WASHINGTON — A scathing new opinion piece in the Arizona Republic assails GOP Senator Paul Boyer for trying to distance himself from his caucus’s unhinged election “audit” after previously supporting it. The Republican-led effort has spiraled out of control into bizarre conspiracy theories and has members of the Arizona GOP quietly worried about broader repercussions.
The audit’s transformation into a wild goose chase was entirely predictable, however, and so-called moderate incumbents can’t back down now — Senator Boyer and his extremist Republican colleagues own this mess. The time to stand up against misinformation was months ago, not now when the “audit” has become a national embarrassment.
Arizona Republic: [Opinion] Sorry, Sen. Paul Boyer. You can’t disown the Arizona election audit now
Sen. Paul Boyer wants to be the forgettable villain in a really bad movie called the Arizona election audit.
Things have gone off the rails with the Republican-led audit and Boyer is suddenly regretful about the role he played to get it underway in the first place.
[…]
Either Boyer is that naïve or somebody twisted his arm to support auditing Maricopa County’s 2.1 million ballots.
Either way, Boyer doesn’t get to wash his hands of this farce and expect roaring applause for simply disowning his initial support while still doing nothing to stop it.
[…]
I’d buy [his] regretfulness if he was actually doing something to stop the audit and not just talking about it to grab national headlines.
For sure, senator Boyer. The audit makes all of you “look like idiots,” and it’s truly “embarrassing to be a state (Republican) senator at this point.”
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