When Turning Point USA — an $80 million secular conservative political group beloved by many evangelicals — promotes “election integrity,” guard your ballot boxes!
On April 18, Turning Point Action Senior Director Austin Smith was charged with forging 100 of the 826 signatures he gathered in his effort to win reelection as an Arizona state representative.
Austin Smith
Smith, who was endorsed by the Center for Arizona Policy Action, an Arizona group affiliated with Focus on the Family, quickly resigned from Turning Point Action and ended his campaign without defending himself against the election fraud charges.
You can still read Smith’s rousing words about election integrity on his campaign website. But conservative news outlets Fox News, One America News and Newsmax — which devote significant airtime to “election fraud” — have not reported on his alleged fraud and resignation.
Tyler Bowyer
A week later, Tyler Bowyer, who has worked as an executive with both TPUSA and Turning Point Action, was indicted over election interference in the 2020 election. Bowyer is one of 11 fake electors indicted for efforts to disenfranchise Arizona voters by falsely claiming Trump won.
Also indicted for election interference: State Sen. Jake Hoffman, a major player in TPUSA’s 2020 effort to flood the internet with thousands of false claims of election fraud. Hoffman’s digital marketing company, Rally Forge, contracted with TPUSA for fake posts created by teenagers using fake online personas.
“The months-long effort by the tax-exempt nonprofit is among the most ambitious domestic influence campaigns uncovered this election cycle, said experts tracking the evolution of deceptive online tactics,” reported the Washington Post.
Hoffman received a 100% endorsement from the Focus on the Family-aligned Center for Arizona Policy and also was endorsed by TPUSA.
Arizona also indicted Christina Bobb and six other aides and attorneys who advanced Donald Trump’s various election interference schemes.
Christina Bobb
Bobb, who served in the Trump administration, later promoted election fraud claims as a correspondent for the conservative network One America News and in her book, Stealing Your Vote, which claims that “the 2020 election was riddled with lying, cheating, stealing and vote dumping which disenfranchised millions of Americans and probably swayed the outcome of the election.”
In March, the Republican National Committee, which Trump has remade in his image, named Bobb the senior counsel to its new election integrity team. The RNC team plans to recruit 100,000 activists around the country to serve as poll watchers or file lawsuits. The team already has filed 75 lawsuits over election regulations, according to reporting from the Washington Post.
Welcome to the 2024 election cycle, when “election integrity” can mean anything but.
Surveys show the two groups most likely to believe Trump’s Big Lie of a stolen 2020 election are white evangelicals (60%) and Republicans (63%). That compares to Black Protestants (11%) and Democrats (6%).
Arizona isn’t the only state to file election interference indictments. Georgia, Michigan and Nevada also are holding fraudsters to account.
Austin Smith
Austin Smith, who allegedly forged 100 signatures, remains in office, and none of his fellow Republicans in the Arizona House have called on him to resign. Things would have likely been different were Russell “Rusty” Bowers still serving as speaker of the Arizona House.
As the devout Mormon testified before the U.S. House January 6 committee: “As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum awarded Bowers with its 2022 Profile in Courage Award, saying: “In January 2022, Bowers again acted to protect the integrity of Arizona elections by stopping a Republican-sponsored bill that would have allowed the legislature to overturn the results of an election.”
But back in Arizona, Bowers was relentlessly attacked by promoters of “election integrity.”
Trump supporters protested in front of Bowers’ home with signs accusing him of being a pedophile. He received threatening phone calls and emails and was “swatted” by opponents who called the police on him, using the false claim that he had killed his wife. He also lost his next primary election to an election denier but says he has no regrets.
Steve Rabey is a freelance journalist who lives in Colorado Springs, Colo.