The constitutional deadline for certifying election results, choosing electors, casting their ballots and certifying the election has long passed. And while it is not unprecedented for states to continue to audit ballots well after the deadline, there is nothing that an audit can do to change certified election results at this point.
But the Arizona Senate, which is embarrassing the entire state, continues to press forward with the uncertified, unproven, inexperienced Cyber Ninjas looking for the massive voter fraud that Donald Trump has been lying about for years. Cyber Ninjas is owned by a conspiracy theorist who has echoed Trump's false claim that the election was stolen, Doug Logan. So whatever result they come up with can't be trusted.
During the course of their audit, which has been plagued by breaking every rule the state has in place for conducting election audits, they have moved three times (a violation of the state's rules), improperly stored and handled ballots, (they are still the property of the state and the failure to handle them properly by Cyber Ninjas, which was well documented, carries criminal charges), allowed unauthorized persons into areas where ballots and counting machines were located, locked out the only person experienced to conduct an audit, former Secretary of State Ken Bennett who then said he wasn't going to put his stamp of approval on it, brokethe disclosure rules on twitter multiple times, and failled to produce certification to conduct an audit which was required in order to handle ballots and voting materials like machines and counters, which also violates election law in Arizona. But they still want you to trust their results, not those of the two certified, experienced, state authorized auditors who conducted two previous audits and certified the vote totals as accurate.
But the real news here, the one fact that makes it clear that this audit is nothing but a phony fraud being perpetrated by conspiracy theorists, and that its results will not in any way reflect the actual vote totals of Maricopa County's voters, is the fact that it is being financed almost entirely by Trump supporters. That word came out this week when Logan admitted that he's received more than $5 million from Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Patrick Byrne and correspondents from the America One network. Only $150,000 came from the state of Arizona.
Well, certified auditors, bi-partisan, experienced and fair, who had already been through the Maricopa County ballots twice and found no "massive fraud" or fraud, period, are too honest to lie, even if the pay was good. And the claim of voter fraud are a lie unsupported by any evidence. So basically this whole drawn out process, which has already passed the deadline set in place for completion by the senate, is a money-making scheme for a Trumpie conspiracy theorist.
That's it. They are working to undermine confidence in America's elections to make money for themselves. That's Trumpism at its core.
Months of work, and the final result doesn't do anything to the election results at all. Biden's legitimate victory in Arizona, a narrow one but significant in what used to be a reliably Republican state, will stand as it was certified, a 10,000+ margin over Trump that gave him the states' eleven electoral votes. Regardless of what the phony audit claims, that's what history records. Even if the Cyber Ninjas say that they didn't find fraud and their results match the county's and the two legitimate audits and the recount's tallies, Trumpies won't believe it. If their findings are different, no one will believe it anyway, except the Trumpies. Well, at least then the Trump supporters who coughed up $5 million to pay for it get exactly what they paid for, the word of a lying conspiracy theorist who just scammed them supporting the word of a pathologically lying former President.
You can't make this stuff up. And it gets better.
There sits the Arizona Senate, who authorized this, and Senate President Karen Fann (appropriately named I must say) who has continued to support it.
Most of the state's leading Republicans have already gotten as far away from this scam as they could get. The election board in Maricopa County, four Republicans and one Democrat, never got on the Trump train in the first place. The Governor has steered his way around this with big blocks of total silence, happy that he works three miles away from the fairgrounds where the audit is being held and where the press is hanging out.
Republican Senators are now also distancing themselves from the effort, and support even in their closed off group is waning, in part because polling data shows that 87% of Arizona voters say they would not trust the results of this alleged audit, and that is bound to have an impact on how they vote down the road. The avalanche of emails, texts and phone calls into the senators' offices has, in social media terms, "gone viral." The opposition to it has grown to the point where the Senate may not accept the results or allow them to be published once they are complete. There are now enough Republicans openly stating that the audit was a "botch" that, combined with the 14 Democrats who have opposed it from the beginning, the opposition to making it a matter of record and publishing the results is now at least a two-vote majority, with perhaps as many as 5 more Republican senators coming down off the fence to cast a "no" vote.
"There is not even a shred of hope that the audit can be salvaged at this point," said Republican Senator Paul Boyer, who has opposed doing this from the start. "They've botched it at so many points that it's irrecoverable."
Another Republican, Senator Michelle Urgenti-Rita, who has been a strong advocate for the voter restriction laws that were just passed, and who supported this particular audit initially, stated just this past weekend that "I wanted to review our election process to see if anything could be improved. Sadly, it's become clear that the audit has been botched."
More Than Just Public Opinion...
The US Justice Department weighed in this week, warning any other state that wants to conduct an Arizona-style "review" (I'm not calling it an "audit" at this point) must comply with federal law, including "retaining and preserving ballots and ballot materials for 22 months." The Justice Department had already alerted Arizona officials about federal laws earlier, when multiple violations of ballot preservation and access to counting machines, also subject to federal election law, had been reported.
One of the bigger questions looming over this process has to do with who has access to the ballots, voting machines and ballot counting equipment. No one among those handling the ballots, including Logan, was certified to conduct an election audit and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has made it clear that all of the voting and counting machines to which Cyber Ninjas had access will have to be replaced. But apparently both the Justice Department and the state courts see the unauthorized handling of ballots, along with scores of issues when they were laid out and being counted, is not consistent with their definition of "ballot preservation."
A series of subpoenas and court orders issued last week are an indication of what is to come. It seems what's now being called a "botch" includes improper preservation and handling of state property, questions around the lack of certification of anyone handling ballots and machines, the three-time relocation of all of the ballots and materials, the fact that one of the people allowed in the counting area was a former state legislator who had lost his Maricopa county seat in this election and was thus given access to ballots pertaining to his own race (no ulterior motives there, huh? ;-) ) and that people filming an election conspiracy documentary were allowed in without supervision.
People of Arizona, this is on your state senate and its leadership.
Hold Your Elected Officials Accountable
It's pretty clear that there has been a barrage of negative response raining down on Republican state senators in Arizona over the ridiculousness and incredulous stupidity involved in allowing a Trump-funded campaign contributor to conduct a "fair" audit of ballots looking for "massive voter fraud." It's encouraging to see the courts ramp up, especially the Justice Department, and step in as necessary protection of people's right to vote. But ultimately, accountability for this mess belongs to the state senators who voted for it.
First of all, these people think that the people of Arizona are bottomlessly and hopelessly stupid. In what court of law do you get to render your own verdict?
You have the power to hold these people accountable. Did this bother you? Do you see the problem here? A significantly high percentage of your fellow Arizonans seem to see this as a problem, If you want to make sure that the Republicans in the state senate are held accountable for the mess they have created, the doubt in the trustworthiness of our election process, dabbling in fantasy conspiracy theories instead of the facts, remember this incident. Don't send anyone back to the senate who supported this. And if you don't live in her senate district, send a contribution to Karen Fann's democratic party opponent.
That's not "single issue" voting. The state senators who supported this, after they had all the information and specifically, the truth, have told you by their actions that they are not qualified to serve in public office. Their stance on other issues is irrelevant, they are conspiracy theorist, "kool-aide drinkers" whose judgment disqualifies them to be the people's representative. They are either too partisan and too politically biased to adequately represent their constituents or they are deliberately and purposefully ignorant. Either way, they are not qualified to serve as your legislators and you have the power to vote them out.
No comments:
Post a Comment