Arizona Governor-Elect's attorney says claiming ‘voter suppression’ is racist
The attorney for declared Arizona Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs Monday responded to allegations of voter suppression by giving the court a lecture on racism.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson heard arguments Monday regarding Katie Hobbs’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit by Republican candidate Kari Lake, who pointed to several irregularities in Maricopa County on Election Day that allegedly impacted the vote.
One of those irregularities was the malfunctioning of half the county’s tabulation machines or printers in Arizona’s Maricopa County voting centers, predominantly in Republican areas. Kari Lake reported she was forced to vote in a liberal area so she would be assured of a functioning tabulation machine.
As part of his motion to dismiss, Maricopa County Attorney Tom Liddy argued that voter suppression no longer exists, because it means lynching Black men.
Liddy said the voter suppression allegation is a claim his clients “find the most odious”.
“In Maricopa County in 2022, if there’s one thing that Americans know it’s what voter suppression looks like, Your Honor. Voter suppression looks like the nearly 3,500 African-American men who were murdered, beaten in front of their families and hanged from trees between 1865 and 1933. Documented lynchings. Not just to prevent those African-American men from voting but to terrorize their entire community so they wouldn’t even want to register to vote. That’s voter suppression.”
Liddy then launched into a length history lesson on racism, beginning with the creation of the Department of Justice by President Ulysses Grant, claiming it was to crack down on Black voter suppression.
Liddy did, however, give quarter to the suffragettes of the early 20th century.
“And I haven’t even mentioned the suffragettes from Seneca Falls who had fought for over a century so women can vote. That’s all voter suppression in these United States. That’s what voter suppression looks like.”
The attorney then said that any other claims of voter suppression is insulting to African-Americans.
“A Republican today who claims he or she couldn’t find a parking place to vote, as one of the affiants said, or ‘I didn’t want to vote the 26 days prior to the election’ and ‘the lines were too long on the 26th day’ or anybody who would claim that a printer malfunction at 70 out of 223 is voter suppression is insulting to this court, and insulting to all the men and women who went — African American men and women — who went for hundreds of years without the vote.”
Liddy's remarks during Monday's hearing begin at the 11:35 mark:
Judge Thompson dismissed Katie Hobbs’ motion and the lawsuit will proceed to trial.
Other questionable factors surrounding the election have come to the surface.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Supervisor Chairman Bill Gates, who told voters to expect delays in counting votes, created a political action committee one year ago called the Pro Democracy Republicans of Arizona dedicated to keeping Trump-supporting Republican candidates like Lake out of office. For election officials to meddle in elections to such an extent is considered a “rarity” even for the Left.
Furthermore, Richer worked with federal censorship officials to censor "election misinformation” according to leaked confidential documents, raising questions about election tampering.
