Well, if this wasn't a Democrat I would say this is a definite abuse of power.
Democrat Secretary of State and governor-elect in Arizona Katie Hobbs has been in an ongoing battle since Election Day to silence people who are questioning the legitimacy of her election to the governor's seat.
According to the Daily Caller, she's willing to fight dirty.
Katie Hobbs' office allegedly threatened an Arizona County Board with arrests and indictments unless they certified the election.
Democratic Arizona Secretary of State and Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs' top deputy threatened the Mohave County Board of Supervisors with prosecution if it didn't certify her election results before a Monday deadline, according to emails and documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Arizona State Elections Director Kori Lorick wrote several letters and emails to members of the board, warning them of criminal charges if the refused to certify the results in time. The letters included threats of lawsuits against the members for "nonfeasance," as well, per the emails.
Umm, maybe I'm crazy, but isn't this 1,000x worse than any of Donald Trump's "find votes" scandals after the 2020 election? Except, I guess, Katie Hobbs is the "official" winner in this case.
The office of the person in charge of elections, who happens to be running for the highest position in the state, is harassing independent counties to pave the way for her official election victory.
"The Secretary of State did contact our County and cited A.R.S. Section 16-1010 as a statute that could be used to prosecute [the board] if they did not certify the election," said Matt Smith, the Mohave County Attorney, to the DCNF. The statute is an Arizona felony statute regarding election officials who "fail to perform their duties" under the law; as a Class 6 felony, upon conviction, it could result in up to two years' imprisonment.
"The threat of legal action, including personally, came from the Arizona State Elections Director [Kori Lorick]," said the board's chair-elect, Supervisor Travis Linginfelter. While previous reporting noted that the board's members were warned of prosecution by their counsel, the board's members have now stated that the threats came from Lorick, who reports to Hobbs, as well.
Of course, the board needs to do its job. But shouldn't they also want to make sure the vote count certification being demanded is ACTUALLY correct?
This is the SOS office threatening jail time for people wanting to investigate the vote the SOS would benefit from.
Goodness, if there was ever a case for recusal this is it.
Lorick's threat of prosecution was one of several efforts made by Hobbs' team to force Mohave County to certify its election results before the Nov. 28 state deadline. Republican members of the board, like in other counties in the state, had sought to hold public hearings regarding the validity of voting machines used in their precincts, over concerns that they were not properly approved by the Secretary of State's office.
Lorick also sent a letter to the board warning that their voters could be "disenfranchised" if they did not certify by the deadline. The letter, obtained exclusively by the DCNF from Lingenfelter, states that the board "has a non-discretionary duty to canvass the returns of the election," and that a failure to do so "will only serve to disenfranchise that county's voters," mirroring her warnings to other GOP-led counties that their votes "may be excluded" from the final tallies, thereby affecting results.
Mohave County was one of several counties seeking more time to review election integrity issues, though it is the only county whose elected representatives are known to have been threatened with arrest. Cochise County, another GOP-led county in the state that has not certified its results, is currently the subject of a lawsuit by Hobbs' office, though none of their members have reported criminal prosecution.
