The cry babying, conspiracy mongering and outright character assassination continues as Democrat Kyrsten Sinema inches closer to becoming the first woman to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate.

It wasn’t so surprising when President Donald Trump on Friday proclaimed Arizona’s election corrupt and called for a redo, even as half a million votes were still to be counted.

We’ve come to expect it from old slash and burn, who's been crying "fraud!" and "fake news!" ever since he lost the popular vote in 2016.

But to see the once-Grand Old Party going on the offensive, sowing seeds of doubt about one of our foundational institutions without so much as a single shred of evidence?

It’s … not all that shocking, I suppose. Not anymore. The party that once embraced Trump has now become Trump.

Is Fontes really a 'liberal activist?'

Here is state GOP Director Jonathan Lines, who on Friday told us that Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes “cannot be trusted to administer elections in Arizona.” This, because he opened emergency voting centers the weekend before the election and is allowing voters to “cure” their early ballots when signatures don’t match their voter registration file.

Also because he didn't set aside those "disputed" ballots when the GOP asked him to, despite the fact that there was no requirement – and no legal ability, according to Fontes – to do so.

“Adrian Fontes has intentionally circumvented the legislative and judicial process during this election,” Lines said on Saturday, after filing a public records request for all communication between Fontes’ office and the Sinema campaign, the Democratic Party, Tom Steyer and/or George Soros. “He is a liberal activist masquerading as an election official, and we cannot trust him to oversee this process. Arizonans have a right to know what liberal parties Fontes is communicating with about this race, and what he is telling them. What is Adrian Fontes hiding?"

I don't know what Fontes might be hiding but here’s what Lines doesn’t tell you.

What they didn't tell you about that lawsuit

There were Republican elections officials in rural counties who also allowed emergency voting. And all counties – thanks to Friday’s settlement of a GOP lawsuit filed last week – will now follow the lead of Fontes and four other counties, allowing voters who dropped off early ballots on Election Day until Wednesday to verify their ballot if the signature didn’t match the one on record.

In fact, the Republican Party that filed a lawsuit last week to stop every vote from being counted is now celebrating the fact that every vote will be counted.

But hey, who needs facts?

Certainly not Calvin Moore, regional communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. On Saturday, he blasted out a Fox news piece on Fontes, who he said “is destroying evidence to cook the books" for Sinema.

Lest you think the Republican candidate – the one who almost certainly hopes to snag the late Sen. John McCain's seat when Sen. Jon Kyl resigns – is rising above the muck and acting like a gracious loser, think again:

Here is Martha McSally’s Friday fundraising plea to her supporters, suggesting that the fix is in.

Sadly, saying 'the fix is in' works

"This is what we're dealing with: Sinema and the Democrats have prepared millions of dollars to sue me in court to bend the rules and exploit loopholes in her favor,” she wrote. “The Democratic Machine will do whatever it takes to change the results of this election."

Or put another way, the people who lead the party of Trump will stomp their feet and scream and burn down the country if they don’t win – and to heck with the damage it does to the country. Republicans can’t lose, it seems. The election can only be stolen.

Don’t think it works? Check out this email I got from a reader on Saturday:

“I wondered why you weren't hyperventilating the week before the election like you usually do about McSally and her ilk. Got it. You knew the fix was in. The question is, now what? Do you think we're going to just lay down and let you steal the election? Actually, that may happen. It's what comes after that you all should be worried about.”

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

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