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- Records obtained by The Arizona Republic showed Trump allies contacting Arizona election officials.
- "We need you to stop the counting," Kelli Ward, Arizona GOP chair, told an official during ballot counting.
- Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is calling on Trump and his allies to be investigated over the reports.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is calling for an investigation into former President Donald Trump and his allies over "intense efforts to interfere" with the counting of ballots in the 2020 election.
In a letter to Arizona's attorney general that was shared on Twitter, Hobbs urges him to look into reports that Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Kelli Ward tried to interfere with election officials, potentially in violation of state law. She said they contacted officials in Maricopa County, where a GOP-backed audit of the election was recently underway, to disrupt ballot counting.
"Local reporting recently uncovered intense efforts to interfere with the tabulation of ballots and canvass of the 2020 election in Maricopa County," Hobbs said in a tweet. "In Arizona, interfering with election officials is a felony."
Citing The Arizona Republic's reporting, the letter says Trump and his allies reached out to election officials during the ballot tabulation process "to induce supervisors to refuse to comply with their duties."
Hobbs notes an incident in which Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Party, told the chairman of the board of supervisors, "We need you to stop the counting" and "I know you don't want to be remembered as the guy who led the charge to certify a fraudulent election."
The comments were made via text messages that were included in records obtained by The Arizona Republic.
Hobbs called for Attorney General Mark Brnovich to investigate these reports and enforce any laws that were violated.
"Arizona law protects election officials from those who would seek to interfere with their sacred duties to ascertain and certify the will of the voters," she wrote. "I urge you to take action not only to seek justice in this instance, but to prevent future attempts to interfere with the integrity of our elections."
Hobbs, a Democrat and vocal critic of the GOP recount in Maricopa County, announced last month she will run for governor in 2022.