Republican Doug Ducey may have been sworn in as governor earlier today, but write-in gubernatorial candidate J.J. Johnson says he's the real winner of the race. Shane Dale of the Casa Grande Dispatch reports:

He received the most votes of any write-in candidate in this year’s Arizona governor’s race, and the fifth-most votes among all candidates.

But Casa Grande resident J. Johnson says he did much better than the numbers indicate, calling the certified vote count a fix perpetrated by a “criminal cartel” that has commandeered the state’s political system.

“I believe I am the governor. Let’s just say that,” said Johnson, who received 1,520 votes, according to the official count by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.

“I would actually guess that I received somewhere in the area of 500,000 to 550,000 votes, and that’s based upon street polls, based upon the numbers extrapolated. There’s absolutely no way that the person that they say won got 800,000 votes. That’s impossible.”

Johnson is considering continuing his political career but he worries it could cost him his life:

“To be honest with you, my wife and my family fear for me to run again. They think that my life could be in danger with the message that I bring,” he said.

“I have to be wise. I don’t want to be killed over this. To give somebody like me control of a $10 billion budget when I owe no one anything, and the candidate that actually has been certified and won owes tens of millions of dollars to people ... If you won’t be their puppet, they don’t have any use for you.”