Ten thousand votes.
It鈥檚 not very many in a state the size of Arizona, which has more than four million registered voters. But it鈥檚 not nothing either.
Joe Biden won the 2020 Arizona presidential vote by slightly more than 10,000 votes, 1,672,143 to 1,661,686 鈥 a considerably more comfortable margin than the 280-vote difference that landed Kris Mayes in the attorney general鈥檚 office two years later.
Now, it鈥檚 evident that Mayes鈥 razor-thin win will be enormously consequential in the ongoing fallout over the 2020 result.
Which is a good thing for democracy, and for the recalibration of the polarized, MAGA-stained politics of Arizona and ultimately the nation.
This week, after a yearlong investigation that would never have started but for those 280 votes, Arizona became the fourth state to indict fake 2020 Trump electors. The indicted Arizonans swore, falsely, that Donald Trump had actually won the state鈥檚 presidential contest, despite that unassailable 10,000-vote Biden margin. They include Kelli Ward, who at the time chaired the state GOP; her husband Michael Ward; Tyler Bowyer, an executive with Turning Point USA; state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern; Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Greg Safsten, Jim Lamon, Nancy Cottle and Loraine Pellegrino.
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Also indicted were seven Trump attorneys and aides accused by Mayes 鈥 who was armed with previously unseen records provided by Kenneth Chesebro, designer of the fake-elector strategy who has already pleaded guilty in a similar indictment in Georgia 鈥 of putting into motion a plan to use the fake electors to overturn Trump鈥檚 loss. One of those indicted in Arizona, attorney Jenna Ellis, has also pleaded guilty in Georgia to a felony count of aiding and abetting false statements. She said at the time of her Georgia plea, 鈥淲hat I did not do but should have done, Your Honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true,鈥 adding, 鈥淚f I knew then what I know now I would have declined to represent Donald Trump.鈥
Among those indicted in Arizona were former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows; attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Christina Bobb; a Trump campaign adviser, Boris Epshteyn; and former campaign staffer Mike Roman.
鈥淚n Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as President on November 3, 2020,鈥 the indictments read. 鈥淯nwilling to accept this fact, defendants ... schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency ... against the will of Arizona鈥檚 voters.鈥
It鈥檚 clear from the indictments that Mayes took a more detailed and systematic approach than did some of the other attorneys general who have obtained fake-elector indictments. The indictment of Epshteyn shows that her investigation reached places 鈥 and relied on documentation 鈥 that cases in other states did not.
The Arizona Republican Party quickly condemned the investigation and resulting indictments as politically motivated 鈥 which is understandable. But in the continuation of a pattern that has become depressingly familiar, some of the language the state GOP used in its statement this week is breathtakingly hypocritical 鈥 calling the indictments 鈥減ure election interference.鈥
No, actually, 鈥減ure election interference鈥 defines a scheme to use fake electors to overturn the results of an election.
Similarly, a Trump spokesperson, reacting to the indictments, railed against the 鈥渨eaponization of our justice system鈥 鈥 curious words from the camp of a man who filed more than 60 baseless lawsuits attempting to overturn his election loss.
We believe Mayes also made a good decision not to indict Trump himself. (He is an 鈥渦nindicted co-conspirator.鈥) This way, the indictments will 鈥 or should be 鈥 evaluated on their legal merits rather than as background music for another Trump sideshow.
We take no pleasure in these indictments 鈥 they are, after all, a scathing condemnation of politics gone illegally awry in this state 鈥 but we believe they are a necessary step toward normalizing the political landscape here. In the future, political parties on the losing side of elections will think twice before hatching an illegal scheme to subvert the will of the voters.
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