GOP's latest Arizona election conspiracy completely 'delusional': local columnist

Arizona Republicans are calling for an investigation into newly elected Gov. Katie Hobbs, which a local columnist proves the party has lost its grasp on reality.

The state GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward asked Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich to look into "bombshell" allegations that Hobbs pressured Twitter to remove posts while running her campaign, which she called an illegal infringement on First Amendment rights, and Arizona Republican columnist Laurie Roberts dismissed the claims as "delusional."

"Goodness," Roberts wrote. "So what manner of mischief did Gov.-elect Katie Machiavelli perpetrate on an unsuspecting public? What treachery warrants such angst over at GOP HQ?"

"According to internal Twitter documents that surfaced over the weekend, Hobbs’ [then-secretary of state] office notified the nonprofit Center for Information Security (CIS) about a pair of tweets containing 'election related misinformation,'" she added. "CIS then passed along the information to Twitter, which deleted the two tweets."

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The tweets, which were posted by a since-deleted account apparently based in Germany, were flagged on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the insurrection and five months before Hobbs announced her gubernatorial campaign, falsely claimed Arizona's voter registration system was run by a foreign corporation.

“It’s the Secretary of State’s job to make sure that voters are informed about how to vote and how our election system works,” said Allie Bones, assistant secretary of state. “One of the ways we do that is by working to counter disinformation online that can confuse voters.”

Ward and right-wing conservatives like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Fox News host Tucker Carlson have claimed the episode disqualifies Hobbs from office and merits a criminal investigation, but Roberts said they've lost their minds.

"According to Ward and the most delusional on the far right, it was all an orchestrated plot aimed at stifling dissent so that Hobbs could then march, unchallenged, into the Governor’s Office two years later," Roberts wrote. "Gee, and you wonder why the Republican Party lost every major race in Arizona this year?"