Maricopa County Republicans back away from $250,000 review of voter registration list

The Maricopa County Republican Committee voted to give up to $250,000 to a far-right election-reform group for a project that would allow volunteers to "clean up the voter rolls" but later backed out of the project.

The vote for the project last month by the county GOP's 30-member executive committee drew public criticism from another Republican official because the group to be funded, We the People AZ Alliance PAC, was co-founded by the party's vice chair, Shelby Busch.

"Shockingly it passed w little resistance telling you a lot about the ethics of MCRC!" Dan Farley, GOP chair of Phoenix's Legislative District 4, wrote on X.com after the vote. "Am I the only one who sees a conflict of interest?!"

Farley noted that Busch's "significant other," Steve Robinson, CEO and co-founder of We the People AZ Alliance PAC with Busch, earns income from the group.

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Farley posted campaign finance information showing that when Robinson ran as a write-in for the state Senate last year in Legislative District 22, which includes Avondale, Tolleson, and parts of Phoenix, the group spent $24,000 on his campaign.

State campaign finance records reviewed by The Arizona Republic also show that Craig Berland, chair of the Maricopa County Republican Committee, donated $206 to Robinson's campaign, and the committee itself gave $250. (The write-in campaign was unsuccessful in the Democrat-dominated district; teacher Eva Diaz won the Senate seat.)

Farley declined further comment about the matter when contacted by The Arizona Republic. He's blamed the group in the past for exacerbating the split between traditional and hard-line Republicans.

Busch said Farley's comment was a "personal attack" due to political differences and that perhaps "five people complained."

"He is trying to make me look like I have integrity issues, which I do not," Busch said.

Why the county GOP tabled the proposal

Criticism over the county Republican committee's vote was not why the committee set aside its plan to help fund the We the People AZ Alliance PAC project, Busch said.

The switch came because We the People AZ Alliance PAC found a donor who would pay for the initial costs, she said, declining to reveal the donor's name.

We the People AZ Alliance PAC will now conduct the project with its donor's money, not the county GOP.

The PAC's previous financial backers have included "Pillow Guy" Mike Lindell and businessman Patrick Byrne, both of whom helped pay for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Berland, the GOP committee's chair, said he believed the Sept. 5 vote was not a conflict of interest simply because of Busch's executive position in the group. The Maricopa County Republican Committee doesn't currently have anywhere near $250,000 in its treasury. But Berland said the group expects to raise funds over the coming months and that the $250,000 would have been a "wish list" item out of a planned budget of $5 million.

"So, an insignificant amount," Berland said of the $250,000. "And it was a reimbursement for work that they would do if indeed that happened."

Busch and Berland said another vote would have been needed to distribute any raised funds.

"I would obviously abstain from that vote," she said.

What, exactly, is project to 'clean up the voter rolls'?

The project, which includes education programs and likely a computer app to compile data, eventually would allow party members to "better understand and analyze" voter registrations in their precincts and "to help not only clean up the voter rolls, but to be better ambassadors to their community and understanding it," Busch said.

"It's similar to a get-out-the-vote effort, only it includes elements of election and integrity. If you live in a precinct and you know that there are people on the voter rolls that no longer live in your neighborhood ... we would train and equip people on how to identify those things and how to work towards cleaning up the voter rolls along with registering new people to vote."

The latter part of the "strategy" would include a way to verify information "because we don't want to disenfranchise anyone," she said. "So if someone says, 'I don't think this person lives here anymore,' and they submit that, they can verify that to make sure that it's not a fraudulent claim."

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What to know about the We the People AZ Alliance PAC

Busch, Robinson and We the People AZ Alliance PAC often have been at the forefront of Arizona's election controversies in the past three years, becoming an influential, albeit divisive, force in the GOP.

They pushed hard for the state Senate audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, collecting tens of thousands of dollars in donations, held pro-Trump rallies, and tried unsuccessfully to recall four of five Maricopa County supervisors. Their group has launched seven lawsuits against county and state officials in Superior Court — six of them this year.

While the group enjoys the support of hard-right Republicans, its efforts to sway others have been lacking. None of its lawsuits has yet succeeded. In February, Busch presented research to the Legislature of problems in the 2022 election that already had been debunked by the county, and judges in May and September blocked failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake from bringing in Busch or her ballot-signature research as evidence. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah said in court last month that Busch, a medical office manager, was "obviously unqualified" to testify on the topic.

The group has also disseminated election disinformation while failing to prove any conspiracy theory. Busch works closely with former state Rep. Liz Harris, R-Chandler, who was expelled by her fellow lawmakers in April for lying about her role in spreading false information to the public.

State GOP Party Chair Jeff DeWit, who has been challenged with trying to smooth out the differences among party factions before the 2024 election, declined to comment about the matter.

Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X @raystern.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Maricopa County GOP tables $250K project to review voter list