Republican former governor: Time to ‘pull back from brink of election denialism’

Correction: A previous version of this story used an incorrect name to refer to “RightCount.”

Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) called on her party to stop sowing doubt in the integrity of elections and warned of the damage it causes to public servants and democratic institutions, in an op-ed in an Arizona-based news outlet Tuesday.

“It’s time for Arizona Republicans to pull back from the brink of election denialism and win over voters with conservative ideals,” Brewer wrote in a piece for azcentral.com, adding, “It’s time to reverse course and restore public trust 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 disinformation that seek to delegitimize our democratic institutions.”

“False claims of widespread voter fraud not only erode public trust in elections but also undermine the credibility of our political system writ large,” 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 the small handful of battleground states that will prove important in the 2024 presidential election. Biden won the state in 2020 by a slim margin, and the state became a target of former President Trump’s pressure campaign aimed at reversing the state’s election results in his favor.

Brewer noted the effect of the false election fraud claims in 2020 continue to this day. She pointed to an example from four months ago, when a crowd of 20 people rushed the dais at the end of a Maricopa County board of supervisors meeting, calling the members illegitimate before they were escorted out.

The incident sparked fear among Maricopa employees 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 only the latest in a long string of relentlessly aggressive and increasingly dangerous public ridicule, false accusations and death threats facing election officials since the 2020 election,” Brewer wrote about the incident.

Brewer said she thinks her party can win if they start focusing on “convincing the majority of legal voters that our ideas are better.”

“Complaining about the rules every time we come up short,” she added, “is not a recipe for advancing a conservative agenda.”

The op-ed ran in conjunction with an announcement that Brewer will serve as Arizona co-chair of RightCount, a group that seeks “to educate Arizona voters on the integrity and accuracy of the electoral processes,” in order to “reduce the appeal of extremism for election doubters and build confidence in the outcome of elections,” according to its website. 

This story was updated at 8:28 p.m.