PHOENIX — The fallout from Arizona's 2020 Presidential Election continues into 2023.
With candidates and elected officials promoting the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, voters believe it to be true.
A stolen election was the battle cry for Arizona Republican candidates of the 2022 election, Kari Lake for Arizona governor, Abe Hamadeh for Attorney General, and Mark Finchem for Secretary of State.
They all claimed the election was stolen and they were going to fix it.
"It is absolutely unconscionable that he would hide the truth from Arizonans," Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said, reacting to reports former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich intentionally concealed records debunking election fraud claims.
"Perpetuating what he knew to be a lie and then lie about what he eventually knew would come out," Fontes stated.
The Attorney General's Office released three reports dealing with the investigation of Arizona's 2020 Presidential Election.
A total of 60 investigators and staff were assigned and more than 10,000 hours were invested.
The complete report was ready prior to the 2022 election, but Brnovich opted to release an interim report in the weeks leading up to the election saying his office discovered "serious vulnerabilities."
Brnovich chose to leave out edits from his investigators refuting the premise. "It was a failure to pour cold water on the flames of conspiracy that were growing during the election," said Attorney General Kris Mayes, who released the report.
The three reports released Wednesday disproved all the major findings of the Cyber Ninja audit: claims that dead people voted, claims every elected official who made public claims of voter fraud refused to repeat those claims under oaths, and all but one claim, out of hundreds, of people voting twice.
The report also discussed several cases of ballot harvesting.
Nearly all the cases of voter fraud reported to the Attorney General came from the Secretary of State or local elections officials.
"The people of Arizona had a right to know that investigators in this office, the 60 investigators in this office, and lawyers had concluded that Maricopa County didn't do anything wrong. That our elections are free, fair, and safe," Mayes said.
Yet, Brnovich kept it all quiet and Fontes says it puts lives at risk.
"He is dishonorable and disgusting. The negative impact that had on Arizonans' lives and the way some folks had to suffer because of this," Fontes said.
Since the 2020 election, 16 election officials from 10 Arizona counties either retired or resigned from their jobs. Many cited threats and harassment from people who do not believe Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
In a statement provided to ABC15, former Attorney General Brnovich stated:
I am proud of the work our office did with the election integrity unit that was created by the Arizona legislature. While subjected to severe criticism from all sides of the political spectrum during the course of our investigations, we did our due diligence to run all complaints to the ground. Where we were able to debunk rumors and conspiracies we did so. Nevertheless, we also identified areas we believe the legislature and county officials should address to ensure confidence in future elections.
