Media’s Elections Pundit Again Defends Systemic Disenfranchisement of 2022 Voters

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ABC15's Garrett Archer [Photo courtesy Gage Skidmore]

A former election-staffer-turned-elections-expert for local media again challenged Rep. Abe Hamadeh’s continued claim of voter disenfranchisement in the 2022 Arizona attorney general election.

ABC15’s Garrett Archer, popularized online under the username “Data Guru,” said the thousands of votes Hamadeh claims were improperly discounted were from individuals who were “clearly ineligible” to vote.

Hamadeh has maintained that Attorney General Kris Mayes secured her position illegitimately by excluding a significant number of valid votes from the final count.

The congressman has argued the outcome of the 2022 attorney general’s race remains significant, though he now occupies a higher office, because he believes that election to be an example of election maladministration.

“Many people say we should focus on the future and move on from 2020 and 2022,” said Hamadeh on X. “How could I knowing what I know? Our elections have been hijacked, they’ve been corrupted, and the American people deserve justice. It can never happen again.”

Over 1,000 out of approximately 9,000 voters who had their ballots made out as provisional before being invalidated issued sworn declarations that they were disenfranchised due to a system that altered their voter registrations without their knowledge or consent: automatic voter registration. Governor Katie Hobbs, while still secretary of state, established the system in 2020.

An elections advocate, Merissa Hamilton, pointed out the existence of the declarations. These declarations numbered over 1,000 — nearly four times Mayes’ 280-vote margin of victory.

Archer responded in defense of the decisions made using the Hobbs system. He claimed those voters — who had no knowledge or consent of their voter registration being altered — were following the law “when convenient.”

Archer also claimed that Hamadeh and others like Hamilton were “advocating for illegal migrants to vote.”

Over the months, Archer has consistently pushed back against Hamadeh’s claims of poor elections administration. Archer accused the congressman of advocating for illegitimate votes to be counted should they support a certain favored outcome.

“This is God tier level shameless irony since the only way for Hamadeh to maintain the lie that he won the AG race is to argue ballots from ineligible voters should have counted,” said Archer.

One oft-cited voter, a combat veteran named “Howard” from Mesa, had his registration changed without his knowledge or consent after the Hobbs system used automatic voter registration to enroll him in another county.

In Howard’s case, the state filled out and submitted a voter registration form on Howard’s behalf after he requested a State Identification Card at an Arizona Department of Transportation office.

Another voter who claimed disenfranchisement was the husband of State Sen. Wendy Rogers.

Of the over 1,000 voters who submitted sworn declarations of their disenfranchisement, a significant portion had consistently voted from the same primary residence for years — in some cases, decades.

There no longer exists any way to address the claims about the uncounted ballots from the 2022 attorney general’s race.

The Arizona Supreme Court declined to take up the case challenging the election last November, which enabled all 15 counties to destroy the ballots per Arizona law.

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