On the eve of the anniversary of the January 6th riots, the Republican-led local government of Maricopa County Arizona released a 93 page affirming that there was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. From the Washington Post coverage:
The 93-page document debunks, one by one, vague allegations of potential problems previously identified by the GOP-led state Senate and championed by former President Donald Trump and his allies. County officials said the blunt rebuttal, released on the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was intended to highlight the ongoing dangers of unfounded claims of mass election fraud.
In part, this report was prompted by a previous report issued by the Republican-led Arizona State Senate on the election. While the Senate report affirmed the Maricopa County Election Results–that Biden received more than 45,000 votes more than Trump in the county–Cyber Ninjas, the inexperienced auditing firm* hired by Senate Republicans, claimed to have found a number of inconsistencies. Again, from the Washington Post:
[T]he Senate’s contractors also identified various potential problems, including suggesting that tens of thousands of ballots might have been improperly accepted and counted, and that county officials might have improperly deleted data after the election.
The new report, produced by the Maricopa County Elections Department, concluded that the work of the private contractors hired by the GOP-led state Senate amounted to “faulty analysis, inaccurate claims, misleading conclusions” and was based on “a lack of understanding of federal and state election laws.”
It found that of the claims made by the Senate and its contractors, 22 were “misleading,” 41 were “inaccurate” and 13 were “demonstrably false.”
The report found that even the contractors’ hand recount, which involved weeks of work by dozens of workers in colorful shirts toiling on the floor of a former NBA basketball arena, was marred by problems.
Washington Post
The Maricopa report is the latest in a long string of investigations into former President Trump and various state and national Republican leaders’ continued lies about widespread voted fraud and other forms of election tampering. Tax-payer-funded investigations have been undertaken in swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin, in Red states like Texas, and surprise Blue states like Georgia. While these and other investigations have identified cases of individuals illegally voting (intentionally and unintentionally)–the AP identified only 475 cases of potential voter fraud in battleground Biden states–none have provided any evidence of widespread tampering or even enough illegal voting to sway the election results. In fact, the New York Times called election officials in every state and not a single one could produce evidence of rampant voter fraud.
Additionally, the President and his supporters have yet to win any of the court cases** they have brought around the election results. In fact, a number of those supporters including Rudy Guiliani, Sydney Powell, and Lin Wood have the dubious honor of receiving a rare federal court sanction for submitting a frivolous lawsuit in Michigan. They are also awaiting news on sanctions in other states. And of course, there is the looming civil suit that Dominion Voting Systems has brought against the above and a number of other parties (including Fox News) alleging defamation over their spread of the Big Lie.
And yet, in the face of all of this evidence, the former President and his supporters continue to publicly lie that the election was stolen (despite many acknowledging the reality in private). So long as adherence to the big lie (or at least pretending it doesn’t exist) is Republican party orthodoxy, our Democracy remains on poor footing.
* – Cyber Ninjas is a Florida-based computer security firm, owned by a Trump supporter, with no election experience prior to being hired to conduct the audit. And in a sweet bit of grifters getting grifted, they are accusing the Arizona State Senate of failing to pay them for their services.
** – Also note that in those cases, none of the former President’s allies have included any of the more extreme claims of fraud and tampering into the record. This may be due to the legal ramifications of submitting demonstratively false claims to the court.
