Maricopa County Recorder Steven Richer turned to the , left-leaning , States United Democracy Center and an overseas , party bankrolled by the State Department to help his business goal election talk that’s disapproved of by the state, according to messages obtained by The Federalist.
Richer thanked States United for offering to allow his business “piggy up” on the team’s anti-speech operations, which he described as “deep checking” the web for “disinformation”, a term generally invoked to judge speech the government disagrees with. According to InfluenceWatch, States United, a left-wing electoral law organization, regularly opposes Republican-backed voter ID rules and supports Democrat efforts to undermine election security. The team was described by The New York Times as a” partnership” preparing to “push up” against a possible Trump victory with “extraordinary pre-emptive actions” and has praised the use of the justice system to fight Trump.
According to email records, States United set up a call with Richer’s staff and the global censorship group, Institute for Strategic Dialogue ( ISD ). ISD is a London team that has been accused of unjustly labeling “mainstream opinions” as “misinformation” and consequently censoring conservative views online, according to InfluenceWatch. The group was the recipient of a 2021 grant sponsored by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which “fund]s ] the development of censorship tools”, as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland has reported. The ISD works with governments, leftist 501 ( c ) ( 3 ) groups, and Big Tech companies as well as some of the left’s biggest financial backers.
After that, Richer suggested that Arizona State University officials may fire Associate Professor Aaron Ludwig because of alleged election-related loopholes, thereby allowing States United to profit.
Professional Censorship Gurus ‘ meetings
On June 17, 2022, Richer emailed then-States United Senior Counsel Bo Dul to thank them for their kind offer to let us borrow some of the deep-scanning they were using to track down vote threats and disinformation. Richer indicated his office and” some … colleagues at the county” do some of this function already, but that he would “love to fill any openings” with the present from States United.
A few minutes later, Dul told Richer that the States United senior adviser “leading our disinfo work”, Caroline Chambers, would be” circl]ing ] up with our partners at ISD and your team to set up a call soon”. Prior to joining States United, Dul served as the secretary of state’s senior elections policy advisor and general counsel under Democrat Katie Hobbs in the Arizona secretary of state’s office. She is currently serving as Hobbs ‘ general counsel, who was elected governor of Arizona last year.  ,
Chambers sent an email to Dul on June 21 and copied Richer, indicating she wanted to” set up a briefing”. On June 23, a States United staffer emailed Chambers, Dul, and other recipients a link to a Zoom meeting with the subject line” Maricopa County Recorder’s Office x SUDC x ISD Briefing”. The meeting was set for June 28.
On June 27, a “management analyst and special assistant to the Maricopa County Recorder” emailed the staff to let them know the briefing was scheduled for the following morning.  ,
The assistant directed recipients to “background information on the Electoral Disinformation work the Institute for Strategic Dialogue ( ISD ) does,” which included a link to an ISD website dedicated to “electoral disinformation. The page boasts about ISD working with States United to “detect, analyse and escalate threats” like “election denialist activity” and provides links to news clips of ISD representatives attempting to persuade Big Tech to censor more speech.
The” special assistant “‘s email on June 27, 2022 stated Richer was traveling at the time of the briefing and may or may not have attended the call, but he wanted his staff to “go ahead” and show up regardless.
A representative from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office responded to a question from The Federalist about how long the Maricopa County Recorder has worked with States United and ISD and whether they are currently working with those organizations.
Before describing the ways the office has “widely accessible to the public,” the representative said,” We have received information from States United Democracy Center regarding election worker safety and, as we do with all new information, taken it into account.”
Attempt to cancel a professor for retweeting election posters
Just the following month, Richer sent Arizona State University officials a letter advising them to fire Aaron Ludwig, a professor of criminal justice and criminology, for his online address. Richard was upset that Ludwig had shared his election concerns.
” He is a regular purveyor of election disinformation and misinformation”, Richer wrote on July 31, linking to Ludwig’s account on Twitter ( now X ). I request that you assess whether he is qualified to join the ASU faculty.
According to Richer, Ludwig was “propaganda for messages that encourage harassment and violence against” two employees of the Maricopa County Elections Department. One tweet accused the employees of improperly deleting election files, another that criticized Richer himself, and another that the recorder included screenshots of Ludwig’s reposted tweets.
” The allegations are, of course, errant nonsense that only imbecilic troglodytes could possibly believe after five minutes of research”, Richer spewed in the email, referencing the retweet.  ,
An ASU dean, Cynthia Lietz, sent an email to Richer the same day with the subject line” RE: Aaron Ludwig”.
” Thank you for this important information, we will look into this”, she wrote.
Dul, the States United operative, also emailed Richer and his staff the next day with the subject line” Re: Aaron Ludwig”. When The Federalist received the email, the entire body was redacted.
Months passed, but Richer would n’t let Ludwig’s speech go. He followed up with Lietz on Feb. 6, 2023, in the same email thread.
” Did anything ever come of this”? he asked.
” Yes, we did address this”, Lietz wrote in an email the next day.
According to Ludwig, his supervisors had never spoken to him about the matter, but he first learned about it in April when acquaintances discovered it in a request for public records. He said he thinks Richer’s actions violate the First Amendment.
” The government should not be allowed, and I believe, is not allowed pursuant to the First Amendment, to censor free speech unless it is those few things that can” constitutionally be regulated, he said.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Ludwig served as the Arizona Attorney General’s Office’s chief of the racketeering and asset forfeiture section from 2011 to 2014 and as a special prosecutor until 2015.
” I led Arizona’s charge against organized crime and the southern border, the transnational criminal organizations including all the drug cartels”, he told The Federalist. It is so offensive for someone to criticize my background, credentials, professionalism, and integrity and charge me of being some liar or anything else. It’s destructive to my reputation. I believe it’s defamatory per se”.
Free Speech was referred to as a” Thorn in the Side of My Office”
Richer recently voters-in-arizonas-largest-county-oust-leftist-backed-elections-chief/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>lost the county recorder primary held by Republicans. He initially campaigned on election integrity, but once in office, he used “his perch as an opportunity to regularly defend the Democrat-run 2020 election in Maricopa County, write op-eds at , CNN , against the type of election audits he conducted to gain power, draft lengthy screeds , lambasting , Republican leaders and , voters , for their election integrity concerns, and push ranked-choice voting and other efforts critics say are  , disastrous for voter confidence , in elections”, as the Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway previously reported.
In some ways, the Constitution has a thorn in my office today. Specifically the First Amendment”, the recorder allegedly wrote in a draft speech, according to Just the News. Additionally, the outlet was able to obtain a document that, according to the county, contained” a draft document of ideas that were brought up in a meeting but never implemented,” with instructions on “banning a user on social media.” In his campaign against unapproved speech, Richarder has also collaborated with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the “nerve center” for censorship.
Reid Hoffman, a Democrat megadonor, and Richer, who has turned into a corporate media darling for criticizing his former supporters ‘ concerns about election integrity, have also caught his eye. During Richer’s unsuccessful primary bid, Hoffman helped fund mailers backing the recorder, as The Federalist previously reported.
For more election news and updates, visit , electionbriefing.com.
The staff writer for election integrity is Logan Washburn. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan was born and raised in rural Michigan, but he now resides in Central Oregon.