By Staff Reporter |
Maricopa County’s Republican voters declined to reelect Stephen Richer for recorder, instead electing his opponent, State Representative Justin Heap.
Richer lost despite having a well-funded and diverse network of bipartisan support, as well as a unique platform with the media after Heap was mistakenly denied the chance to participate in a televised debate.
In an X post, Richer said that he accepted the results and would “move on.” Richer pledged to carry out his duties in his remaining months in office, while making claims about the successes of his administration: improved voter rolls and flawless mail voting.
“[O]ne of my friends said the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office is basically like teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. It’s cursed. So best wishes to my successor!” said Richer.
In his victory statement doubled as a campaign donation pull, Heap said that he would “end the laughingstock elections” of Maricopa County perpetuated under Richer.
Richer himself was also bipartisan with his voting choices. Earlier this summer, the recorder announced he would vote to reelect Democratic President Joe Biden rather than former President Donald Trump.
In the months leading up to that announcement, Richer hinted at his apparent party ambivalency.
Last year, Richer dismissed the importance of certain social issues that make up a major portion of the GOP platform: transgender activism, woke corporations, and critical race theory, among them.
The recorder’s ousting marks a close to a controversial and heated tenure kicked off by the 2020 election and similar contentions renewed in the 2022 election.
To Richer, contentions with the 2020 election were largely unfounded. Richer strongly opposed the election audit.
The 2022 election, the first under Richer’s watch, experienced significant failures of election machines leading up to and on election day. The issues prompted an investigation by then-outgoing Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
Richer used the attention from the election machine failures to fundraise for his reelection campaign.
Richer also doubled the number of vote centers, a point of contention for GOP voters due to beliefs that vote centers allow for easier ballot harvesting.
In 2022, Richer worked with the Biden administration on plans for speech moderation. Richer suggested that the government hold “bootcamps” for media outlets to improve election reporting.
Later that year, Richer deleted a tweet celebrating his prevention of a certain media outlet from having access to the county as part of a newly created press pass system. A federal court later ruled that Richer’s press pass denial was violative of the First Amendment. Richer later deleted his celebratory tweet.
Shortly after rolling out the press pass restrictions, the county launched a disinformation center.
Richer has also defended the much-maligned mail-in ballots as less problematic than in-person voting, as well as unmanned drop boxes.
Earlier this year, we reported on Richer tasking staff with compiling articles and online content pertaining to his personal defamation lawsuit against Kari Lake for her claims of the 2022 election, which marked her defeat against now-Governor Katie Hobbs.
Richer was also involved with the Republican Accountability Project, a Democratic dark money group that spent millions to ensure the defeat of 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
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