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Election Integrity Is A Unifying Issue

By Shawnna Bollick

Statewide Republican candidates in Virginia swept elections, stunning and upsetting Democratic candidates. All across America, voters have spoken: parental rights, election integrity, and a strong economy with low taxes matter.

In historically deeply-Democratic blue states like Virginia and New Jersey and in liberal cities like Minneapolis and New York City, Americans have pushed back against Democratic lies in an unprecedented fashion. Voters made their voices heard and shook the halls of power in Washington.

We won a ton of seats we weren’t supposed to and we’re going to hold onto that momentum and win big in 2022.

Last week, I wrote to you about how important parental rights are to Arizonans and my commitment to keep education decisions in the hands of Arizonans. And as results poured in Tuesday evening for Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) of Virginia, I couldn’t help but see where his opponent Democrat and former Governor Terry McAuliffe went wrong. Democrats are fundamentally out of touch with voters — their only plan for winning campaigns is to boldly lie about parents being racist for wanting to oversee their children’s education.

Democrats want to tell voters that election fraud concerns are baseless and only for the radical Republicans. It couldn’t be further from the truth. According to the Rasmussen Reports, the majority of Americans think that cheating likely affected the 2020 election. Furthermore, Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about our elections. A niche issue? I don’t think so, neither does America, and neither do many Democrats.

When Democrats lost the White House in 2016, it was Russian election meddling and the Trump team cooperating. Neither were true.

When Democrat Stacey Abrams lost the Georgia gubernatorial election in 2018 to Gov. Brian Kemp, they said that Kemp ‘disenfranchised’ 1.4 million voters — what many today call Abrams’s “Big Lie.” And worse yet, even though this is a complete fabrication, Democrats are still pushing the Big Lie. McAulliffe campaigned this fall in Virginia that Abrams’s election was stolen. Hypocrisy to the nth-degree.

The “Big Lie” I worry most about today is the one that keeps us from fixing our problems as a nation. The “Big Lie” is that election integrity isn’t a bipartisan issue. Democrats benefit from this lie to keep themselves in power, but their strategy is shortsighted. Only cheaters and tyrants benefit from broken elections. This is a bipartisan issue. The Democrat talking points hamstring our ability to secure our elections in good faith.

This isn’t a new issue for Arizonans. Arizonans, especially those in Maricopa County, have had their own problems with cheaters. So from the beginning — before 2020, 2018, or 2016 — I have put election integrity at the top of my legislative agenda. All I want is to secure elections that truly represent the vote of all Arizonans. It’s time to restore and make right our elections without partisan bickering getting in the way. As your next Secretary of State and chief election official, I want nothing more than to restore confidence in our elections. I hope you’ll join and support me in my campaign to make this happen.

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Shawnna Bollick is an Arizona Representative from LD 20 and is running for Secretary of State.