The Committee gives the Conservative Barf Bag Award to Arizona Republican Austin Smith, who has promoted himself as an “election integrity warrior.” He has repeatedly blamed the Democrats for election fraud. He has pled guilty to forging signatures on petitions to help him qualify for an election. Of course, he declared the charges as politically motivated.
From Wikipedia
In 2023, he introduced a bill that passed the Arizona House of Representatives and the Arizona Senate to ban ranked choice voting in the State of Arizona. The measure will appear on the statewide Arizona ballot in November 2024. He is a member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus in the Arizona House of Representatives.
Smith has long been an "election integrity warrior" and promoter of stolen election conspiracy theories, dismissing signature verification on Maricopa County ballots as "a joke". In April 2024 he withdrew his bid for reelection and resigned from Turning Point Action, three days after he was accused in a court filing of forging voter signatures on petitions he filed to qualify for the July Republican primary. Smith denied wrongdoing but said he could not afford the cost of litigating the matter. The allegations were referred to the Arizona attorney general's office for review, while Smith alleged Democrats had engineered the complaint.
In June 2025, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that Smith had been indicted on 14 counts related to fraudulent candidate signatures on his nomination for the Republican primary in Arizona's 29th district. Smith was "charged with multiple felonies and misdemeanors, including deceiving the Secretary of State's office with petitions containing forged elector signatures and signing names other than his own to the nominating petition." He pled guilty in November 2025, admitting to having forged more than one hundred signatures.
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He and other Republicans have been tutored by Joseph Goebells, Hitler’s propaganda minister, who urged his minions to "impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do".
Never ever underestimate the malignance of conservatives.