Election Challenges, Protests, Conspiracy Theories, and Moral Panics

[Dill]

After listening to dissection of Trump's multi-pronged legal challenges on MSNBC, watching the pro-Trump protests in Maricopa county on CNN, and listening to a litany of election "irregularities" on Fox, I thought it might be helpful to create a place to post and discuss similarly themed news.

Starting with this: Hundreds upset over ballot counting protest in downtown Phoenix
https://www.azfamily.com/news/politics/election_headquarters/mostly-trump-supporters-upset-over-ballot-counting-protest-in-downtown-phoenix/article_30b98c24-1f13-11eb-8c4c-a3723cfef328.html

. . . It all started when the extremist group AZ Patriots initially walked right into the Maricopa County Recorder's Office at Third Avenue and Lincoln Street, live streaming around 7 p.m. One of the members was wearing a military vest and made a claim the County used Sharpie pens to make some ballots invalid. The conspiracy gained traction on Wednesday, but the officials said that it is not true and Sharpie pens don't disqualify ballots....

Also protesting was Jennifer Harrison, a leader of Arizona's Patriot movement. She had a megaphone and was calling out Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, saying, "Where are our votes, Adrian?" Fontes is the head of elections for Maricopa County.

The group then moved to the Arizona Capitol Building to protest the election results. They stayed there for about a half-hour before moving back to the Maricopa County Recorder's Office. The group continued to grow with more than 200 people there as of 9:30 p.m., with it being mostly Trump supporters. They chanted "Four more years" and "Count the votes." Others chanted, "Stop the steal," implying Biden was stealing the election in Arizona.