It’s Over! Audit Ringleader Says 2020 Election Was Legit

Ken Bennett, the state Senate liaison for the Maricopa audit, said definitively that the 2020 election in Arizona was legitimate. Trump lost. Biden won. Fair and square.

“There was no substantial difference between the hand count of the ballots and the official canvas at Maricopa county,” he said. “And there is no reliable evidence that the paper ballots were altered to any material degree. I believe that that says that there was not any manipulation of the ballot.”

Bennett was the spokesman for the Cyber Ninja audit circus that started on April 22, 2021, and finished on September 24, 2021, with a report that the audit affirmed Biden’s win, didn’t prove voter fraud, and disproved Trump’s lies the election was stolen.

In other words, the audit was a failure, a complete waste of time, and it squandered about $6 million donated by Trump supporters. The audit was a piece of theater that was designed to do one thing: create doubt. And it failed to do that. Judging by the sparse turnout at Bennett’s “What Happened at the Audit” town hall in Tucson on Tuesday, there really isn’t much interest in the audit anymore, even from rabid Trumpers.

He spoke at a remote airport motel funded by “Look Ahead Arizona,” a six-month-old organization for “patriots” who fight “The progressive left’s dominance” and seek exoneration of the January 6 Capitol rioters.

Bullet-headed Matt Braynard from the group was the host for the evening. At the start, he said “that there’s going to be some angry questions” but there was only one. Actually, it was two women talking at the same time in broken English that Trump won.

More noticeable was that the microphone kept failing while people were speaking.

A one-time Trump campaign data analyst, Braynard uses his position to get lucrative expert witness gigs that pay from $40,000 to $150,000, according to Mother Jones. But his wild claims about election fraud have been dismissed by the courts and denounced as inaccurate and flawed by an election expert at Harvard.

People lined up to ask questions, including Shelley Kais, the Chair of the Pima County GOP. She appeared in an enormous red dress, and claimed, “Right now today in Pima county, we have 51,646 people who have not voted since 2018, that should be removed from the voter rolls. They should not be allowed to vote.”

Bennet told her, “That’s not the way state laws are written.”

Undeterred, Kais barged ahead, saying, “Our county Recorder said that she will not remove their names. The fact that they have not voted since 2018 is not a reason for removing them from the voter rolls. What recourse do we have when we have elected officials that will not follow the law?” She cited the “code of federal regulations” as her legal authority.

Bennet said she was out of luck.

2020 election was valid

Bennett insisted that the audit “was succeeding” and had been sent to Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich for further investigation “and enforcement.” But in reality the audit is going nowhere. Brnovich certified the 2020 election results and has openly said that Trump lost. Brnovich is going through the motions of seeking more documents from the Maricopa Supervisors. Regardless of what he obtains, it will not change the 2020 election outcome.

Michael Bryan, the founder of the Blog for Arizona, grilled Bennet: “Do you agree with President Trump, Kari Lake, and others who insist that the state of Arizona was stolen and actually voted for Trump? Bennett responded, “No, I don’t agree. Trump lost by 45,300 votes.”

Bennett reiterated that the 2020 election was valid, making admissions at various points that:

• “It’s unlikely that anybody manipulated the votes.”
• He rejected January 6 riot attendee Mark Finchem‘s request for an audit of deep-blue Pima County. “I don’t think an audit of Pima county is going to change the statewide results,” Bennet said.
• “We hand-counted the ballots. The ballots ended up matching Maricopa county’s original canvas very closely.”
• “The election was not done perfectly, but no election is because elections are administered by human beings and I’m not perfect.”
• He said he had no authority over the audit. “I made the mistake of calling [Senate President Karn Fann] one day and said, I saw the Senate and the [Maricopa] county board of supervisors fighting. I said if there’s anything I can do to help them, she said, would you be the Senate liaison? But I had no authority over any of the things.”

Stay tuned. Bennett’s traveling town hall circus is coming to Scottsdale, Prescott, and Lake Havasu City.