A review of 2.1 million votes cast by Arizona residents in the November presidential election, a review ordered by Republican legislators and which has become former president Trump’s latest obsession, has made the state a national punchline for conspiracy theory jokes.
Despite there being no evidence at all of election fraud, a recount of the votes cast in Maricopa County continues under a cloud of partisan allegations and mounting claims that has no credibility and could violate federal law. The deadline for the results of the review is May 14, but it looks highly unlikely that it will be done by then. In fact, workers will have to remove all the ballots from Veterans Memorial Coliseum this week to make room for high school graduations. No storage facility for all the ballots has been selected yet, a sign of the disorganization that has plagued the audit from the start.
All the attention around the audit has made one state senator regret supporting the recount. Arizona State Senator Paul Boyer, from Phoenix, said the following about the highly-dubious recount.
“It makes us look like idiots. Looking back, I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to be a state senator at this point.”
The credibility of the audit is further damaged by the fact that the Florida agency Cyber Ninjas is run by a person who supported Trump’s false “Stop the Steal” claims.
Some Arizona lawmakers have tried to cast the audit as a way to re-assure voters that the 2020 election was secure, but the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which oversaw the ballot tabulations in November, insists the election count was accurate. Dozens of court cases around the country confirmed there was no voter fraud and no actual evidence has been shown to support Trump’s claims of fraud.