Turning Point leader pleads guilty to attempted election fraud

Former Republican state legislator Austin Smith pleaded guilty Monday to what he previously called “ludicrous” charges that he personally forged more than 100 signatures on his petitions for reelection last year. 

The Republican from Surprise was a member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, which has a history of spreading false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election and pushed for election law changes in the state legislature. 

“As a part of his guilty plea today, Smith admitted signing the name of a deceased woman on one of his candidate nomination petitions in March of 2024,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “He also admitted that he attempted to deceive the Secretary of State’s Office by knowingly filing petitions containing forged signatures of purported supporters of his nomination for the Republican primary for State Representative from LD 29.”

Smith pleaded guilty to one count of attempted fraudulent schemes and practices, an undesignated offense, and to one count of illegal signing of an election petition, a misdemeanor. 

At the time he was indicted, Smith was strategic director of Turning Point Action, Turning Point USA’s advocacy arm. TPUSA is a far-right organization based in Phoenix that aims to mobilize young conservatives founded by Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed in September while speaking to a group of college students in Utah. 

A Maricopa County grand jury indicted Smith on June 2 on four felony counts for presenting documents he knew were forged to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and 10 misdemeanor counts for personally forging the names of electors on his reelection petitions.

Smith pleaded guilty to the reduced charges as part of a plea agreement that gives him the possibility of avoiding a felony conviction. In Arizona law, when a person without a criminal history is found guilty of a low-level felony, the judge can wait until that person’s probation is finished before designating the crime a felony or misdemeanor. Essentially, that means if Smith completes any probation he’s sentenced to without violations, his conviction could be classified a misdemeanor instead of a felony. 

And that’s important, because felons in Arizona can’t vote or hold elected office unless their rights are restored by a judge.

Per the plea agreement, Smith is to be sentenced to probation, a fine of at least $5,500 and will be banned for five years from seeking public office. But according to the attorney general, some terms of the plea agreement are nonbinding and could be rejected by the sentencing judge. 

Around the time he was accused of petition fraud in spring 2024, Smith dropped his reelection bid and resigned from his position at Turning Point Action.. 

But it’s possible he’s actually still working for Turning Point. According to Smith’s LinkedIn and X accounts, he was rehired in January as Turning Point Action’s strategic director. But when news of his indictment was made public in June, Smith made his X account private, blocking his biographical information — including his job title — and either deleted his LinkedIn account or made it private. 

When the allegations of signature fraud became public in April 2024, Smith vehemently denied them, calling them “ludicrous” and accusing Democrats of creating a “coordinated attack” against him. 

However, 100 of the signatures on his petition to get on last year’s Republican primary ballot, along with corresponding addresses, obviously look like they were all written by the same person. And some of the people whose names were on the petition told the court that they never signed it. 

At the time, Smith took no accountability for the fraudulent signatures and said that he dropped out of the race because didn’t want to spend tens of thousands defending himself in the civil elections challenge — as well as a possible criminal case for forgery. 

Smith is scheduled to be sentenced by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Aryeh Schwartz on Jan. 6. 

Neither Smith nor Turning Point USA Action immediately responded to a request for comment.

This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.