Gilbert candidates were offered chance to withdraw -- or else

Two Gilbert Town Council candidates who had their nominating petitions challenged were offered one last chance Sunday to withdraw from the race — or a local high school student would potentially face fraud charges.

Kenny Buckland and Noah Mundt, who are candidates for the two open council member seats, each received an email Sunday asking them to sign and have notarized a form withdrawing them from the ballot and promising not to run a write-in campaign.

If they did not, they were told plaintiff Michael Webb would pursue his claim that they were ineligible and that a high school student who collected signatures on their behalf had committed forgery and fraud.

Webb sent the email to Buckland, and Webb’s attorney, Jennifer Wright, sent a similar email to Mundt. The emails were sent Sunday and asked for a response later that day, one day before the challenge to Buckland was to be heard and Mundt was to have a pretrial hearing.

“Mr. Webb is prepared to present this evidence at trial,” Wright wrote. “Doing so will not only be embarrassing for you and your political future, but it will also put ... an 18-year-old senior and member of the varsity football team at Highland High School, at risk of criminal prosecution. If you sign and notarize the attached Statement of Withdrawal and return it to me by 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 21st, Mr. Webb will file a notice of voluntary dismissal of his case. Otherwise, Mr. Webb will be filing an amended complaint Monday morning that alleges that (the) petition sheets were the product of fraud.”

Webb’s language in his email to Buckland was substantially the same but gave a 10 p.m. deadline to sign and notarize the withdrawal.

Both candidates declined to withdraw. Webb withdrew his complaint against Buckland regardless. The hearing on the challenge to Mundt was postponed from Tuesday to Friday. The high school student in question has been subpoenaed to testify in the Mundt trial.

Webb is a former Legislative District 14 Republican Party precinct committee member and a member of mayoral candidate Shane Krauser’s campaign team.

Wright represented Webb at the Mundt pretrial hearing but not at Buckland’s hearing. She is a former assistant attorney general who ran former state Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s election integrity unit. She represented former Republican candidate Abe Hamadeh in his challenge of Kris Mayes’ election as attorney general as well as former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in her defense against Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s defamation lawsuit.

Buckland, a former Gilbert police officer, said he is a registered Republican but has never been active in the LD14 GOP organization. Mundt, an engineer with Salt River Project and the Gilbert Planning Commission’s chairperson, is an independent.

Their opponents for the two open seats are Aaron Accurso and Monte Lyons. Accurso is a former LD14 GOP precinct committee member. His campaign treasurer is Justin Yentes, the licensed private investigator who concluded the high school student had committed fraud. Lyons is an LD14 GOP precinct committee member.

Council elections are meant to be nonpartisan.

Buckland said he knew fraud had not been committed because it would require an element of the student knowingly acting. He said it was more of a case of poor training when, for example, the student allowed one spouse to sign for another.

Mundt said the email carried the element of “somewhat subversive coercion there.”

“I originally thought that they were just trying to hire an attorney and create a new element of mystery and intrigue to intimidate me, honestly, which I don't really get intimidated,” Mundt said. “So I was like, ‘OK, cool.’

“From a principle (standpoint), my reaction was pretty much just, ‘not going to happen.’ I did everything above board, and I intend to continue to do so for the citizens of Gilbert.”

Attempts to reach Webb were unsuccessful.

We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.