Former Republican governor: time to ‘step back from the brink of electoral denial’

Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) called on her party to stop sowing doubt about election integrity and warned of the harm it does to public officials and democratic institutions in an op-ed in a Arizona-based media outlet on Tuesday.

“It’s time for Arizona Republicans to step back from the brink of election denial and win over voters with conservative ideals,” Brewer said wrote on a piece to azcentral.com, adding, “It’s time to reverse course and restore public confidence in our state’s election system.”

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Brewer stressed how important it is that, as Republicans, “we reject baseless conspiracy theories and misinformation that seek to delegitimize our democratic institutions.”

“False allegations of widespread voter fraud not only erode public confidence in elections, but also undermine the credibility of our political system overall,” she continued. “Instead, we must rely on facts and evidence to inform our discussions about election integrity and hold accountable those who seek to sow discord and division for their own political gain.”

Arizona is among a small group of swing states that will be important in the 2024 presidential election. Biden won the state in 2020 by a small margin, and the state became the target of former President Trump’s pressure campaign aimed at reversing the state election results in your favor.

Brewer noted that the effect of false claims of voter fraud in 2020 continues to this day. She cited an example from four months ago, when a crowd of 20 people rushed the podium at the end of a Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting, calling the members illegitimate before being escorted out.

The incident sparked fear among Maricopa officials and others about the likelihood of another wave of threats and attacks in 2024 that county election officials faced four years ago, The Washington Post reported.

“This was just the latest in a long series of relentlessly aggressive and increasingly dangerous public ridicule, false accusations and death threats faced by election officials since the 2020 election,” Brewer wrote of the incident.

Brewer said he thinks his party can win if it starts focusing on “convincing the majority of legal voters that our ideas are better.”

“Complaining about the rules whenever we fail,” she added, “is not a recipe for advancing a conservative agenda.”

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story