
Since then, he has been the target of violent threats and intimidation by right-wing extremists, as well as attacks by members of his party, in response to President Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona in 2020. He has debunked the false claims that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
The problems at voting stations in Maricopa County on November 8 have sparked fresh concern from other conservatives, particularly the supporters of Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who was unsuccessful in her bid for the office.
https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1594840387927310336
Lake, supported by Trump, lost the race to Katie Hobbs, a Democrat running for Arizona Secretary of State. However, Lake has refused to recognise the loss and instead casts doubt on the electoral process while threatening to build a legal team. Hobbs is now the incumbent.
Lake argued that the problems, which included long lineups at the polls and issues with ballot printers at several polling places in Maricopa County, prevented some voters from casting ballots. As evidence, Lake noted the long lines at the polls.
According to the Associated Press, some 17,000 votes could not be scanned at specific locations and had to be transported to the county’s main elections office, where they were collected and tallied by various devices. These ballots were placed in a container that was referred to as “box three.”
Officials from the county stated that every ballot cast would be counted, and voters had the choice to cast their ballots at any polling location, including those with shorter waits. Gates also placed some responsibility for the long lines on Republicans, claiming that GOP voters were discouraged from depositing their ballots in “box three” so they could be tallied at election headquarters because of the Republicans.
According to the Associated Press, Bill Gates stated on November 14, “this team, we have taken our responsibility in this.” “On the other hand, I cannot and will not take responsibility for problems brought about by other people. And it is quite evident that one political party’s leaders were circulating false information, which contributed to the lines becoming longer.”
On Saturday, the Republican candidate for attorney general in Arizona, Mark Brnovich, sent a letter to Maricopa County asking for a report on the issues that have been occurring with the printers and other problems.
In another contest that garnered a lot of attention and scrutiny in Arizona, incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly defeated his Republican challenger Blake Masters, endorsed by President Trump. In addition, Masters stated that “clearly there were a lot of problems with this election,” earlier mentioning lengthy lines and problems with ballot printers, but ultimately phoned Kelly to concede the contest.
The request for a remark that Insider sent to Gates was not immediately met with a response.
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