With more than 350 State Committeemen signing onto a call for a Special Meeting to force a new election of officers, State Party Chairman Kelli Ward, her husband Michael, and their allies on the State Committee have increased their attacks on via social media and phone calls, against signers and organizers of the effort.
Just one day after the call was delivered, Ward allies began calling signers and hinting at threats to their future involvement with party activities, unless they took their names off of the call.
“If someone did not actually sign but their name was on the list, their name would come off,” said one election attorney, “but that’s the only way for a name to come off that list. Once it’s filed, it’s like a candidate’s nomination petition. You can’t add or subtract names from it because someone changes their mind or is intimidated into withdrawing their name.”
But that is not stopping Ward allies from making the calls, and numerous committeemen have reported the strong-arm tactics, with some saying that it only makes them more certain that the January election was likely stolen and needs to be redone.
“Who fights this hard to keep the truth from being known?” asked one committeeman, “The Wards are so desperate to stay in power that they will try to destroy anyone they consider disloyal to them personally, and that is just poison to our party. We are better than this, or at least we’re supposed to be better than this.”
Mike Ward is no stranger to attacking his fellow Republicans, and he has also been busy on social media, trying to identify any organizers of the special meeting and attacking those who are identified. His remarks echo earlier refrains of Ward ally and AZGOP National Committeeman Tyler Bowyer, when he defended Ward and pledged to “eliminate” Republicans who attacked other Republicans.
“The irony with Tyler is that calling for election integrity gets him mad and he calls it attacking other Republicans, when it isn’t.” commented one committeeman who says she signed the call letter, “yet when Ward and her husband and their friends are actually attacking other Republicans, he says nothing and does nothing.”
Arizona Republicans have four more weeks of this ahead of them, as Ward is expected to continue fighting to stay in office before the April 24th special meeting. But she only has seven days left to challenge the signatures that were delivered on March 25th before the AZGOP Secretary must begin the process of sending out the call to all Republican State Committeemen.