Maricopa County, Arizona, has again become the focus of election conspiracy theories weeks before the midterms. A group called We the People USA Alliance posted a video on X showing two county employees working late at night in a ballot tabulation center, insinuating they were inserting flash drives into computers during an active election. The post was amplified by figures including Kari Lake and drew over a million views.
County officials said the clip came from a nonpublic backup livestream camera, and that the employees were performing authorized software updates and uploading election data to a terminal not connected to the internet or tabulation equipment. The FBI, after being contacted by the county recorder's office, asked Arizona's attorney general's office to investigate; the investigation concluded there was nothing to investigate.
Despite the closed investigation, the conspiracy theories have not stopped. The group's founder appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast repeating claims and said she had contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Experts note that Maricopa County has become a familiar setting for election rumors, and that no evidence of widespread voter fraud there has ever been found.