by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy, Arizona Mirror
Shawnna Bolick told the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors that she had moved on from the 2020 and 2022 elections but a review of her social media postings show a Republican who consistently shares election misinformation as well as posts from influencers in the conspiracy theory world.
The board appointed Bolick earlier this week to fill the vacant North Phoenix seat in the Arizona Senate left by the resignation of Republican Sen. Steve Kaiser. Bolick was widely considered the frontrunner for the appointment since one of the other two candidates had openly embraced QAnon while the other had ties to the extremist Three Percenters militia movement.
Bolick previously served in the House of Representatives, and was in that position until her unsuccessful bid for secretary of state last year, where she finished in third place out of four candidates in the GOP primary.
Supervisor Bill Gates told the board that during his interview with Bolick, she agreed with him that it is time to move on from the 2020 and 2022 elections and that meaningful election reform can only happen when working with the county and the county elections department.
In the interview, she told Gates that her opinion of the election conspiracy spreading group True the Vote had lessened, according to reporting by the Arizona Capitol Times which obtained a copy of the interview via a public records request.
During her previous time as a lawmaker, Bolick sat in on a special hearing in which True the Vote and others spread unfounded conspiracy theories around the Arizona election, related to the widely debunked film “2000 Mules.”
The Mirror sent screenshots as well as screen recordings of Bolick’s Twitter captured by Twitter user Arizona Right Wing Watch to Supervisor Gates, Chairman Clint Hickman and Vice-Chairman Jack Sellers, asking if they were aware of Bolick’s views on Maricopa County’s handling of the election, her postings on conspiracy theories and if they had reviewed her social media. Only Hickman responded and he declined to comment.
One post retweeted by Bolick included “#JAILTHESUPERVISORS” while another called the work of the county “bogus.” Bolick called the 2020 election “rigged” as recently as May.
Bolick also consistently retweets content from accounts linked to a Pro-Trump “local news” network that has been known to push election misinformation as well as a website that has a notorious track record for publishing false information.
She has also referred to Gov. Katie Hobbs as the “occupant” of the Governor’s Office on multiple occasions while making similar comments about Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, in some tweets as recently as last month.
Bolick did not respond to a request for comment or address questions from the Mirror about her beliefs.
This article originally appeared in AZ Mirror and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
