Noem was in Arizona to talk about elections. Critics accused her of spreading misinformation

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sowed doubts about Arizona elections on Friday as she campaigned for Congress to pass federal voter ID requirements. Critics accused Noem of spreading misinformation.

Noem held a press conference in metro Phoenix to advocate for the SAVE Act, legislation that would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote — something that’s already state law in Arizona.

Still, Noem claimed that Arizona has been “an absolute disaster on elections.” She cited voters having to wait in long lines.

That occurred in 2020 at some locations in Maricopa County when some machines struggled to read the black lines on printed ballots. Some voters had to wait in line, but those who stayed and cast their vote had their ballots tabulated.

A handful of local GOP officials joined Noem at her press conference, including Congressman Paul Gosar and Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, but none of them spoke.

Noem said she met with the Arizona officials on Friday morning and said they talked about “several” examples of fraud, but when asked, Noem did not give any Arizona-specific examples of fraud.

She said the state needs to “clean up” its voter rolls.

“There's no state that could use more improvement than Arizona,” Noem said. “And you should be asking all of your leaders what they're doing to fix the system. What are they doing to make sure that individuals in this state can trust that their vote is going to be taken, that it's going to be counted, and that it's going to matter to make sure the right people are in charge.”

Republican Congressman Eli Crane arrived just after the press conference and advocated for faster election results, but also hand counting ballots — which takes for more time and is less accurate than a machine count — and using paper ballots, which Arizona already does.

“I think that there’s still fraud out there, in every election that we’ve had,” Crane said.

In 2021, the state Senate ordered an audit of Maricopa County’s ballots, which was done by hand. The results of that audit showed that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

Crane didn’t say whether he believes foreign entities interfered in the 2020 election or whether he believes the hand-count audit proved Biden’s win.

Democratic officials across the state accused Noem of trying to undermine trust in Arizona’s elections.

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes accused Noem of grandstanding and said she seemed uninformed with existing state elections law.

“Have you ever had somebody come to your job and tell you to do a job that you're already doing? Well, that's what Kristi Noem just did to the State of Arizona and to my office,” Fontes said in a video posted on social media.

“It was nothing more than another baseless attack from a federal government that lies to the American people on a daily basis,” Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes said of Noem’s speech in a statement. “If the Trump administration wants to restore trust in our elections, it can start by telling the truth about them.”