Maricopa County Election Officials Thoroughly Rebut GQP Sham ‘Fraudit’

Update to Maricopa County Election Officials To Present Point-By-Point Rebuttal To GQP Sham ‘Fraudit’ Today.

The AP reports, Election officials rebut Arizona ballot review claims:

Election officials in Arizona’s most populous county on Wednesday presented a point-by-point rebuttal of claims made in a partisan review of the 2020 election that former President Donald Trump and many of his supporters have used to promote the myth that Trump lost because of fraud.

Election administrators and the mostly Republican leaders of Maricopa County have always maintained that the review, conducted by Trump supporters on behalf of state Senate Republicans, was deeply flawed.

The detailed response presented in a public meeting of the county Board of Supervisors on Wednesday rebutted virtually all the claims made by contractors hired by the state Senate to review its election procedures, equipment, voter registration rolls and ballot tabulation.

The report said that after “an in-depth analysis and review of the reports and presentations issued by the Senate’s contractors, we determined that nearly every finding included faulty analysis, inaccurate claims, misleading conclusions, and a lack of understanding of federal and state election laws.”

“It’s my hope this will be the last word on the November 2020 election,” Republican board Chairman Bill Gates said at the start of the hearing.

The county experts did find some issues when they analyzed claims in the Senate report. The county review validated only a handful of the 33,000 ballots that the Senate report said could have been illegally cast because voters had moved prior to the election.

Five voters were identified as having voted in more than one county, and six people may have voted twice in Maricopa County. The county report also found 27 cases where ballots were counted that were cast by people who died before they were returned in the mail; those were referred to the state attorney general for more investigation and possible prosecution.

If this investigation is consistent with what we have seen in other states, the AG will find that these multiple votes were cast for Donald Trump. For example, Pennsylvania: PA Lt. Guv Trolls Republicans on Voter Fraud: Trump Got ‘100% of the Dead Mother Vote’; Florida: The Villages sees a voter-fraud outbreak — with a MAGA twist.

The county is reviewing another 100 cases involving people who died close to the election but still cast ballots. The Senate report had identified 298 voters who had potentially cast a ballot but died before the election.

Just to be clear, if you vote early by mail or in person and then you die before election day, your ballot is valid and counted. There is nothing illegal about this. You were alive when you cast your ballot.

In all, the county found 38 instances were a ballot may have been illegally cast, and all have been sent to the attorney general’s office.

The county report also said that election workers had inadvertently double counted a batch of 50 ballots.

But the number of vote counting errors and potential illegal votes would not have affected the outcome of the election. President Joe Biden won Maricopa County by about 45,000 votes, key to his 10,500-vote win of Arizona. Previous reviews of the 2.1 million county ballots by nonpartisan professionals that followed state law have found no significant problem with the vote count in the county, which includes metro Phoenix.

The Senate report was overseen by Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based company with no election review experience. Its CEO, Doug Logan, [a QAnon conspiracy theorist] previously worked with attorneys and Trump supporters trying to overturn the 2020 election and appeared in a film questioning the results of the contest while the ballot review was ongoing.

The Senate’s closely watched ballot review ended in September without producing proof to support Trump’s claims of a stolen election. Experts described the report presented by Cyber Ninjas as riddled with errors, bias and flawed methodology.

Still, Republican Sedition Party Senate President Karen Fann asked GOP Attorney General Mark Brnovich to investigate issues raised in the report. That review is ongoing, and a spokeswoman for Brnovich declined comment.

The review began with a sweeping subpoena issued by Senate Republican leaders in late 2020 as Trump and his allies searched in vain for evidence to support his claim the election was stolen. The subpoena demanded access to all 2.1 million ballots, the machines that counted them and troves of digital election data from Maricopa County, home to 60% of Arizona voters.

The Cyber Ninjas report confirmed Biden’s narrow victory in Maricopa County but claimed a number of shortcomings in election procedures and suggested the final tally still could not be relied upon. Trump has repeatedly pointed to those claims in his rallies and public statements.

Cyber Ninjas and other contractors alleged that election computers were connected to the internet, that there were tens of thousands of potentially illegally cast ballots and that the county purged computer files that could contain evidence of fraud.

Wednesday’s county rebuttal said all those claims were false or misleading, and the changing vote-counting procedures left even the hand recount suspect.

“If you are biased or not using an objective process, you’re likely to come to a faulty conclusion,” said Scott Jarrett, director of the county Elections Department.

The Republic’s Laurie Roberts opines, Maricopa County delivers a K.O. punch to Senate audit. Trump believers don’t feel a thing:

Within moments of Maricopa County releasing its 93-page, point-by-point debunking of the Senate’s audit of the 2020 election, state Republican Party Chairwoman “Chemtrails” Kelli Ward was already dismissing the findings.

[G]ee, what a shock.

The head of the Arizona Republican Party, a politically ambitious politician who has built herself a national following by outright lying about the election, refuses even to consider the county’s response to the Cyber Ninja audit.

At a time when many Republican leaders can’t even bring themselves to see the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol as a problem, really is it any surprise that they can’t bring themselves to admit that maybe, just maybe, nothing nefarious happened on Nov. 3, 2020?

That their guy just plain lost?

53,000 ballots cast, 83 possible errors found
(0.00156603773 percent of ballots)

For those who are interested in facts, the county spent three months reviewing the claims made by the Senate’s auditors …

… That more than 53,000 ballots were potentially suspicious. That tabulation machines were connected to the internet. That election files were intentionally deleted. That early ballots were accepted with suspicious or even no voter signatures.

The Republican-controlled county’s conclusion: “We determined that nearly every finding included faulty analysis, inaccurate claims, misleading conclusions and a lack of understanding of federal and state election laws.”

The county did find a few questionable ballots out of the 2.1 million cast.

That included 37 cases of potential voter fraud and 50 instances in which a ballot may have been counted twice.

That’s a phenomenally low error rate, one the county says affected the outcome of precisely zero races. Even so, county elections officials should redouble their efforts to catch these sorts of problems in future elections.

If Brnovich could find a crime, he would

As for the 37 cases of potential fraud, the county has asked Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich aka “Nunchucks” (or is it numbnuts?) to investigate.

Already, Brnovich, who is running for the Senate in a crowded GOP primary, has been investigating for the last three months. This, at the request of Senate President Karen Fann, who requested a review upon release of the audit in September.

Given the pressure Brnovich is under to put elections officials in jail, you’d think he would have indicted somebody by now.

If he could find evidence of a crime, that is.

One would hope now that the county’s report – delivered 424 days after the election – would put an end to the hysteria over Donald Trump’s loss. That Arizona’s leaders could move on real issues, such as the need to better educate our children in the wake of a pandemic that sent academic achievement plummeting.

The county supervisors’ new chairman certainly thinks it should.

“It’s my hope that this will be the last word on the November 2020 election,” Chairman Bill Gates, a Republican, said at the beginning of Wednesday’s hearing on the county’s findings.

‘The last word’ on the election? If only

Don’t bet on it, sir.

The Arizona Legislature convenes on Monday with plans for all manner of election “reforms” to a system that … worked.

And lest you think your fellow Republicans may tread lightly given their slim control of the Legislature and an election that’s coming like a freight train?

The new GQP gerrymandered districts approved a few weeks ago by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission likely assure Republican control of the Legislature for the foreseeable future.

So, to recap. Republicans got their “full forensic audit” that alleged no voter fraud, only “anomalies” that auditors said called into question the legitimacy of more than 53,000 votes. Now they have the county’s explanation of those anomalies and its conclusion, that 87 of the county’s 2.1 million votes are questionable.

This, in a county that Trump lost by more than 45,000 votes.

Cost thus far to taxpayers: $4 million. And counting.

The Arizona Republican Party and each of the 16 Senate Republicans who authorized this GQP sham “fraudit” should be held indiividually and jointly liable for the cost of their partisan sham “fraudit” and related attorneys fees and costs. Not one dime of taxpayer money should be spent on their partisan Big Lie election fraud.

If Arizona had a real Attorney General doing his job to protect Arizona citizens against fraud, he would be suing the Trump campaign, the RNC, the Arizona Republican Party, and all 16 Republican Senators who authorized this GQP sham “fraudit” for perpetrating a fraud to shake down Trump supporters and relieve them of their money (wire fraud, mail fraud), and misuse of taxpayer money. Don’t hold your breath.

There’s money to raise, outrage to stoke

Still to come, yet another investigation (the third? the fourth?) into whether the county’s tabulation equipment was connected to the internet.

In a deal the county cut with Senate President Karen Fann, former Rep. John Shadegg is overseeing that investigation for the low, low price to taxpayers of $500 an hour.

Meanwhile, there is money to be raised and outrage to stoked and political careers to build.

“Bill Gates says he hopes that Maricopa County’s ‘report’ will be the last word on #AmericasAudit,” Ward tweeted. “Don’t count on it.”

And on and on it goes.

Grifters are gonna grift. It is all just a grift of Trump cult members by QAnon conspiracy theorists. Shake down the rubes and relieve them of their money. That’s fraud. Now don’t you rubes feel stupid? And taken advantage of? You should feel embarrassed and angry that you were taken advantage of in this way. Pull your heads out of your ass and stop giving your money to these shameless grifters.

You should also consider suing them for fraud if you gave them any money. AG “Nunchucks” will be of no assistance to you. His office has been completely politicized. Contact your local field office of the Department of Justice or FBI.