Arizona GOP gives election audit results

At the start of a public presentation on Friday, Arizona Senate President Karen Fann told attendees to remain calm and civil throughout the unveiling of the highly contentious forensic election audit into Maricopa County’s votes. A leaked draft report found nearly identical results to the county’s original reports from Nov. 2020. Their hand-count and analysis actually found 99 more votes for President Joe Biden and 261 fewer for former President Donald Trump than were originally reported. The audit also counted 994 fewer votes than the county official canvas.

What else did the audit reveal? Doug Logan, CEO of Florida cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas, reported instances of ballots tabulated twice, noncounty voters casting ballots in Maricopa County, and more mail-in ballots received than were sent out. Election officials said these were instances not of fraud but of college students or military members voting from a temporary address or of mail-in ballots with signature problems getting fixed. None of the inconsistencies were significant enough to alter the outcome of the presidential election. Republicans in Texas and Pennsylvania are pursuing similar forensic audits.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Stew on Republican and Democratic responses to Arizona’s election audit.