Last month, the Arizona Senate leadership hired a team of independent auditors to complete a “comprehensive, full forensic audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, including a hand recount of all ballots.” The state Democratic Party tried and failed to stop it, and now it is expanding and may go beyond its original deadline.
“The audit will validate every area of the voting process to ensure the integrity of the vote,” Arizona Senate Republicans said in a statement. “The scope of work will include, but is not limited to, scanning all the ballots, a full manual recount, auditing the registration and votes cast, the vote counts, and the electronic voting system.” According to state-certified results, Biden won the county by just over 45,000 votes and barely won the state by a 10,457-vote margin.
According to the Arizona Republic, the audit may go beyond the original 60-day deadline for a report to be issued, partially due to the fact that the venue for the recount, Veterans Memorial Coliseum, is hosting several local high school graduations.
Senate audit liaison and former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett says that they are doubling the number of counters and expanding to three shifts a day instead of two.
Despite the extra manpower, Bennett wouldn’t estimate how long it will take to complete the recount. “We have as much time as we need to do it right,” he said.
The audit has been the target of a significant amount of criticism from the left and supporters of Joe Biden. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow predicted “disaster” from the audit, and claimed that Trump will use the audit to cast doubt on the results “in a way that none of their failed lawsuits in the past have been able to do.”
But even if the audit were to prove that Trump legitimately won Arizona, that would not be enough to change the outcome of the election. At least two more states would need to be audited and have their results flipped in order for Trump to be proven the legitimate winner of the election.
“The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” President Trump said in a statement released Monday morning.
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