Arizona Republican senators have ordered an audit of the 2020 presidential elections. They will release their findings Friday. This effort was prompted by Donald Trump’s allegations of widespread electoral fraud.
The results of the “forensic audit” of the former president’s performance at the polls in Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, will be revealed in the state Senate at 1 p.m. local time (4 p.m. ET), five months after the Republican-led Senate launched it.
An array of election experts, Democrats and some Republican officials rejected the audit as a highly political boondoggle run primarily by contractors with no relevant expertise, who want to prove that Trump won last year’s election.
Trump’s Republican Party allies have eagerly awaited the report, which they hope to use to justify similar investigations in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Trump predicted that the report would support his fraud claims. Trump and his backers have not produced any such evidence.
Arizona’s official count showed that President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by just over 10,000 votes. This narrow victory was confirmed by multiple post-election accuracy tests and a hand recount.
Maricopa, which encompasses Phoenix, conducted an additional audit and found that the vote was secure and accurate.
The Republican-led Arizona Senate selected Cyber Ninjas to lead the review of the latest 2.1 million votes in Maricopa County. This little-known firm has no previous experience auditing elections and whose owner Doug Logan supports Trump’s claims.
Critics described the audit as being marked with practices that ranged from incongruous to bizarre. These included counters marking ballots in blue ink which can affect how machines read them, and workers looking for signs of bamboo fibers. This was based on the theory that forged ballots might have been imported from Asia.
The operation was launched in April, with the aim of wrapping up by May. However, it has been slower than expected. Most recently, Logan and other members of his team were infected with the coronavirus.
Alarming alarms have also been raised by the composition of the audit’s financial backers. Logan revealed in June that outside groups linked to Trump’s campaign to reverse the 2020 election results had raised over $5.7 million for the audit. This is far more than the $150,000 Arizona Senate contributed.
The review has divided leading Republicans in the state with Trump loyalists facing off against Maricopa County officials, who have repeatedly defended election results as correct.
Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Recorder, issued a 38-page critique of the audit and outlined why he believed the 2020 result was valid before the report was released.
“Nobody stole Maricopa County’s election. Elections in Maricopa County aren’t rigged,” wrote Richer, a Republican who says he campaigned and voted for Trump.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, also released a preemptive rebuttal, a 122-page statement in which she blasted the audit for delays and alleged lapses in security, transparency, and organization.
According to an advisory for the event, the audit team will present the report to Senate President Karen Fann and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen, both Republicans who have spearheaded the election review. Media will not be allowed to ask questions at the hearing, which will be live-streamed, it said.
