PHOENIX — America is preparing for another likely historic election in November. But in Arizona, will it really matter when it comes to the presidency?
A new plan introduced by some Arizona House Republicans on Wednesday proposes promising the state's 11 presidential elector votes to the winner of the Republican primary — likely to be former President Donald Trump — regardless of which candidate wins the state's popular vote in the general election.
Presidential electors for each state are supposed to come from the party of the candidate that won the state.
House Resolution 2055 says it wants to "change the manner" of the election in the Grand Canyon State "to offset the removal of a republican candidate from the ballot in Colorado and Maine," referencing both of those states' decisions to remove Trump from the 2024 primary ballot.
Maine and Colorado decided to not allow Trump on the GOP primary ballot in their states over his ties to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, which they said violated the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. Those cases are both currently being considered in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Arizona's resolution goes further than just guaranteeing the electoral votes for Republicans, however, saying the electors should be appointed "to protect the presidential election from another maladministered and illegally run [sic] election."
There remains no concrete evidence of widespread fraud in previous elections, including any fraud so significant that it would overturn the results of the election.
State Rep. Rachel Jones, R-Tucson, is named on the resolution document published on the Arizona Legislature's website. While she did not respond to ABC15's request for comment on the resolution, she reiterated during a House Committee on Municipal Oversight and Elections hearing Wednesday that she doubted election results.
The committee did not hold a vote on it after a marathon three-plus hour meeting, and the resolution faced criticism from some Republicans during the hearing.
"Wouldn't we be guilty of exactly what we accuse the other side of doing, right? Stealing an election," said Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale. "We would literally be saying, 'We're gonna pre-appoint the nominees to our party's elector,' without actually running an election. Wouldn't that be just as bad?"
In the Arizona Legislature, resolutions are purely symbolic, do not require the approval of the governor, and do not have the force of law.
Still, one constitutional law expert said the resolution is part of an alarming trend of not accepting clear election results, even prior to an election taking place.
"If you don't have that willingness to participate fairly in the game, you can't play the game. It's all about taking turns," said Edward Foley, director of Ohio State University's election law program and a distinguished visitor at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law. "Obviously, Democrats want to win. Obviously, Republicans want to win. Both teams can't win all the time, but both teams have to be willing to accept losses. And that's what seems so worrisome in the last few years, is that when one side loses and [is] denying all the truth and evidence of that loss, you can't run a system that way."
Foley compares the sharp rise in election denialism over the last few years to McCarthyism, a political persecution campaign in the early 1950s intended to oust accused communists from the U.S. government. In the end, many of those targeted by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy and others aligned with him did not belong to the Communist Party.
Foley said he believed that the election denialism trend movement may begin to die down once those who question election results see their chosen candidate win, though he admitted it was hard to predict the future in a case like this.
"Trust is essential in elections," Foley said. "And ultimately, elections are based on very simple mathematical principles, you know 2 + 2 = 4. It doesn't equal 5."
Last month, Republican state Sen. Anthony Kern proposed a resolution that would allow for the Republican-led Legislature to decide on presidential electors, regardless of the popular vote of Arizonans. That plan is unlikely to go anywhere, as a Senate representative said the chamber would not entertain any legislation that would overturn the will of the voters.
