Arizona
Austin Smith drops reelection campaign amid accusations of petition signature fraud
Republican state Rep. Austin Smith has dropped his reelection bid after being accused of personally forging more than 100 petition signatures to get on the 2024 ballot.
And he’s facing a possible criminal investigation into his signatures after state elections officials forwarded his petition signatures to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Smith is first-term representative from Surprise, a member of Arizona’s far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus and a top official at Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of the far-right Turning Point USA, which is aimed at young Republicans and run by Charlie Kirk.
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Ironically, Smith is also a member of the House’s Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee, where he decried unproven election fraud in Maricopa County, and has even made jokes accusing county officials of mail-in ballot signature fraud on social media.
“Signature verification in Maricopa County is a joke,” Smith wrote on Twitter in May 2023.
But Smith’s own petition to get on the July 30 Republican primary ballot was filled with more than 100 signatures, along with corresponding addresses, that obviously look like they were all written by the same person. And two of his supposed petition signers told the court, in statements submitted along with a lawsuit challenging his nominating petitions, that they never signed the petition.
Smith announced that he was dropping out of the race on Thursday, just days after the signature challenge was filed by Democratic precinct committeeman Jim Ashurst.
In the announcement, Smith called the allegations against him “ludicrous” and accused Democrats of creating a “coordinated attack” against him with press releases and social media posts about the legal challenge to his candidacy.
“If they could convince a judge that any one signature was forged, all of my signatures would be invalidated and I would get kicked off the ballot,” Smith wrote. “And as per Arizona law, I would also be banned from seeking office for five years.”
Smith took no accountability for the allegedly fraudulent signatures and said that he didn’t want to spend tens of thousands defending himself in the civil elections challenge — as well as a possible criminal case for forgery — because he didn’t want that to impact his new wife.
“We have our plans and aspirations, and none of them involve starting out tens of thousands of dollars in debt as a once of being involved in public service,” he wrote.
But Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer Tweeted on Thursday that, if the signatures were valid, the county would put out a report saying so, costing Smith nothing.
Smith went on to say that, when he runs for office in the future, he’ll exclusively use the online petition signature system, so that “no one can make up any stories.”
But while Smith was excoriated by the Arizona Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, they were not the only ones who went after him for his alleged behavior.
Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman, a Republican, called Smith out in a Thursday statement, saying he should resign his seat in the House of Representatives immediately and calling for an investigation into Smith’s signatures.
“An investigation will reveal the truth, but this episode tells us something about those who have spread falsehoods with such ease since the 2020 Election,” Hickman wrote. “They can’t comprehend that most Americans and Arizonans are honest people. They accuse others of dishonesty so easily because they have no qualms about lying to win a political race or a business deal. Well, I will always tell people the truth… and Austin Smith should leave public service now.”
Smith was one of the many Arizona Republicans who claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump and says on his campaign site that he was involved in the partisan audit of the race, which never uncovered any fraud.
“What happened on November 3rd, 2020 in Maricopa County continues to be a national disgrace and embarrassment,” Smith wrote on his website. “Not only that, Austin believes it was criminal and will fight every day in the State Legislature to hold those responsible to account.”
The Arizona Secretary of State, Democrat Adrian Fontes, has already forwarded the allegations of forgery and fraud against Smith to the Attorney General’s Office, along with 12 other election petition signature cases.
Shortly after Smith announced he was dropping out of the race, the ADLCC criticized him for his decision not to defend his actions in court.
“Arizona voters deserve the same accountability, transparency, and elections integrity that Smith has long claimed to champion,” Democratic Sen. Priya Sundareshan, co-chair of the ADLCC said in a statement.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Snowbowl is staying open indefinitely on weekends after 30 inches of fresh, unexpected snowfall fell at the end of April.
The ski and snowboard area in Flagstaff had already extended its closing date to May 5th after additional snowfall occurred in mid-April.
The mountain received a total of 281 inches of snow this year.
Lift tickets can be purchased on Snowbowl’s website for the weekends of May 4 & 5, May 11 & 12 and May 18 & 19. The mountain will be closed on the weekdays.
According to a post on the Snowbowl website, staff will determine on a weekly basis when the mountain will close for the summer.
For the weekend of May 4 & 5, skiers will be able to enjoy four chairlifts, including the Arizona Gondola.
Lift tickets can be purchased for as low as $19.
PHOENIX — A section of the Interstate 15 bridge, which was recently reconstructed near Beaver Dam in northwestern Arizona, is now fully open to traffic, transportation officials said.
Crews finished construction on the I-15 Virgin River Bridge No. 1, which carries thousands of vehicles each day in both directions near the community of Littlefield, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.
The completion follows several years of work, which included the replacement of the deck of the bridge and the creation of an enhanced structure design.
The bridge also has a new pavement surface and pavement markings. ADOT also installed a new guardrail and signs along the 2-mile stretch that includes the upgraded bridge.
The reconstruction of the I-15 bridge is one of several projects ADOT has taken on along the freeway over the past decade. Projects in the area can be challenging due to steep, winding canyons of the Virgin River Gorge.
I-15 is an important route for commercial transportation between southern California and the Rocky Mountain region.
Kiewit Infrastructure West. Co was the contractor for the project.
Opinion: Trump told Time magazine that his plan for the largest deportation operation ever in the United States includes using the National Guard, the military and local police.
Arizona presidential preferential election results: What they mean
The Arizona Republic’s Sasha Hupka discusses on The Briefing video show the results of Arizona’s primary and what it means for Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The folks in Fountain Hills who are horrified at the possibility of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio being elected mayor in November may have nothing to worry about.
The next Donald Trump administration — should there be one — could have a high-profile job for the 91-year-old ex-lawman who was convicted of criminal contempt of court then pardoned by Trump in 2017.
Time Magazine published an interview with Trump this week in which he said that as part of his plan to resurrect the grotesque Eisenhower-era “Operation Wetback,” the largest mass deportation of undocumented workers in United States history, he would use local police to help round up and deport those suspected of being in the country illegally.
Trump told Time that he’d use the National Guard and the military, and added, “We’re going to be using local police, because local police know them by name, by first name, second name and third name. I mean, they know them very well.”
Arpaio’s immigration sweeps cost Arizona
Arizona has already tried that. We have the scars to prove it, by way of the state’s infamous Senate Bill 1070 “show me your papers” law.
After that atrocity of a bill pass the Legislature and was signed by then-Gov. Jan Brewer, Arpaio used deputies to run immigration sweeps and traffic stops that eventually led to lawsuits that have, so far, cost Maricopa County taxpayers $250 million.
Courts found the policies and practices of Arpaio’s office to violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Kari Lake is: Arizona’s new Joe Arpaio
Not that it stopped Arpaio from continuing the raids in violation of a court order. Which led to his criminal contempt conviction. Which led to the Trump pardon.
And which could lead — Hey, why not? — to a BIG role in the next Trump administration.
Trump would ‘convince’ local police to go along
Deportation Czar, or something like that, a job that would require someone like Arpaio, someone familiar with public policy based on ignoring the law.
Trump is a guy like that. In the Time interview, for example, Trump brushed off the fact that it is illegal to use military force on civilians.
“Well, these aren’t civilians,” Trump said. “They are people that aren’t legally in our country.”
And when he was reminded that a president has no authority over local law enforcement, Trump hinted that he’d encourage cooperation by way of the pocketbook.
“There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate,” Trump said, “and they won’t partake in the riches.”
Put all that together and it occurs to me that Arpaio’s future position, should he be offered one, could not have the word “czar” in its title.
Trump will already have taken that.
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.
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