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People
gather
outside
Arizona
Government
building
ahead of
the
announcement
of
interim
findings
from a
widely
criticized
audit of
the 2020
election
in
Phoenix,
Arizona,
September
24,
2021.
(REUTERS/Mike
Blake) |
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FILE -
In this
April
22,
2021,
file
photo,
Cyber
Ninjas
owner
Doug
Logan, a
Florida-based
consultancy,
talks
about
overseeing
a 2020
election
ballot
audit
ordered
by the
Republican
lead
Arizona
Senate
at the
Arizona
Veterans
Memorial
Coliseum,
during a
news
conference
in
Phoenix.
Cyber
Ninjas,
the
inexperienced
contractor
hired to
run a
partisan
review
of the
2020
election
on
behalf
of
Republicans
in the
Arizona
Senate,
is
scheduled
to
present
its
findings
to top
GOP
lawmakers
on
Friday,
Sept.
24,
2021.
Election
experts
say the
review,
funded
almost
entirely
by
supporters
of
former
President
Donald
Trump
who have
promoted
false
claims
of
fraud,
was
beset by
problems
and
incompetence.
(AP
Photo/Ross
D.
Franklin,
File) |
| |
'Huge
defeat
for
Donald
Trump':
Arizona
election
review
reaffirms
Biden
win
reuters.com
MARICOPA
COUNTY,
AZ -
Donald
Trump
lost the
2020
presidential
election
to Joe
Biden in
Arizona's
most
populous
county,
a review
of
results
by
allies
of Trump
in the
Republican
Party
has
reaffirmed,
according
to a
draft
report
of the
findings
seen by
Reuters
on
Friday.
The
report,
prompted
by
Trump's
false
claims
of
widespread
electoral
fraud,
found
that
Biden, a
Democrat,
won
Maricopa
County
despite
Trump's
claims
otherwise.
The
analysis
recorded
99
additional
votes
for
Biden
and 261
fewer
votes
for
Trump.
The
conclusion,
if
confirmed
in an
official
announcement
later on
Friday,
will
disappoint
Trump
supporters
who had
pushed
for the
review,
many in
the
expectation
that it
would
prove
his
claims
he was
robbed
of
victory
due to
widespread
fraud.
"This
was
Donald
Trump's
best
chance
to prove
his
cases of
elections
being
rigged
and
fraudulent
and they
failed,"
Ben
Ginsberg,
a
veteran
Republican
election
lawyer,
said on
a media
call
organized
by the
States
United
Democracy
Center,
a
nonpartisan
policy
group.
"It's a
huge
defeat
for
Donald
Trump."
Having
won
Arizona
and
beaten
Trump
nationwide,
Biden
became
president
on Jan.
20, but
Trump's
baseless
claims
persist.
In
Texas on
Thursday,
the
secretary
of
state's
office
said the
state
had
begun an
audit of
the
presidential
election
in its
four
largest
counties
-
Dallas,
Harris,
Tarrant
and
Collin.
Although
Trump
carried
the
state,
Biden
won
three of
those
counties
under
review.
Hours
before
the
announcement
Trump
publicly
called
on
Republican
Governor
Greg
Abbott
of Texas
to
launch
an
audit.
Harris
County's
elections
administrator,
Isabel
Longoria,
said in
a
statement
that the
audit
was an
attempt
"to
delegitimize
the 2020
election."
BIDEN
VICTORY
REAFFIRMED
In
Arizona,
Biden
won by
just
over
10,000
votes, a
narrow
win
confirmed
by a
hand
recount
and
multiple
post-election
tests
for
accuracy.
Biden
carried
Maricopa,
which
includes
Phoenix,
by about
45,000
votes,
making
it
critical
to his
defeat
of
Trump.
A
wide
array of
election
experts,
Democrats
and some
Republican
officials
had long
rejected
the
Arizona
audit as
a highly
partisan
boondoggle
run by
contractors
without
relevant
expertise
and
people
who were
out to
prove
that
Trump
won,
regardless
of the
facts.
The lead
contractor
is an
obscure
firm,
Cyber
Ninjas,
whose
chief
executive
has
promoted
conspiracy
theories
about
orchestrated
fraud in
the
election.
The
draft
report
by Cyber
Ninjas
"confirms
the
county's
canvass
of the
2020
General
Election
was
accurate,"
Maricopa
County
said on
Twitter,
adding,
however,
that it
was at
the same
time
"littered
with
errors &
faulty
conclusions."
While
finding
the
overall
vote
tallies
largely
matched
up, the
draft
report
highlights
a series
of
alleged
issues,
including
10,342
potential
voters
who
voted in
different
counties,
which
Cyber
Ninjas
termed a
"critical
finding."
As
part of
a
point-by-point
rebuttal
on
Twitter,
Maricopa
County
called
that
claim
"laughable",
suggesting
those
conducting
the
review
may have
failed
to
account
for
people
with
matching
names
and
birth
years in
different
counties,
a not
uncommon
occurrence
in a
state of
more
than 7
million
people.
Trump
allies
had
viewed
the
recount
of 2.1
million
ballots
in
Arizona
as a
model
for
similar
investigations
in
Pennsylvania,
Michigan
and
other
battleground
states
that
Trump
lost.
Trump
himself
had
predicted
the
audit
would
provide
the
evidence
to
support
his
fraud
claims.
So far
no such
proof
has been
produced
either
by Trump
or his
backers.
The
review
has been
marked
by
practices
that
critics
have
described
as
ranging
from
inappropriate
to
bizarre,
including
counters
marking
ballots
with
blue
ink,
which
can
alter
how they
are read
by
machines,
and
workers
checking
for
traces
of
bamboo
fibers
based on
a
conspiracy
theory
that
forged
ballots
may have
been
shipped
in from
Asia.
Trey
Grayson,
a
Republican
and the
former
top
election
official
in
Kentucky,
said the
Arizona
effort
was
marked
by "bias
and
incompetence"
and
hoped it
would
prompt
Republicans
elsewhere
to put a
halt to
similar
initiatives.
"My
hope is
that
people
in other
states
will
look at
this and
say this
isn't
worth
our time
and
effort,"
Grayson
said,
criticizing
the
decision
in Texas
to
"cherry
pick"
mainly
Democratic-leaning
counties
to
review.
"That's
a tell."
The
makeup
of the
audit's
financial
backers
has also
raised
alarms.
Outside
groups
tied to
boosters
of
Trump's
efforts
to
undermine
the 2020
election
results
raised
$5.7
million
for the
audit,
far
surpassing
the
$150,000
contributed
by the
Arizona
Senate,
according
to
financial
disclosures
in June.
In a
statement,
Trump
claimed
the
review
confirmed
that
fraud
had
occurred
and
suggested
the
official
announcement
later on
Friday
would be
"far
different"
from
news
reports
on the
draft
document.
Reporting
by
Nathan
Layne in
Wilton,
Connecticut;
Additional
reporting
by
Joseph
Ax;
Editing
by
Soyoung
Kim,
Howard
Goller
and
Daniel
Wallis
Our
Standards:
The
Thomson
Reuters
Trust
Principles.
Advertise With Us:
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