Turning Point leader, former GOP Rep pleads guilty to attempted election fraud

[tblue37]

https://azmirror.com/briefs/turning-point-leader-former-gop-rep-pleads-guilty-to-attempted-election-fraud/

He was the strategic director of Turning Point Action, Turning Point USA’s advocacy arm.

Former Republican state legislator Austin Smith pleaded guilty Monday to what he previously called “ludicrous” charges that he personally forged more than 100 signatures on his petitions for reelection last year.

The Republican from Surprise was a member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, which has a history of spreading false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election and pushed for election law changes in the state legislature.

“As a part of his guilty plea today, Smith admitted signing the name of a deceased woman on one of his candidate nomination petitions in March of 2024,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “He also admitted that he attempted to deceive the Secretary of State’s Office by knowingly filing petitions containing forged signatures of purported supporters of his nomination for the Republican primary for State Representative from LD 29.”

Snip

A Maricopa County grand jury indicted Smith on June 2 on four felony counts for presenting documents he knew were forged to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and 10 misdemeanor counts for personally forging the names of electors on his reelection petitions.

Snip

More: https://azmirror.com/briefs/turning-point-leader-former-gop-rep-pleads-guilty-to-attempted-election-fraud/

Wanna know how bad the Arizona legislator's petition forgeries were? Here's the examples from the Austin Smith indictment.

s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...

— Adam Bonin (@adambonin.bsky.social) 2025-11-24T02:50:17.061Z

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Felony counts. Damn! He'll be pardoned.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

2. Pardoned by who?

These are state charges and convictions, Pedonald has no authority to pardon him and Gov. Hobbs certainly isn't.

[Martin68]

3. The Freedom Caucus freely cheats, lies, forges, and spreads disinformation to defeat the will of the

voters.

[malaise]

4. Remember now

I remain doubting malaise re the entire election

[mwb970]

5. A REPUBLICAN committing election fraud?? Impossible!

[MustLoveBeagles]

6. Yeah

Who would've thunk it?

[Ford_Prefect]

7. Now follow the money!!!!!!

[MagickMuffin]

8. What's the prison terms, I didn't see it in the op?

Probably a slap on the wrist, but hopefully time behind bars.