Ten months later, the GOP is still trying to dispute the 2020 election.
Arizona’s spurious election “audit” concluded on Friday, confirming yet again that President Joe Biden won Maricopa County and the state of Arizona — but not putting an end to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, which are now fueling similar efforts to relitigate the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas. The results of the “audit” — a haphazard GOP review of ballots in Arizona’s Maricopa County, with no legal force behind it — found the vote totals virtually unchanged from the actual election results, which were certified by Arizona officials in November of last year. That outcome isn’t a surprise: There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, which US elections officials said last year was “ the most secure in American history.” Every recount requested by Trump and his supporters has upheld the results of the 2020 election. While the ballot review didn’t turn up Trump’s nonexistent election fraud, the process has caused a legion of problems for Arizona elections officials, who are currently facing death threats and will now have to spend millions to replace voting machines in Maricopa County. It also hasn’t quieted some of the most aggressive proponents of voter fraud conspiracies in Arizona, including state Republican Party chair Kelli Ward, who is now calling for a “full signature audit” in Maricopa County, and Trump himself, who used a Saturday interview with right-wing outlet One America News to push debunked claims of election fraud. And, perhaps most worryingly, Arizona’s attempt at a recount has provided a clear roadmap for pro-Trump officials around the country — specifically, in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin — to pursue their own “audits” and sow further distrust in American elections. The Arizona recount was never credible On the surface, the Arizona audit’s findings this week approximated Maricopa County’s actual, certified 2020 election results. The vote totals in the final report only differed by a few hundred votes out of about 2.1 million, with Biden actually picking up votes. In the final report released Friday, however, Cyber Ninjas never explicitly say that Biden won, and the report also continues to baselessly raise the possibility of election fraud. That, combined with the process behind the audit — partisan, slipshod, and conspiratorial — makes for a deeply concerning precedent, particularly as other states take up similar efforts. From the start, the recount was a partisan enterprise, supported by Arizona’s Republican Senate majority. The company hired to conduct the audit — Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based security firm — had no experience conducting an election audit, and its CEO, Doug Logan, openly promoted pro-Trump election conspiracies on Twitter before deleting his account in January, according to the New York Times.
