A review of the 2020 election in Arizona’s Maricopa County, financed by Republicans, has failed to show that former President Trump was cheated of victory.
At the NABWMT we have been keeping an eagle eye on voting rights and suppression.
The draft report from Cyber Ninjas tallied 99 additional votes for President Biden and 261 fewer votes for Mr. Trump in the region that includes Phoenix. Republican leaders have derided the review.
Mr. Biden won Arizona by roughly 10,500 votes, making his victory of about 45,000 votes in Maricopa County crucial to his win. Under intense pressure from Trump loyalists, the Republican majority in the State Senate had ordered an autopsy of the county’s votes for president.
The review was financed largely by $5.7 million in donations from far-right groups and Mr. Trump’s defenders.
The draft reports noted that there were “no substantial differences” between the new tally of votes and the official count by Maricopa County election officials. One expert and critic of the review who had seen a draft report of the findings called those red herrings.
But if those findings stand, they would amount to a disappointment for candidates with problems with our election fairness.
But the nay sayers fight on! In a statement, Mr. Trump on Friday said the review “has uncovered significant and undeniable evidence of FRAUD! Until we know how and why this happened, our Elections will never be secure.”
Politicians in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have mounted their own Arizona-style investigations. Likewise, the Texas secretary of state’s office on Thursday announced a “comprehensive forensic audit” of the results from four of the state’s largest counties.
Cyber Ninjas, a firm with no prior experience in elections, to oversaw the inquiry.
Republicans in Arizona had been prolific in drafting bills that would affect elections in the state, introducing 57 total bills, 32 of which would have added new restrictions to voting or shifted the balance of power in election administration, according to the Voting Rights Lab, a liberal-leaning voting rights group. Seven of those bills became law.
The report makes further legislative suggestions that would add more restrictions to voting. They include multiple ways to further purge voters from registration rolls, including if entries are not a “direct match” with government-issued identification.
Remember the people who stormed the Capitol believed the election was fraudulent when it was not, and had we had leaders who just accepted the results .
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Source: New York Times