Arizona Vote Review's 'Insane Lies' Blasted by Local G.O.P.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Leaders in Maricopa County, Ariz., are hitting back at Donald J. Trump and fellow party members in the State Senate over a review of the county's ballots.
Arizona Republican Leaders Criticize Election Audit
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which administers elections for the majority of Arizona voters, called the ongoing audit of the county's votes in the 2020 election a "mockery."
"This board is done explaining anything to these people who are playing investigator with our constituents, ballots and equipment, paid for with real people's tax dollars. People's ballots and money are not make-believe. It's time to be done with this craziness and get on with our county's critical business."
"The election wasn't in question until a couple of days after the final vote count. That's when all of a sudden, whoa, there might be problem. We don't like who won the election. So let's call into question. Let's start rumors and unfounded statements and conspiracies. Let's throw these out there. Let's do everything we can to undermine the will of the voter, undermine our democracy. Let's do everything we can. And I don't see this ending, Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, because you have some folks right now that are in control of the Arizona State Senate and it is not elected members of the body."
"The reality is there was doubt cast. So I supported an audit. I supported cooperating with the Senate. What I didn't support is a mockery. And that's what this has become." "We ran a bipartisan, fair election. That's every piece of evidence that I've ever seen put in front of us. We are operating on facts and evidence presented to this board. That's why we certified the vote. That's why we canvass the vote."
By Michael Wines
May 17, 2021
The Republican leaders of Arizona's most populous county issued a blistering rebuke on Monday to a review of the November election that had been ordered by Republicans in the State Senate, calling it "a grift disguised as an audit" that had spun out of the legislators' control.
The senior Republican in Maricopa County, Jack Sellers, the chairman of the board of supervisors, said flatly that the county would stop cooperating with the review and suggested that it would challenge in court any of its conclusions that pointed toward improprieties.
"This board is done explaining anything," Mr. Sellers said at a special meeting of the five-member board, four of whose members are Republicans. "People's ballots and money are not make-believe. It's time to be done with this craziness, and get on with this county's critical business."
It was an extraordinary pushback to an election review that was supposed to placate voters who insisted that Donald J. Trump's narrow loss in the state was a result of fraud, but which has mushroomed into a political spectacle with what experts call serious procedural lapses.
The Maricopa supervisors had resisted the audit since its inception in December, asking a court to decide whether the State Senate could legally take control of election records and equipment governed by strict security safeguards. They had insisted throughout that the county's election — in which Joseph R. Biden Jr. earned a slim majority of 2.1 million total votes — had been among the most secure and smooth in the state's history.
But they were pushed past the breaking point by a letter last week from State Senator Karen Fann, the Senate president, that implied that someone in the county had illegally removed critical election files from equipment and software that the Senate had subpoenaed for examination.
The supervisors learned of the claim when it was posted on a Twitter feed controlled by the review team. Ms. Fann's letter asked the supervisors to address that and other concerns in a meeting with state senators and a liaison to the firms conducting the review — a meeting that was to be livestreamed by the far-right cable channel One America News.
"This board was going to be part of a political theater," one Republican supervisor and former chairman of the board, Bill Gates, said. "The Arizona Senate is better than that. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is better than that. And I am not going to be a part of that."
Mr. Trump had seized on the deleted-file claim over the weekend, calling it "devastating" evidence of irregularities in the vote. That led the county's top election official, Stephen Richer, to call Mr. Trump's online comment "unhinged."
"We can't indulge these insane lies any longer," Mr. Richer wrote on Twitter. "As a party. As a state. As a country. This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5."
Three times, the county has investigated and upheld the integrity of the November vote, which was supervised by Mr. Richer's predecessor, a Democrat.
On Monday, Mr. Richer summarized a 13-page letter being sent to Ms. Fann rebutting the claim of deleted files and other issues she had raised. In a number of cases, he said, the firms conducting the review had leaped to wrong conclusions because they had no serious experience in auditing election results.
The Florida firm hired by the State Senate to oversee the audit, Cyber Ninjas, is run by a chief executive who has touted conspiracy theories that rigged voting machines cost Mr. Trump victory in Arizona.
The unproven suggestion of impropriety in the November election raises the prospect that an exercise dismissed by serious observers as transparently partisan and flawed could become a potent weapon in the continuing effort by Mr. Trump and his followers to undermine the legitimacy of the vote in Arizona, and perhaps elsewhere.
The review has no formal electoral authority and will not change the results in Arizona, no matter what it finds. President Biden would have won the national election even if Mr. Trump had earned Arizona's 11 electoral votes.
One poll by High Ground, a Phoenix firm known for its political surveys, concluded this spring that 78 percent of Arizona Republicans believe Mr. Trump's false claims that Mr. Biden did not win the November election. A recent Monmouth University poll found that almost two-thirds of Republicans nationally believe that Mr. Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election. More than six in 10 Americans overall believe that he did.
Beyond the dispute over supposedly deleted files, Ms. Fann is also pressing the county and the manufacturer of its voting machines, Dominion Voting Systems, to release passwords for vote tabulating machines and county-operated internet routers.
Dominion, which has been fighting a series of election-fraud conspiracy theories promoted by Trump supporters and pro-Trump news outlets, has said it will cooperate with federally certified election auditors. But it has spurned the firms hired to conduct the Arizona vote review, whose track record in election audits is scant at best.
Maricopa County officials have refused to turn over router passwords, which the auditors say they need to determine whether voting machines were connected to the internet and subject to hacking. County officials say past audits have settled that question. The county sheriff, Paul Penzone, called the demand for passwords "mind-numbingly reckless," saying it would compromise law enforcement operations unrelated to the election.
The election review was born in December as an effort by Republican senators to placate voters who had embraced Mr. Trump's lie that Mr. Biden's 10,457-vote victory in the state was a fraud. Maricopa County, where two-thirds of the state's votes were cast, was chosen in part because Republicans refused to believe that Mr. Biden had scored a 45,109-vote victory in a county that once was solid G.O.P. territory.
What once seemed an effort to mollify angry supporters of Mr. Trump, however, has become engulfed in acrimony as Ms. Fann and other state senators have steered the review in a decidedly partisan direction by hiring Cyber Ninjas, granting One America News and pro-Trump figures broad access to the process, and allowing a "stop the steal" advocate who had participated in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol to be hired for a vote recount.
An accounting of the review's finances remains cloudy, but far-right supporters, including One America News, have raised funds on its behalf. Nonpartisan election experts and the Justice Department have cited troubling indicators that the review is open to manipulation and ignores the most basic security guidelines.
Most Arizona Republican officials who have spoken publicly have doggedly supported the review. But State Senator Paul Boyer, a Republican from a suburban Phoenix district evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, made headlines last week after saying that the conduct of the review made him embarrassed to serve in the State Senate.
State Senator T.J. Shope, another Republican from a Phoenix swing district, has been more circumspect, saying he believed that Mr. Biden's election was legitimate but that he had been too busy to follow the controversy. But in a Twitter post on Saturday, he wrote that Mr. Trump was "peddling in fantasy" by suggesting that the county's election records had been nefariously deleted.
The Maricopa County vote review has been forced to suspend operations this week while the Phoenix work site, a suburban coliseum, is cleared out to host high school graduations. Mr. Sellers, the chairman of the board of supervisors, said on Monday that he hoped the pushback against Ms. Fann's claims would end her concerns.
"I will not be responding to any more requests from this sham process," he said. "Finish what you call an audit and be ready to defend your report in a court of law. We all look forward to it."
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The Republican Party in Arizona is split in half over this sham recount. Good job Trump. You will make it easier for the Democrats to hold their U.S. Senate seats and win the presidential votes there in the future.
I really don't think any of this will be an issue in the 2022 campaign. Kiss the Senate and the House good-by.
This ridiculous farce of a recount is not going to strengthen the GOP in Arizona. If anything it will do the opposite.
Vic, seriously, as a loyal Republican aren't you embarrassed to see your party make fools out of themselves like we see in Arizona ?
You also thought Biden's mental acuity would be a winning issue for Donnie in 2020 ... stop thinking, predictions are not your strong suit.
No I didn't. I referred to Biden's mental acuity as a reason for his selection as DNC nominee. A perfect vessel for the left.
predictions are not your strong suit.
Knock on wood so far!
Your wood has termites, do not knock on it.
You are right about one thing John - a recount is not going to tell us how the sausage was made. It will only confirm the final tally. What was needed in 2020 was for State Legislatures to assert their sole authority over election law. That being said, there is nothing sinister about having another recount. You may recall there were many when Trump won in 2016.
No, there is nothing wrong with Vic's wood!
No I dont recall . The idea that Democrats in 2016 carried on anywhere near what has happened since Nov 3, 2020 is just another "Big Lie" to go alongside all the other Republican big lies.
Like you could get her!
Too much information Vic.
After several recounts and how many audits???????????????
Trumpturd LOST Bigly. GET OVER IT!
So that's what you really look like, where is the Q tattoo?
Shall I refresh your memory? It started with pressuring Jill Stein:
Following the 2016 presidential election, two states—Wisconsin and Nevada—conducted recounts after receiving requests from candidates. Neither recount changed the election outcome. Below is a brief look at those recounts, who requested them, and what effect they had on vote totals
Wisconsin
Green Party candidate Jill Stein requested a full recount in Wisconsin on Nov. 25, saying the election had been hacked. Prior to the recount, Donald Trump (R) led Hillary Clinton (D) by 27,257 votes. The recount began on Dec. 1 and finished on Dec. 12. As a result, Clinton gained 713 votes and Trump gained 844, adding 131 votes to his margin of victory.
Nevada
Partly in response to Stein’s requested recount in Wisconsin, Reform Party candidate Rocky De La Fuente requested a partial recount of four counties and Carson City, Nevada, on Nov. 29. The recount began on Dec. 5 and finished on Dec. 8. As a result, Trump lost six votes and Clinton lost nine, subtracting three votes from her margin of victory.
Stein also requested recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania but neither was completed. In Michigan, Stein ended her request after a series of court challenges, which involved a state ruling that Stein had no standing to request a recount. In Pennsylvania, Stein withdrew her request amid additional court challenges.
According to a study by FairVote, between 2000 and 2015, there were 4,687 statewide general elections, 27 of which (0.58%) resulted in statewide recounts. Of those 27, three changed the election outcome: Minnesota’s 2008 U.S. Senate election, Vermont’s 2006 State Auditor election, and Washington’s 2004 gubernatorial election. None of those three swung the winning candidate by more than 500 votes. FairVote describes itself as a “nonpartisan champion of electoral reforms that give voters greater choice, a stronger voice, and a representative democracy that works for all Americans.”
And then there was this:
Information should be your friend, Tess.
Bend over
now you're gonna make them jealous!
I wonder why they are so concerned with your sex life?
Don't have one of their own?
"No, there is nothing wrong with Vic's wood!"
TMI.
Sounds like you're overcompensating.
Aren't those little blue pills expensive?
I'm sure you've never laid hands on the woman in that photo. Or anything else.
the 2024 trump campaign slogan
No one was referring to your sex life.
That's on you.
and you think that is on the same scale as what Trump , Giuliani, Sidney Powell, the Pillow Man, Sean Hannity, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and a cast of thousands of rioters did for months (and are still doing) ?
Pathetic.
Tramp stamp.
47 TinEye search results
That really gets them going. It's never the substance of an article!
Wow! /S
I saw rioters burn, loot and murder for a year. Blue state governors and mayors condoned it. Where was the application of federal law when it came to rioting. Why aren't democrats enforcing laws?
Oh, wow, you can google. How about supporting your arguments?
That's how I feel about your 'articles'.
No susbstance.
No facts.
Just projection, deflection, denial.
Arizona is not purple. Parts are red and parts are blue. Maricopa County (Phoenix) is blue and getting bluer. The "audit" will be the Dems' hobby-horse all the way through 2022.
The Maricopa Republican Party must join in the condemnation of the "audit", if they want to still exist after 2022.
Why are you always going off topic on other peoples' articles?
Shame.
some seem way too interested in looks and the sex lives of others
I always support my arguments Vic. I hesitate to go trough the laundry list of all the ways Trump is incredibly unfit for office, yet again, because it is a waste of time to put such information in front of some people.
Maybe for fun I will post Keith Olberman's 176 reasons Trump is not fit to be president ( and that was from 2016 !!!!!) .
Here is a teaser sample
The Republican party has actually nominated for president a man who attacked the Pope .
Who attacked John McCain for being captured by the North Vietnamese.
Who attacked Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan and then juxtaposed their names with the phrase "Radical Islamic Terrorism."
Who attacked Hillary Clinton as a "bigot." Who attacked her as " brainwashed ." As " unhinged ." As " a monster ." As " the devil ." As " the most corrupt candidate ever "—showing her face on piles of hundred-dollar bills and the Star of David.
Who attacked her as someone whom " Second Amendment people " should do something about. As someone whose religion "we don't know anything about"—after he explained he had never asked God for forgiveness .
Who attacked President Obama and implied he was a traitor . Who attacked him as having been complicit in the Orlando terrorist attack. Who attacked him for having lower approval ratings than Vladimir Putin, as if Putin's could be trusted. Who attacked him as being born in another country . Who attacked him as the founder of ISIS , then said it was sarcasm , then said it wasn't sarcasm , then attacked him again as the founder of ISIS .
Who attacked Carly Fiorina for her face ; Hillary Clinton for her non-presidential " look "; Heidi Cruz for her appearance ; Megyn Kelly for having "blood coming out of her wherever"; Mika Brzezinski as " crazy and very dumb ," " neurotic ," " not very bright ."
Who attacked the women who accused Roger Ailes of harassment.
Who attacked the women who choose abortion—and said there should be punishments .
Who attacked a New York Times reporter because he had a condition that made his arms look atypical; who attacked Judge Gonzalo Curiel because he was of Mexican descent; who attacked Senator Elizabeth Warren over allegedly lying about her heritage to get into Harvard when she never went to Harvard; who attacked Senator Jeff Flake by saying he won't be re-elected this year, when he isn't up for election until 2018.
The Republican Party has actually nominated for president a man who attacked U.S. troops in Iraq and claimed they stole millions; who has attacked Ted Cruz's father and claimed he was connected to the assassination of President Kennedy; attacked Bill Clinton and claimed he was a rapist.
Who attacked Mexicans as rapists, bringing drugs and crime; who attacked African-Americans and claimed they were all living in poverty with no jobs and schools that were no good; who attacked Harrisburg, Pennsylvania , as a "war zone" and attacked the United States of America and claimed it is in a "death spiral."
The Republican Party has actually nominated for president a man who lied about opposing the war in Iraq, when there is a tape of him supporting it. A tape recorded on the first anniversary of 9/11…
Who lied about opposing the war in Iraq during a speech in which he insisted, "I will never lie to you."
Who lied about six million dollars in charitable donations to veterans’ groups from his telethon; who lied about donating his profits from The Apprentice , about charitable donations from The Celebrity Apprentice , and from " Trump the Game " to St. Jude Cancer Center .
176 Reasons Donald Trump Shouldn't Be President | GQ
Just from this minute sample it is completely obvious that Trump was a man of incredibly low character who should never been allowed within a hundred miles of the White House.
And there are four more years (and counting) of examples .
Seems to me, the more the R party engages in acts of partisan stupidity the less likely they will be to attract independent votes and energize the portion of the R base that is still rational. That could easily keep them as the minority party for several election cycles.
My advice is to rid themselves of Trump, focus on finding a decent person as a leader and work on restoring their damaged integrity.
They are doing the opposite.
Exactly.
Basically these extreme (and totally nutty) antics will have only one significant effect. They will split the Republican Party...and seriously hurt their chances in the next election.
As it is written:
A house divided cannot stand.
It's not just in Arizona that they're doing these sham/bogus recounts.
Why would he be? He isn't when he does it here.
There have been so many so far...what if there's another recount and it shows the Republicans did even worse than the results shown in all the previous recounts?
Would you then request yet another recount?
How many recounts do you want? (It seems pretty obvious that you would continually request more recounts...until you finally get one where the Republicans eke out a tiny victory...then of course you will say that there's no longer any need for a recount!
C'mon Vic-- do you actually believe people won't see through the Republican strategy of calling for numerous recounts 'til they get one that shows them winning?
And then there was the undeniable reason why he should have been President.
His policies.
Whatever the R party does, the D party is in power and based on the policies the nation has been subjected to thus far, they will lose both houses of congress in two years.
No
How many recounts do you want?
None
It's all about policy, John.
Let us make it simple for our readers:
It must become one or the other..
Your meme lies almost as much as Trump does.
At any rate, Trump is not fit to hold office in the United States of America, and never has been.
The D party is a different subject. Do you approve of the R party continuing to rally behind Trump instead of breaking free of him and his lies and starting the process of repairing its integrity?
The policies of the R party do not require Trump.
What a pile of shit/lies in that trumpturd column! Who made that up?
We're still waiting on that affordable health care plan from the former trumpturd criminal enterprise administration
Do you really hope to get a straight answer?
It is like mining for gold.
It is hard to get into the mind of the Rs who continue to support Trump. And even worse is to continue to give credence to his failed election integrity con-job. How can they not see how this continues to damage the party?
fool's gold
Perhaps because there is no mind to get into?
Which only reinforces my previous statement.
No, just fools!
They should have never released the ballots to these thugs.
Why isn't the DOJ looking into this?
Voting is purely state run, but I wouldn't be surprised if DOJ isn't at least watching this sham.
Whoever funded this sham are a bunch of morons!
Check this out!
Doesn't their own State have a Justice Department that should be looking into this?
I'm pretty ignorant on how these things work.
[deleted]
A republican run Justice Department. The recount has been authorized and paid for by the republican government of Florida. Once completed, I am sure there will be multiple lawsuit since the sham recount will undoubtedly show whatever they want it to show.
Seems that our NT Trumpettes are in support of the AZ nut cases.
Anyone supporting this sham is a whackjob, trash, scum, vermin
They support them in every state.
WHAT??? No bamboo flakes? How about vodka watermarks?