The state Republican party is undaunted by electoral defeats for those claiming voting is rigged – and election officials are bearing the brunt of their fury

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All changed with Donald Trump’s unprecedented refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election. His conspiracy to subvert the election has had an explosive impact in Arizona, a battleground state which has become arguably the ground zero of election denial in America.

In 2020, the Republican-controlled state legislature sponsored a widely discredited “audit” of votes in Maricopa county, the largest constituency containing Phoenix. Republican leaders put themselves forward as fake electors in a possibly criminal attempt to flip Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona to Trump’s.

Two years later, in the midterms, armed vigilantes dressed in tactical gear stalked drop boxes in a vain hunt for “mules” stuffing fraudulent ballots into them. Amid the furore, election officials found themselves assailed by online harassment and death threats.

No longer faceless bureaucrats, they had become public enemy No 1.