PHOENIX — Arizona state Rep. Justin Heap defeated incumbent Stephen Richer in the Republican Party primary for Maricopa County recorder, a result that could have a major impact on how elections are administered in the country’s most populous county. country’s battlefield.
Heap had 42.4% support from Republican primary voters and Richer’s 35.9% when the Associated Press called the race Wednesday morning. Don Hiatt, a candidate who worked in information management technology, received 21.8%.
Richer is an outspoken supporter of the swing state’s electoral process, who has vigorously rejected baseless allegations of voter fraud that emerged following the 2020 and 2022 elections.
Heap, a critic of Maricopa’s elections in previous years, sidestepped questions about whether the 2020 election was fraudulent. He has been endorsed by many prominent Arizona Republicans who refused to accept Joe Biden’s victory four years ago, including Kari Lake, who is running for U.S. Senate this year after her failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign.
“I’m supporting Justin Heap for Maricopa County Recorder because we want honest elections,” Lake said at a campaign event in Goodyear, Arizona, in June. “We need a lot of honesty in our elections.”
The main thing for the Maricopa County recorder, a job with a broad administrative role that includes processing deeds and overseeing the voter file and other parts of elections, is typically a sleepy affair. But the race was much tighter this year as Maricopa, the largest county in a key battleground state, emerged as a hotbed of unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud.
After election printers and vote tabulation machines malfunctioned during the 2022 election in Arizona, unsubstantiated allegations of malicious activity surfaced and conspiracy theories about Richer resulted in Richer’s death threats.
Richer continued to face a series of attacks. Last month, he posted a video on X from Shelby Busch, chairman of the Arizona delegation to the 2024 Republican National Convention, saying she would “lynch” him if she had the chance. The video resulted from a live-streamed event on Rumble, a conservative video platform, in Mesa on March 20.
The three candidates faced off in a debate in late June, and Heap said Richer’s record disgraced Arizona on a national scale.
“I’m running for this office because the Maricopa County elections have made us a national laughingstock,” Heap said at the debate in late June.
Heap will now face Democrat Tim Stringham, who ran unopposed in his party’s primary, in the general election.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
