A dozen Republican women filed past wrought-iron fences and barbed wire to tour a sun-drenched building in Maricopa County, Arizona — not a prison, but an election site.
Outside the room where workers will count votes for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, election official Stephen Richer greeted members of the Ahwatukee Republican Women, a grassroots political organization in the southwestern battleground state, as they signed in and settled into metal folding chairs.
“We know that a lot of pressure is going to be on Arizona because we might just decide the fate of the free universe come November,” Richer, the county recorder, said as the air conditioning whirred.
“And so I know that there’s going to be a lot of questions.”
Much of Maricopa County’s preparation for November has been focused on increasing physical security in the face of high tension and disinformation around previous elections. But officials here are also trying to win voters’ hearts and minds.
Richer’s office has given more than 100 public tours of the county’s ballot tabulation facility since he was elected in 2020, just before an onslaught of disinformation questioning President Joe Biden’s win culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the