Austin Smith, a Republican in the Arizona House, also withdrew from his re-election bid on Thursday as his candidate petitions drew scrutiny in a constituent’s court complaint.
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Austin Smith at an event in Sun City, Ariz., in March. Mr. Smith impugned the process for checking voters’ signatures last year, saying “Signature verification in Maricopa County is a joke.”
A senior director for the pro-Trump group Turning Point Action resigned from his post on Thursday and abruptly withdrew his re-election bid in Arizona, three days after being accused in a court complaint of forging voters’ signatures.
It was dramatic turnabout for Austin Smith, a House member in his first term representing parts of northwestern Maricopa County. He has been a vocal election skeptic in Arizona, a battleground state.
On Monday, Mr. Smith was named in a complaint filed in state Superior Court by one of his constituents, a Democrat named James Ashurst, who said that dozens of signatures on Mr. Smith’s petitions to qualify for the July 30 Republican primary ballot had resembled Mr. Smith’s own handwriting.
Mr. Smith, 28, who has repeatedly attempted to sow doubt about the results of the 2020 election in Arizona, denied any wrongdoing in a post on social media on Thursday, but said he could not afford the financial burden of defending himself in protracted litigation. He said Democrats had engineered the complaint against him.
“If they could convince a judge that any one signature was forged, all of my signatures would be invalidated and I would get kicked off the ballot,” he wrote on X. “And as per Arizona law I would also be banned from seeking office for five years.”
He added: “To protect my family today, I’ll withdraw as a candidate.”
Mr. Smith’s campaign website prominently features a section on election integrity and photos of him with former President Donald Trump and Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate who has refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election and her 2022 defeat in the governor’s race.
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Source: nytimes.com
