A fundraising email sent July 20 by Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi touted the Arizona claim at a time when members of his party in the Texas Legislature are pushing for controversial new voting restrictions. Republicans have tried to justify the legislation by arguing the state needs more voter-fraud protections.
"Seventy four thousand ... That’s how many mail-in ballots were recently found in Arizona that have NO clear record of being sent in," reads the first line of the GOP mailer, according to Politifact, a nonpartisan fact-checking site owned by Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism school. "That’s exactly why we are fighting so hard for election integrity in Texas."
"For months, the left called us conspiracy theorists, crazies, and even un-American for daring to raise legitimate concerns about the 2020 presidential election," the letter continued.
Here's the problem, according to Politifact: multiple sources have debunked former President Donald Trump's oft-repeated claim that 74,000 mail-in ballots mysteriously appeared during an audit of Maricopa County, which contains Phoenix, Arizona's biggest city.
In addition to Politico, the Associated Press and CNN, Maricopa County election officials themselves have demonstrated that the claim is false, according to the Politifact review. As a result of its analysis, Politifact slapped the Texas GOP's claim with "Pants on Fire," it's lowest veracity rating.
