The Maricopa County Republican Party investigated the LD25 organizing elections held last month and a team has concluded that “irregularities warrant the results being invalidated,” according to party Chairman Rob Haney.
The matter will be turned over to the Mesa Police Department.
The Yellow Sheet reported that “there were initial concerns raised about potential fraud regarding only the state committeeman elections – nomination forms for five people in one precinct were submitted without their knowledge.” The LD25 election results and those for officers were rejected by Haney. The new election will be held after Christmas.
The county party’s investigative team examined the nomination questionnaires, and the proxy forms of PCs. In an email Haney sent to LD25 PCs, he wrote, “Unfortunately, a number of signatures on the Interest Forms and the Proxy Forms did not match the signatures on record from the County Recorder’s office. This resulted in a finding from the committee that enough irregularities existed to invalidate the election.”
The investigative team found “enough suspicious activity to involve law enforcement,” Haney wrote in another email according to the Yellow Sheet.
Allegedly there were between 20 and 25 signatures that didn’t match the ones on file with the county recorder.
Paul Whetten, who was elected district chairman at the November 29 election, told the Yellow Sheet, that there was no fraud, but “a gosh-awful amount of sloppiness.” He blamed the credentialing committee. Five proxies were allowed despite having no signatures or other irregularities.
Whetten said there was “no way to make the results clean to everybody’s satisfaction.”