Election officials in Arizona on 2020 election aftermath
(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - CBS' Scott Pelley traveled to Arizona's Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona's voters and a critical battleground in a key swing state, to speak with the county's election leadership and hear from their critics as the election approaches.
County Recorder for Maricopa County Stephen Richer is a Republican election official in the swing state of Arizona who has spent nearly four years fighting to convince fellow Republicans that the 2020 election wasn't stolen.
When asked what evidence of fraud was found in Maricopa County during the 2020 election, Richer said, "None. And I would say Maricopa County's 2020 election is the most scrutinized election in human history."
When Richer told his fellow Republicans in the county that the election was fair, Richer shared their reactions saying, "Not well. Yeah. Not well at all...It was a Saturday afternoon and I was in the office looking at the very thing that [former President Trump] was saying we had deleted and so, just sort of the ludicrous nature of it is offensive."
When Pelley asked Richer what his response to then-President Donald Trump was, Richer said, "I said something like, 'This is unhinged. I'm looking at the voter registration database right now. These lies have to stop. This is as disprovable as saying two plus two equals five,'" while adding that the reaction was signficant.
Meanwhile, Pelley interviewed Shelby Busch, the Vice-Chair for the Maricopa County Republican Party, who does believe the election was stolen.
When Pelley asked Busch what she believes happened during the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Busch said, "I believe that fraudulent votes were put into the system. I also believe that a lot of...state statutes and regulations and policies were broke, which makes the election questionable at best."
Pelley asked Busch if there is a danger in undermining people's faith in the election system "by persisting with these conspiracy theories that no one has been able to validate," Busch said in part:
"It has been validated...I don't need a government official with a vested interest in disproving information to tell me whether what I have is valid. It's up to each individual citizen, as a member of this society, to review the evidence, to think for themselves and make those decisions...And if somebody looks at it, they can determine whether it's valid. The evidence speaks for itself. Data does not lie. Data doesn't lie. Election officials do.
To watch more of Pelley's story, click here.
