News & Analysis

Hellon Says GOP State Committeeman Election Not Fair, Honest or Free From Fraud

By Dennis Durband, Editor
June 13, 2004

Last month’s highly- and closely-contested election for Arizona National Republican Committeeman has been disparaged by Mike Hellon and contested by Arizona Republican Party Chairman Bob Fannin. Randy Pullen on May 8 unseated Hellon, a 12-year holder of that position, by a vote of 289-284, in Phoenix.

Game, set, match? One would think so. That election was certified last month and the results were sent to Republican National Committee headquarters. Pullen said that Fannin told him on Friday that he had received a letter from Hellon contesting the election; Hellon says he wrote no such letter. At any rate, Fannin is exploring the possibility of repeating the election.

Pullen said Saturday at the Arizona Republican Assembly state convention, “Bob Fannin said that Hellon had gotten legal advice that there is a basis for over-riding the election. I knew Friday of Hellon’s letter to Fannin. Hellon wants a new election. Fannin is pursuing counsel on how to proceed.

“I was at the District 26 meeting in Tucson this morning where Hellon said the election might not be over yet," Pullen said. "I believe that I would win any re-election by a comfortable margin. The most important issue is that we are in the middle of an election year and need to focus on that rather than on another committeeman election. It would be divisive. It’s just not a good thing. For the good of the party, I would prefer that this whole issue goes away. I would have had no comment if it wasn't already being talked about on the street, and if Hellon had not brought it up at his own district meeting so that people were coming up to me after the meeting asking me what was going on.”

Hellon told The Arizona Conservative in a Sunday email that he did not write a letter to Fannin protesting the election.

"I have written no such letter, but I do believe that it is important to the credibility of the Arizona Republican Party that its elections be fair, honest and free from fraud," Hellon wrote. "The election to which you refer was none of the above, and Bob Fannin is aware of this."

Pullen’s supporters are also claiming that irregularities tainted that election. They say that Fannin refrained from opening the committeeman balloting May 8 until delegates from the Sun City (LD4) area got on a bus to go home, knowing that many of those people were supporters of Pullen, the more conservative of the two candidates. When balloting opened, for the first couple minutes delegates were allowed to turn in their ballots and those of delegates who had already departed the convention. Then Fannin announced that delegates could only turn in their own ballots.

Phil Mason, chairman of Republican Legislative District 16, said: “Hellon is only doing what he thinks is best for him. This year should not be focused on Randy Pullen and Mike Hellon. It’s about electing Republicans because this country has some serious problems. Republicans have a stronger grip on what’s right for the country. We need to look at leadership. If they look at Randy, we know the chairman voted wrongly. This will spin into bigger things. Randy would win in a landslide. It’s done, and we need to move forward.”

Mason said, “We have to identify the difference between a person who hands in a ballot that somebody else completed and a proxy vote. In fact, in this convention, in the four previous votes people were allowed to hand in someone else's ballot. It was only after the voting had started for national committeeman that they changed the rules. It is important again to stress that there is a fundamental difference between a proxy and carrying a completed ballot to a voting machine.”

Proxy votes are not allowed at the state Republican convention, but are allowed at the state and county meetings.

Mason said there were some irregularities that occurred in the convention. He said that two or three delegates voted in Congressional District 3 before their credentials were removed from them.

“So if you re-do the committeeman election, you have to re-do all the other elections,” including elections to determine Arizona’s delegates to the Republican National Convention, Mason said.

Mason said he was told by a Republican legislator that Pullen actually won by 40 votes, but that 35 votes for Pullen were disqualified for technical reasons.

“This is absolutely crazy,” Mason said. “It reminds me of Al Gore in Florida (in 2000). You don’t like the outcome so you will contest. We believe Randy Pullen would win in a new election by hundreds of votes. However, a  new election would split the party and divert its focus from what we should be doing: gaining control the Arizona House, Senate and Arizona Corporation Commission, and making sure George Bush wins Arizona. We should not be distracted by this personal attempt by Hellon.”

State Rep. Russell Pearce addressed what he called unfairness: “We had an election, and we had people leaving early. They waited until after the LD 4 delegates left. There is a philosophy that you don’t shoot the king unless you think you can kill the king. It would serve nobody well to re-do this election. We don’t need to divide the party. It’s over. We have a conservative committeeman who believes in the entire party platform. I am disappointed that they are trying to game us.”

Party platform conservatives like Pearce and Mason pointed out that, though Hellon claimed to be pro-life prior to last month’s convention, he led a floor fight at a Republican National Committee meeting in Palm Springs in 1998 to defeat a resolution aiming not to fund Republican candidates who support partial-birth abortion.