Matt York, Pool, File / AP
In this May 6, 2021, file photo, Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 general election are examined and recounted by contractors working for Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.
Sunday, Sept. 26, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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Late last week, the nation learned the outcome of the circus-like Republican-led election “audit” in Arizona, and boy was it a shocker.
Not.
A draft version of the report, produced by partisans who were unqualified to conduct an actual audit, showed that Joe Biden won the vote in Arizona, as had been verified and certified already. The only surprise in the report — one that undoubtedly sent former President Donald Trump into an orange-faced tantrum — was that Biden won by a few hundred votes more in Maricopa County than had been originally reported.
Even a sham election count conducted by a biased company using voodoo methodology can’t uncover significant voter fraud. Rather, existing processes were so secure that the bogus effort couldn’t find a way to fake results. In a sane world, this would be the official epitaph for the Big Lie, but the GOP no longer lives in a sane world and, sadly, the party’s vandalism of democracy will go on.
Not that rational Americans had any doubts about the legitimacy of the vote, but the results of the sham audit offer further evidence of the unsuitability of any candidate supporting the Big Lie.
We’re looking at you, Adam Laxalt. And you, Dean Heller. We’re also looking at Joe Lombardo, John Lee and any other Nevadan who refuses to recognize Biden as the rightfully elected president and refuses to acknowledge that the election in Nevada was free and fair.
These candidates are being grossly dishonorable, undermining confidence in the vote based on false allegations of significant fraud. Worse yet, they’re fomenting animosity among the extremist right toward Nevada election officials and volunteers.
Heller is the latest candidate to wade into this gutter. In announcing his candidacy for governor last week, the former U.S. senator played political footsie by saying he knew who was legitimately elected president but refusing to say whether that was Biden or Trump. Heller also called the election “a mess” but has offered no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
No doubt, Heller thinks he’s being politically clever in doing this dance. As with others in the race — Lombardo, the Clark County sheriff, and Lee, the mayor of North Las Vegas — what’s obvious is that Heller thinks he can’t win the primary without supporting the Big Lie and thereby appealing to far-right extremists in the party. But in being coy about who he considers the real president, he maintains an option to tack back toward the center and attract moderates should he win the primary.
This is crass political calculus, and there’s nothing admirable or cute about it. In not disavowing the Big Lie, Heller wipes his feet on America’s democracy and proves himself unsuitable for the role he’s seeking. Lombardo and Lee are also taking this slimy approach — both are ducking perfectly appropriate questions about the legitimacy of the 2020 vote.
Worse yet, Heller has been in the shoes of the thousands of Nevada election workers he’s besmirching and putting at greater risk of threats and violence from the right. He’s a former Nevada secretary of state who oversaw the state’s elections from 1995 to 2007.
In his campaign announcement, Heller further disgraced himself by specifically targeting Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria for abuse by suggesting he would have ousted Gloria last year if he’d been in position to do so.
That’s appalling — Gloria and his team did an extraordinary job of managing free, fair and safe primary and general elections under the extreme duress of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite multiple junk lawsuits spearheaded by Laxalt, no legitimate evidence of significant voter fraud was found in Nevada.
Now the Cyber Ninjas shamefully slink away, pockets lined with Trump support money as their lies, incompetence and attempts to gin up voter fraud evaporate in the Arizona sun.
And this came just days after it was reported that Trump’s campaign based its legal assault on the vote on claims it knew were false.
The reality is that Trump got voted out and there was no significant voter fraud. Anyone suggesting otherwise isn’t fit for a leadership position.
