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I watched the GOP’s Arizona election audit. It was worse than you think.

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Originally posted by Nina:
similar to paying for millions of dollars to defend Arpaio's multiple court cases.

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Voting machines subpoenaed by the Republican-led Arizona Senate for its audit of the 2020 election will be removed from service, Maricopa County officials announced on Monday.

Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel responded to a May 20 letter from Arizona's Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who advised the county to replace its voting machines over concerns the review hurt their "security and integrity" because the chain of custody had been "compromised."

"The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured, the County will never use equipment that could pose a risk to free and fair elections. The County recognizes Secretary Hobbs' authority under A.R.S. § 16-442 to certify equipment for use in Arizona’s elections. As a result, the County will not use the subpoenaed equipment in any future elections," the county said in a statement on Monday.

"Maricopa County noted this potential risk in February when it asked the court for guidance on the Senate subpoenas. Since then, the County has implemented back up plans that include acquiring new tabulation equipment for the March and May jurisdictional elections in 2021," the statement added.

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A majority of Arizona Republicans in a new poll said that a partisan election audit there will show that former President Trump won the state’s 11 Electoral College votes instead of President Biden.

Sixty-two percent of Arizona Republicans said in a new OH Predictive Insights poll that Trump will receive more votes in the state after the GOP audit is completed. Another 21 percent of Republicans say Biden’s victory will stand, while another 16 percent are unsure.

The poll underscores the extent to which Arizona Republicans have been swayed by unsubstantiated claims from Trump and his allies that alleged electoral misconduct and irregularities swung the election to Biden in key swing states like Arizona.

Sixty-one percent of Republicans agreed with the statement that “evidence has been uncovered which shows that the election was stolen from President Trump in a number of states that the media and election officials have called for Joe Biden,” and 55 percent said they have a favorable view of the audit, which was sparked by such claims.

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The Republican overseeing the controversial GOP-backed election audit in Arizona has reportedly been banned from entering the building where the recount process is ongoing, after he shared some data with experts that showed the results match the officially certified numbers in Maricopa County.

The Arizona Republic reported on Friday evening that Ken Bennett, Arizona's former Secretary of State who has been described as the audit's "director," was barred from entering the building on the state fairgrounds where the audit is moving forward. The newspaper reported that Bennett had shared some of the audit data with outside experts showing that the ballot recount was tracking "very closely" with Maricopa County's certified results.

Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based company conducting the audit on behalf of the state's Senate Republicans, told the publication that state Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, made the decision to block Bennett from the building.

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Earlier this month, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan briefed some Arizona state senators on the progress of the audit. He argued, along with Fann, that more information was needed from Maricopa County. Jack Sellers, a Republican who chairs the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, strongly criticized the claims made by Logan and Fann. Sellers has criticized the audit process throughout, reiterating repeatedly that there is no evidence of fraud.

"At today's briefing, the Senate's uncertified contractors asked a lot of open-ended questions, portraying as suspicious what is actually normal and well known to people who work in elections," Sellers said in a July 15 statement released in response to the briefing. "In some cases, they dropped bombshell numbers that are simply not accurate."

Sellers condemned the "incompetence" of the Cyber Ninjas auditors. "What we heard today represents an alternate reality that has veered out of control since the November general election. Senate leadership should be ashamed they broadcast the half-baked theories of the 'Deep Rig' crowd to the world today," the GOP official said.

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The Republican serving as liaison between the Arizona state Senate and the private company conducting a partisan ballot review said Wednesday he intends to resign, citing his inability to back the final product.

Ken Bennett, a former Arizona secretary of state, said he made the decision after it became clear he would not regain access to the Phoenix fairgrounds where the private company, Cyber Ninjas, continues its examination of millions of ballots cast last November in Maricopa County.

"Right now I’m the liaison in name only," he told conservative radio host James Harris Wednesday. "I don’t know if that makes me a LINO or what."

Bennett, who has been the public face of the review, was first barred from entering the audit site Friday after he shared some results with outside election experts, according to The Arizona Republic. Those experts told the paper that what they reviewed indicated the auditors' vote tally was in line with the results reported by the county.

"I’ve always tried to act as a man of integrity and honesty and I’m sure I don’t accomplish that all the time, but I cannot put a rubber stamp on a product I am being locked out of its development," he said Wednesday. "I’m going to step down today. I’ll issue a statement later for the press later this morning."

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A widely discredited GOP-led review of the 2020 election in Arizona's largest county has concluded that Joe Biden did indeed receive more votes there than President Donald Trump.

According to a draft copy of the findings obtained by NPR member station KJZZ, a hand recount of the nearly 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County hewed closely to the official canvass of the results approved by county leaders.

In fact, the new hand recount for Biden exceeded the county's tally by 99 votes, while Trump received 261 fewer votes than the official results.

Randy Pullen, a spokesman for the election review, confirmed the validity of the draft. "It's not the final report, but it's close," he said Thursday.

The draft copy was obtained by KJZZ from a source familiar with the review less than 24 hours before a scheduled presentation in the Arizona state Senate. The contractors hired to conduct the review will explain their findings.

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Pullen said other reports that will be presented in detail Friday have not been leaked and that "anomalies" found in voting records are vast enough to cast doubt on the final vote count — despite the hand recount's confirmation of the result.

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:
What a waste of time.

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Former President Donald Trump on Thursday accused Democrats of seeking to distract from the release of the result of the controversial vote audit in Maricopa County, Arizona.

But he appears to have launched the attack unaware that details of the audit had already been released, and that the audit had confirmed that President Joe Biden was the victor.

In the statement late Thursday, Trump hit out at the House of Representatives commission investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, which on Thursday subpoenaed allies and aides of the president.

Trump said the move was timed to distract from the expected release on Friday of the result of the Maricopa County audit by the contractors Cyber Ninjas.

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"Interesting that the Unselect Committee of political hacks 'dropped' their subpoena request the night before Arizona is expected to announce its findings from the Forensic Audit on voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election Scam," Trump said in his original statement, which was sent around 11 p.m. ET on Thursday.

"This is what they do, this is what they are good at — but everybody will be watching Arizona tomorrow to see what the highly respected auditors and Arizona State Senate found out regarding the so-called Election!" the statement continued.

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Former President Donald Trump backpedaled from praising a group of "highly respected" GOP auditors in Arizona after their audit of the state's election results confirmed that Joe Biden won the general election. Trump also released a misleading statement on Friday morning that said the audit found "significant and undeniable evidence of FRAUD!"

The statement was contradicted by a spokesperson for Cyber Ninjas, who earlier told an NPR affiliate in Arizona: "Was there massive fraud or anything? It doesn't look like it."