Apparently, Fontes stinks at rigging our elections

The National Republican Senatorial Committee was so upset that Martha McSally might lose the U.S. Senate race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema that it was willing to poison your belief in our voting system.

It hasn’t gone well for them. The Republicans first wanted to suppress thousands of valid ballots, even though there is no way to predict who was favored on those ballots. Since that didn’t quite work out, the new strategy was to bad mouth and try to denigrate the reputation of Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who was elected in 2016 as a Democrat.

That didn’t go well either. Republicans then sent out press releases aimed at trying to get you to believe that Fontes can’t be trusted and that he is trying to rig the election for Sinema.

Here’s the thing about Fontes, however, a Marine and an attorney.

If he is now trying to go into the election-rigging business, he REALLY stinks at it.

You’ve seen the ballot, right? There are lots, and lots of races on it, not simply Sinema vs. McSally. And in many, many of those races, Republicans have won.

If Republicans are saying you shouldn’t trust the results of the Senate race, then you can’t trust the results in all those other races, either.

Because it’s a big ballot. Everything on it gets counted.

Of course, Fontes works only in Maricopa County. There are 14 other counties in Arizona. I’m not sure how he could hold sway over the election departments in any of them. But even if he did, he’d be just about the worst election-rigger in history.

Republicans say Fontes is biased toward Democrats.

If that is so, why did Fontes’ department count all those ballots for the reelection of Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who has been declared the winner?

Why didn’t Fontes alter those? Or, for that matter, why didn’t he tamper with the ballots of Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who also was declared a winner? As was the Republican winner in the state treasurer race, Kimberly Yee.

And what about the Republicans who won congressional seats? Paul Gosar in District 4, Andy Biggs in District 5, David Schweikert in District 6 and Debbie Lesko in District 8. Why not tamper with them? And if Fontes were somehow successfully altering votes, why do Republicans still control the Arizona House and the Arizona Senate? Hmmmm ...

Or, could it be, just maybe, that Fontes is NOT altering votes. Maybe all his office is trying to do is

count the votes. All of the votes. As are

officials in the other 14 counties.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s pathetic campaign to spread ridiculous rumors and to smear Fontes’ reputation is not only childish, but it could do serious damage to voters’ belief in our system.

It’s simple: Every vote counts and we live with the results.

You don’t get to say the system works only if your side wins — unless, of course, you’re Vladimir Putin.

It’s not supposed to work that way in our country.

As for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, they should give up on their strategy of smear campaigns.

They stink at it.