Maricopa County is now offering virtual tours of its elections center, which County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, hopes will help bolster faith in election integrity.
The Maricopa County Tabulation and Elections Center offers public tours, but it is not open for the election season.
Now people can tour the building online and click on buttons throughout the tour to learn more information about various rooms and machines.
Richer says he’s hopeful that the additional transparency will stem conspiracy theories about voting fraud.
“Obviously, not every person who has doubts about the election process is going to come and use this and say, ‘Oh my gosh, everything has changed,’ but poco a poco. And that's been, sort of, the story for the past 3 1/2 years,” Richer said.
With Republicans losing several close statewide elections, Maricopa County — the largest county in Arizona — has been an epicenter of false claims of election fraud in 2020 and 2022.
The county’s ballots were examined in a lengthy audit that was ordered by state Republican lawmakers following former President Donald Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in 2020, which included a narrow loss in Arizona. The audit found no evidence of fraud — in fact, the audit led to a wider margin of victory for Biden in the state.
Richer himself is engaged in a defamation case against unsuccessful 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a fellow Republican who claimed that he had a hand in election fraud.
Lake defaulted in the case, which is still in the discovery process.
Richer said he hopes people won’t engage in election fraud claims again this year.
“I don't know if we'll still be doing this, or if people will just move on to another thing in 2025. I mean, we've been the topic for the last four years and I just – I don't know if people will be fatigued at that point, just ready to move on to something else,” he said.
Richer said several transparency initiatives are premised on the belief that more information will bolster voter confidence, but he acknowledged that won’t necessarily work with everyone.
Arizona’s primary election will be July 30.
