PHOENIX: One of the most prominent figures in the QAnon conspiracy movement, Ron Watkins, said on Monday that he is running for Congress in Arizona as the state is at the forefront of a battle by many Republicans over the 2020 election results.
Watkins, a prominent promoter of false claims that the presidency was stolen from Donald Trump, said he wanted to fix the election from inside the machine.
Over the past year or two, I’ve been really involved in electoral integrity issues, and Arizona in particular, so I decided to come out of here and take it to the next step, Watkins told The Associated Press in a brief phone interview. told.
Arizona has been the center of a push by many of Trump’s supporters to find evidence supporting the former president’s false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Trump supporters hired by state Senate Republicans to recount ballots and review election data confirmed Biden’s victory, but deleted the data, told lies about double voting and other malpractices in a report that Basic facts about how elections were conducted were overlooked.
For several weeks, Watkins has posted videos of his failed attempts to speak with Republican Attorney General Mark Branovich on the social networking site Telegram, whom he is pressuring to file charges over claims of electoral irregularities.
Watkins has been vague about his relationship with Arizona.
Watkins said that he lived briefly in Yuma as a child, speculating that it was between the ages of 5 and 7, but did not remember whether he had attended school there. As supporting evidence of their Arizona ties, she emailed a photo of herself as a child in the Grand Canyon with her father and the family dog. He also said he had family in the state, but declined to elaborate.
Watkins said he moved to Arizona about two weeks ago but repeatedly declined to say where he was staying in the state, citing the death threats he said he had received. According to Maricopa County property records, on papers filed with the Federal Election Commission, they listed the address of the Phoenix condominium, which has been owned by Liz Harris and her husband since 2014. Harris led a group of volunteers who interviewed voters at their doorstep and published a report claiming there were thousands of lost and ghost votes, but with no supporting evidence and drawing nonsensical conclusions.
Online real estate listing says property sale is pending.
For his campaign headquarters, Watkins lists a Sedona address in what appears to be a post office box. He said he plans to live in the same district as Democratic Representative Tom O’Halleran once Congress’ new district boundaries are finalized.
Under the US Constitution, Watkins only needs to be a resident of Arizona on Election Day the following year. There is no minimum period of stay in the state he or she is required to reside in the district they wish to represent.
Watkins was the longtime administrator of 8kun and its predecessor, 8chan, online message boards known for misinformation and hate speech, and who were instrumental in irrigating the QAnon conspiracy movement. He has said that he left the role last year.
A core belief for QAnon’s followers is that Trump was secretly fighting a devil-worshipping, child sex-trafficking contingent of prominent Democrats, the Hollywood elite, and deep-state enemies. An internet poster calling himself Q fueled the movement by posting clues on the 8kun message board.
Many believe that Watkins himself is responsible for the messages Q posted. He denied it.
Why am I not Why was I never I never posted as a Q. I don’t know who posted that as a Q, Watkins said. I mean, everyone has their own hypothesis. I don’t have any facts to support it.”
Arizona’s congressional district boundaries are still in the works, but O’Hellern will face a hard-fought re-election.
“I don’t think common-sense Arizonans want extremists representing them in Congress,” Ohleran said in a video posted on Twitter on Monday, which highlighted Watkins’s QAnon ties.
In addition to election issues, Watkins said he wants to pass a digital bill of rights to prevent technology companies from restricting online discourse.
We needed to make sure that bots and companies and stuff weren’t censoring us, and weren’t being destroyed by algorithms, and were able to get our word out, and talk about things that Banned and censored everywhere are important, said Watkins, who has been banned from Twitter.
He also said he wants to eliminate the COVID-19 public health mandate and said he fears the United States is moving toward creating a Chinese-style social credit system that allows people to pay for their purchases or public activities. will be banned from the services.
Watkins is getting help from Tony Teora, a science fiction writer who has failed to run for the California Legislature. If they raise enough money, they plan to hire a campaign manager, open an office, and create a campaign, Teora said.
Teora said Ron is going to build a true campaign here, but it will be based on whether he has the support or not, so going to find out soon.
Disclaimer: This post has been self-published from the agency feed without modification and has not been reviewed by an editor
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