Rural Arizona shows how Trump allies could try to thwart election certification

Two Republican county leaders were criminally charged after delaying certification of the 2022 election results. Arizonans worry it was a rehearsal for the 2024 presidential election.​

As the county prosecutor in this Old West mining community along the border with Mexico, Brian McIntyre was accustomed to squaring up against drug smugglers, murderers and others on the wrong side of the law.

But the most challenging part of his job over the past two years was trying to get his Republican colleagues who lead Cochise County to obey the law and certify election results.

the standoff pushed the state past its certification deadline, triggered a legal battle and criminal prosecutions, and set off fears that local leaders around the nation would try the same strategy after November’s presidential election, should former president Donald Trump again lose.

(see also: Arizona officials charged with allegedly conspiring to delay midterm election outcome )

McIntyre has faced ridicule and threats in the deeply conservative county where Republicans easily win most races. At one point, he began carrying a loaded AR-15 in his Cadillac Coupe as he traveled through the desolate desert and ghost towns like Tombstone, not out of fear of cartel-connected vengeance but of political paybacks. McIntyre latertestified before a state grand jury that indicted the two county leaders. They remain in their positions.

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Standing in the way of Judd and Crosby’s [illegal] push for a hand count: Lisa Marra, the county elections director, who said she would not release the ballots from her custody.

Marra, a Republican, said she was confronted with false claims about her work everywhere she went.

“There’s only one grocery store in Bisbee,” she said. “What you do today, tomorrow, they’re in front of you at the grocery store.”

Her phone rang at all hours with calls from angry Trump supporters. Some said she was a traitor who should be hanged, she recalled.

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“I always have been and always will be prepared for the worst,” said McIntyre, 52. “In Cochise County, there will be another fair, free, fraud-free election. But the true believers are the true believers.”

Ira Polson, a retired aircraft mechanic who lives in Sierra Vista, said it was unfathomable that “thousands and thousands and thousands” of people would show up at Trump’s rallies, yet he lost. Like the former president, Polson described election officials as criminals who helped steal the last election. He is convinced that they are preparing to “do it again.”

“They’re crooks,” Polson said. “All of them.”