You know the election is Republican controlled in Maricopa county right?
The chairman of Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates, pushed back on allegations of misconduct from Arizona Republican senatorial candidate Blake Masters, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Arizona on Friday night.
“The suggestion by the Republican National Committee that there is something untoward going on here in Maricopa County is absolutely false and again, is offensive to these good elections workers,” he said.
On Friday night, the RNC and the Republican Party of Arizona tweeted a statement criticizing the process in Maricopa County and demanding that the county require “around-the-clock shifts of ballot processing” until all of the votes are counted, along with “regular, accurate public updates.”
Maricopa County has been providing daily press briefings.
The RNC and state party also threatened that they would “not hesitate to take legal action if necessary.”
Addressing the specific accusations from the RNC statement, Gates said, “I would prefer that if there are concerns that they have, that they communicate those to us here. I’m a Republican. Three of my colleagues on the board are Republicans. Raise these issues with us and discuss them with us, as opposed to making these baseless claims.”
“They’re hyping up the rhetoric here, which is exactly what we don’t need to do,” Gates said.
“Let the count continue on and at the end, if they have issues they choose to take to court, they have every right to do that, and we’ll let that process play through,” Gates added.
“Over the past couple of decades, on average it takes 10 to 12 days to complete the count. That’s not because of anything Maricopa County has decided to do, that’s because of how Arizona law is set up. And that’s what we do here at Maricopa County, we follow the law to make sure that the count is accurate.”
Responding to claims that the count is “taking too long,” Gates said the county’s pace is in line with previous years.