Steve Bannon devoted a segment of his War Room program Tuesday morning to the latest ballot controversy in Maricopa County, Arizona, bringing on Gateway Pundit reporter Jordan Conradson and praising him as a “rock star” who “almost got arrested out in Arizona doing his job.”
The appearance followed a weekend announcement from Maricopa County officials that more than 3,000 ballots had been mailed to voters by mistake — nearly a week before early voting was scheduled to begin in the state. The county blamed its ballot printing vendor, Runbeck Election Services, saying the company placed the ballots on the wrong pallet and handed them to the U.S. Postal Service ahead of schedule.
According to the Gateway Pundit’s account, county officials said the early mailing did not result in voter disenfranchisement and that the affected voters would still be able to cast valid ballots. The outlet reported that Runbeck declined to issue a public statement about the incident.
Conradson: ‘A Lack of Transparency’
Conradson told Bannon that the mistake fits a pattern he has covered since 2020, pointing to what he characterized as years of unresolved concerns about the company’s handling of mail-in ballots. “Runbeck’s had concerns in 2020 and 2022 and 2024, and now they have this weird quote-unquote error,” he said, describing the county’s explanation that ballots were loaded onto the wrong pallet as an attempt to “sweep it under the rug.”
He argued the episode reflects a broader transparency problem. “It’s really representative of the lack of transparency we’ve received from Maricopa County and Runbeck in the past,” Conradson said.
While in Arizona, Conradson also pressed President Trump for comment on the breaking news. According to the Gateway Pundit’s reconstruction of the exchange, Trump said Maricopa County “just sent out thousands of ballots in error” and that officials “have to be ashamed of themselves,” before adding, “By the way, there were no errors. You know that, right? There were no errors.”
The Gateway Pundit has reported extensively on Runbeck, describing the firm as a privately held entity founded by leftists that transports and scans Maricopa County mail-in ballots without chain-of-custody oversight before the county processes and counts them. Those characterizations come from the outlet’s own prior coverage and were echoed on air by both Conradson and Bannon.
Echoes of 2022
The early-ballot mailing is not the first such episode in Maricopa County. In 2022, more than 60,000 ballots listing incorrect races were sent to voters ahead of that year’s August primary, a mistake the county also attributed to its printing vendor.
Bannon framed the current incident against that history, invoking Kari Lake’s 2022 gubernatorial contest, which she lost and subsequently challenged in court. “In 2022, Kari Lake, the steal went through Runbeck,” Bannon said, asking Conradson whether he was wrong about that.
Conradson replied that Lake’s lawsuit alleged that a large number of ballots lacked chain-of-custody documentation after passing through Runbeck to be scanned and delivered to the county. He initially cited a figure of almost 300,000 ballots before correcting himself on air to 35,000. A correction appended to the Gateway Pundit’s own transcript notes the actual amount was 35,000.
He described those ballots as “believed to have basically come out of nowhere at the hands of Runbeck.”
No court has overturned the 2022 results or substantiated claims that Runbeck’s processes altered the outcome of that election, and the allegations Conradson referenced remain unproven in litigation.
Anxieties Heading Into the Next Cycle
Conradson tied the current dispute to the broader Arizona political landscape, noting that several officials who were on the ballot in 2022 are running again — naming Governor Katie Hobbs, Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, whom he referred to as “the cartel lawyer turned Arizona Secretary of State.”
He said voters in the state are uneasy about a repeat of past disputes, pointing to Republican candidates including Andy Biggs, Alex Culloden and Warren Peterson. “People in Arizona are scared. They don’t want this to happen again,” Conradson said, adding that the situation “is causing a lot of anxiety for the people of Arizona.”
The county has maintained that the mis-sent ballots will not affect the integrity of the upcoming election and that early voting will proceed on schedule.
Source: www.thegatewaypundit.com — https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/10/jordan-conradson-joins-steve-bannon-war-room-rock/