AZGOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward sent an email to the party’s state committeemen on Tuesday morning, claiming that organizers of the effort to call a special meeting and force a fresh, auditable election, had come up short of the requirement for such a call, and that no April 24th meeting would be held.
Ward went further, claiming that organizers had used state committeemen names without their permission and committed “fraud” in the process of gathering signatures. Ward wrote that the effort was “a failed and dishonest sham that has preyed on some state committeemen through a series of lies, false pretenses, and fraud.”
Notably, while Ward claimed victory, no details were provided to support any of the party’s claims, raising questions that echoed the January 23rd meeting.
“If Ward is claiming a bunch of signatures are invalid, why won’t she say whose they are? If she is claiming people denying signing, then why won’t she say who they are? She claimed victory in January and still refuses to prove she won, so why would any of us believe her when she says we are short of signatures?” asked a State Committee contacted for this story.
The Party email did trigger yet another lawsuit however. Bill Beard and Sandra Dowling, two GOP State Committeemen who were already suing the AZGOP to force it to comply with the audit requirements in the party bylaws, filed a lawsuit late in the day, asking the courts to intervene and force the AZGOP to conduct a proper counter of signatures on the call and to issue an official call if the required number of signers were verified.
The lawsuit accuses Ward of attempting to improperly sabotage the meeting, including attempting to have the location for the meeting canceled so that no meeting could take place. It also asks the judge to restrain Ward from using Party resources to claim that the meeting was cancelled or would not be taking place.
“Ward is claiming everyone else is running a scam while she’s the one not following the rules and having people threatened and bullied, and a lot of committeemen are still following her,” complained one committeemen.
Bill Beard went further, saying that he believed Ward should resign her office given her lack of integrity and transparency.
