In March 2022, Turning Point Action leader, Tyler Bowyer, said “anyone who engages in ballot harvesting” should be prosecuted. He was nearly right, but should have said, ” Anyone who engages in illegal ballot harvesting should be prosecuted.
Now, Bowyer is the subject of faux outrage by Democratic Party operatives, who object to Turning Point Action’s ballot harvesting for the upcoming Salt River Project (SRP) board election.
In 2016, Arizona joined 18 other states in maintaining a secure chain of custody between the voter and the ballot box by passing a bill outlawing ballot harvesting for public elections. The bill was sought primarily by community activists, such as the new Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP), Sergio Arellano, who had witnessed abuses in the mail-in ballot voting process.
The bill, HB2023, sponsored by then-Arizona State Representative Michelle Ugenti-Rita, made ballot harvesting a class 6 felony, but exempted harvesting for private elections, such as the SRP race.
That fact hasn’t stopped progressive political operatives from implying that Turning Point Action is doing something illegal. “Ballot harvesting was made a CRIME by the AZGOP. Please don’t be a hypocrite,” tweeted attorney Tom Ryan, a progressive provocateur and prolific twit.
Democrats get upset when you show up and outwork them. https://t.co/9C7KyyExyH
— Tyler Bowyer (@tylerbowyer) April 4, 2026
For years, prior to the passage of Ugenti-Rita’s bill, Democrats had claimed that ballot harvesting did not exist. However, a video obtained of a ballot harvester by former chair of the Maricopa County Republican Party , AJ LaFaro, shattered that narrative. That video shows a man from the left-leaning Citizens for a Better Arizona stuffing a ballot box with hundreds of ballots.
LaFaro’s video was the equivalent of a Yeti sighting, according to politicos. For years, Democrats claimed that if ballot harvesters did exist, they only harvested handfuls of ballots. LaFaro’s video clearly busted that myth, and the ballot harvester featured in that video, Ben Marin, became known as the Yeti, the wild man-like mythological creature that some claim to have seen in the Himalayas.
LaFaro was sued by Marin for defamation after he made the video public. That lawsuit failed.
At a hearing of the Arizona House Elections Committee on HB2023, lawmakers heard firsthand accounts of the oppressive practices of political machines that prey primarily on lower-income neighborhoods through ballot harvesting.
Arellano stunned lawmakers when he spoke about the abuses of mostly minority voters by political operatives. Arellano, a first-generation American and wounded warrior, told lawmakers, “I will continue to fight for these people every single day because they’re being oppressed and lied to by people from the Democratic Party; unfortunately, because those are the operatives out picking up ballots.”
In 2020, now Yuma County Recorder, David Lara, exposed illegal ballot harvesting during the 2020 Primary Election. As a result, Alma Yadira Juarez admitted to committing one count of ballot abuse by knowingly collecting early ballots that had been filled out by other people.
Juarez’s co-defendant, Guillermina Fuentes, was indicted for two Class 4 felonies of Forgery and Conspiracy, a Class 5 felony of Ballot Abuse, and a Class 6 felony of Ballot Abuse.
Related articles:
Guilty Plea Entered In Yuma Ballot Harvesting Case Exposed By Local Residents
Be the first to comment