The Arizona "Audit"

Let's see what the wackos are up to in Arizona...

Arizona’s Far-Right Has Completely Broken With Reality
Right-wing candidates are making the “big lie” about the 2020 election the focus of 2022 races.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/arizona-gop-mark-finchem-kari-lake_n_62b4bafde4b0cf43c861fa3c

Toward the end of a candidate forum put on by a central Arizona GOP club this week, Mark Finchem, a candidate for secretary of state whose views about the 2020 election generally have no basis in reality, told the audience that he had “breaking news” to share.

Finchem then fed the crowd a remarkably brazen lie. He said that Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court had declared — at 10 p.m. EST on a federal holiday, no less — that mail-in ballots were unconstitutional. Finchem offered no further explanation of the major news he claimed had just happened. The crowd cheered and whooped in delight.

“That’s big, ladies and gentleman,” Finchem said, nearly drowned out by applause. “That’s huge. Huge. Wow.”

Was Finchem confused? Probably not. The closest approximation to what Finchem described happened in January, when three judges on a Commonwealth Court did, in fact, strike down Pennsylvania’s no-excuse mail voting law, which passed with bipartisan support in 2019. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf appealed the decision. In March, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania said the law could stay in place during the appeals process to create less confusion ahead of the May 3 primary.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court actually cleared the way for Pennsylvania to count undated mail-in ballots after the GOP Senate primary between Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick came down to just a handful of votes, a ruling that was largely seen as a win for proponents of mail voting.

That was the latest development, however, making what Finchem said neither breaking news nor correct.

It was just one small example of the lies perpetuated by Finchem and other election-deniers running in this year’s midterm elections. And the crowd ate it up, underscoring the degree to which the “big lie” and easily debunked misinformation goes virtually unchallenged in the grassroots GOP.

Finchem, a state House member who has said he aspires to have “one of the most transparent campaigns out there,” didn’t respond to a request through his campaign to clarify what he meant by his “breaking news” about Pennsylvania.

Arizona’s primary is Aug. 2, and in no other state do the tentacles of election conspiracy run as deep as the place that originated an infamous partisan election audit.

Finchem is running to become the state’s top election official with former President Donald Trump’s backing, but his remarks to the group were light on specifics about exactly how he thinks the 2020 election was stolen. The partisan audit sanctioned by the state legislature’s GOP majority actually uncovered more Democratic votes for President Joe Biden. By every metric, Republicans have come up short in proving something sinister happened in the 2020 election beyond their own lies.

“By noon [on Election Day], we knew that something was terribly wrong. We didn’t haven’t to wait for 15 minutes after the polls to close for Fox to call Arizona, we already knew something was terribly wrong. So within about five days, my constituents sent thousands of emails, hundreds of letters ... we lost track of the phone calls begging us to do something,” Finchem said.

Finchem claimed that as secretary of state, his objective would be free and fair elections for all Arizonans, regardless of political party.

“My job as secretary of state is to ensure that the moment I’m elected, I take off my political hat — not my cowboy hat,” Finchem said, a joke about the oversize western hat he often sports. “To make sure there’s never a thumb on the scale of fair elections. If a Democrat wins, a Democrat wins.”

But Finchem, a member of the anti-government militia group Oath Keepers, has already shown he doesn’t employ reasonable judgment when it comes to election outcomes.

“[Former U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder is a criminal. [Georgia Gubernatorial candidate] Stacey Abrams is a criminal. [Former President] Barack Obama is a criminal,” Finchem asserted after encouraging the group to check out the widely discredited documentary “2,000 Mules” by right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza, which purports to show how Democratic ballot “mules” conspired to illegally collect and submit absentee ballots in swing states, including Arizona. Trump called D’Souza’s film “incredible” during a rally in Pennsylvania for Oz, and plenty of Republicans have followed his lead in praising the controversial film.

“Every one of you needs to see ‘2,000 Mules.’ It’s going to make your blood boil,” Finchem said, echoing what I’ve heard at numerous other grassroots gatherings since the documentary was released.

At the same forum in Gold Canyon, an upscale Phoenix suburb with breathtaking mountain views and funky cacti, Kari Lake, a former TV journalist and Trump’s pick for governor, said tackling election fraud is among her main priorities as governor.

“We’re that pioneer spirit in Arizona, so we weren’t going to sit by as they stole our election,” Lake said.

Who are “they” exactly? Lake and others seem to think it’s shadowy, Democrat-aligned forces that no one has been able to pin down in the nearly two years since the 2020 election.

“It was the patriots of Arizona who stood up and said we want a forensic audit,” she said, failing to mention how it turned up nothing but more proof that Biden won.
 
Let's check-in with Arizona and see how all the insanity is going. I guess it is hard to hold elections if all of your non-biased election officials quit due to continual threats -- but it works fine if you intend to install MAGA "election fraud" conspiracy nuts in these positions who don't intend allow any of the votes to be counted in upcoming elections.

Arizona GOP election official quits over threats from ‘nasty’ Trump supporters: report
https://www.rawstory.com/gop-election-official/
 
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) said “his investigators found just one dead voter after thoroughly reviewing findings from a partisan review of the 2020 election that alleged 282 ballots were cast in the name of someone who had died,” the AP reports.

“The finding by the Republican attorney general, who is running for U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s primary, further discredits the review conducted last year.”
 
exGOPer said:
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) said “his investigators found just one dead voter after thoroughly reviewing findings from a partisan review of the 2020 election that alleged 282 ballots were cast in the name of someone who had died,” the AP reports.

“The finding by the Republican attorney general, who is running for U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s primary, further discredits the review conducted last year.”
More...

Some more details...

Arizona AG wraps up criminal probe into Trump supporters' bogus claims that dead people voted in 2020: 'Many were very surprised to learn that they were allegedly deceased'
https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-ag-cyber-ninjas-claims-dead-voters-arizona-2022-8
  • Arizona's attorney general has refuted the Cyber Ninjas' claim that dead voters cast 282 ballots.
  • Mark Brnovich says investigators looked into all the individuals the Cyber Ninjas claimed were dead.
  • "Many were very surprised to learn that they were allegedly deceased," Brnovich said.
Arizona's Attorney-General Mark Brnovich on Monday debunked a bogus claim that hundreds of dead people had voted in his state during the 2020 election.

Brnovich concluded his criminal investigation on Monday, wrapping it up with a letter to Arizona GOP Senate leader Karen Fann.

He outlined how the state's justice department had investigated "numerous complaints regarding allegations of dead voters during the 2020 elections," particularly those cited by Doug Logan, the founder of Cyber Ninjas, the firm behind the Arizona vote audit.

Brnovich said his investigators had looked into the Cyber Ninjas' claims that "282 individuals who were deceased prior to October 5, 2020," had voted in the 2020 election.

Brnovich highlighted that his investigators had spent "hundreds of hours reviewing these allegations" and only found one case of an individual who had died by the time the election came around. All other people listed by Cyber Ninjas as deceased "were found to be current voters," he wrote.

"Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased," Brnovich wrote.

Brnovich said his office looked into thousands of dead voter claims, all of which were "thoroughly investigated."

Investigators found, though, that these claims were sometimes "so absurd" that their names and birthdates did not match the deceased or were people who died after the election.

"While our office has successfully prosecuted other instances of dead voters, these cases were ultimately determined to be isolated instances," Brnovich wrote.

He then concluded that the allegations of widespread voter fraud using dead voters were "insufficient" and "not corroborated."

The GOP-led audit of the vote count in Maricopa County carried out by the Cyber Ninjas not only confirmed in September that President Joe Biden won the election but also resulted in former President Donald Trump losing 261 votes.

Logan, however, claimed at the time that 282 "potentially deceased" people had voted in 2020 — which Brnovich's investigators have now thoroughly debunked.

The Cyber Ninjas were slammed during their audit by voting machine maker Dominion and the US Justice Department after questions arose about the ballots' chain of custody and integrity. In May 2021, the Cyber Ninjas also pursued a baseless, far-fetched theory that votes had been flown in from Asia and smuggled into the stack.

Arizona GOP officials also testified to Congress in October that Biden had won a "free, fair, and accurate" election, calling lawmakers unwilling to accept the result a "threat to our democracy."

Even after the Maricopa audit proved Biden's win, Trump has continued to falsely claim that the GOP audit uncovered "undeniable evidence" of fraud. In October, he called for another vote audit in the state's Pima County, Arizona's second-largest county.

Trump has also made baseless claims that 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia in a bid to prove widespread voter fraud. However, an investigation found just four such instances.

As for the Cyber Ninjas, a lawyer for Logan said in January that the firm was closing and letting all its employees go.
 
gwb-trading said:
Some more details...

Arizona AG wraps up criminal probe into Trump supporters' bogus claims that dead people voted in 2020: 'Many were very surprised to learn that they were allegedly deceased'
https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-ag-cyber-ninjas-claims-dead-voters-arizona-2022-8
  • Arizona's attorney general has refuted the Cyber Ninjas' claim that dead voters cast 282 ballots.
  • Mark Brnovich says investigators looked into all the individuals the Cyber Ninjas claimed were dead.
  • "Many were very surprised to learn that they were allegedly deceased," Brnovich said.
Arizona's Attorney-General Mark Brnovich on Monday debunked a bogus claim that hundreds of dead people had voted in his state during the 2020 election.

Brnovich concluded his criminal investigation on Monday, wrapping it up with a letter to Arizona GOP Senate leader Karen Fann.

He outlined how the state's justice department had investigated "numerous complaints regarding allegations of dead voters during the 2020 elections," particularly those cited by Doug Logan, the founder of Cyber Ninjas, the firm behind the Arizona vote audit.

Brnovich said his investigators had looked into the Cyber Ninjas' claims that "282 individuals who were deceased prior to October 5, 2020," had voted in the 2020 election.

Brnovich highlighted that his investigators had spent "hundreds of hours reviewing these allegations" and only found one case of an individual who had died by the time the election came around. All other people listed by Cyber Ninjas as deceased "were found to be current voters," he wrote.

"Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased," Brnovich wrote.

Brnovich said his office looked into thousands of dead voter claims, all of which were "thoroughly investigated."

Investigators found, though, that these claims were sometimes "so absurd" that their names and birthdates did not match the deceased or were people who died after the election.

"While our office has successfully prosecuted other instances of dead voters, these cases were ultimately determined to be isolated instances," Brnovich wrote.

He then concluded that the allegations of widespread voter fraud using dead voters were "insufficient" and "not corroborated."

The GOP-led audit of the vote count in Maricopa County carried out by the Cyber Ninjas not only confirmed in September that President Joe Biden won the election but also resulted in former President Donald Trump losing 261 votes.

Logan, however, claimed at the time that 282 "potentially deceased" people had voted in 2020 — which Brnovich's investigators have now thoroughly debunked.

The Cyber Ninjas were slammed during their audit by voting machine maker Dominion and the US Justice Department after questions arose about the ballots' chain of custody and integrity. In May 2021, the Cyber Ninjas also pursued a baseless, far-fetched theory that votes had been flown in from Asia and smuggled into the stack.

Arizona GOP officials also testified to Congress in October that Biden had won a "free, fair, and accurate" election, calling lawmakers unwilling to accept the result a "threat to our democracy."

Even after the Maricopa audit proved Biden's win, Trump has continued to falsely claim that the GOP audit uncovered "undeniable evidence" of fraud. In October, he called for another vote audit in the state's Pima County, Arizona's second-largest county.

Trump has also made baseless claims that 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia in a bid to prove widespread voter fraud. However, an investigation found just four such instances.

As for the Cyber Ninjas, a lawyer for Logan said in January that the firm was closing and letting all its employees go.
More...

I thought the "dead people voting scheme" was investigated and resolved many months ago during the fraudit by the Republicans themselves.
  • How is it still being discussed of any importance?
The Arizona Audit should now be buried and allowed to rest in peace considering now we're approaching a mid-term election unless the GOP plans to say "dead people had voted" if the Democrats pull off an upset of the senate due to abortion and gun control issues. :D

In fact, you will notice that a lot of these conspiracy theory / fake news sources are going to be resolved by the Republicans themselves because they're now realizing living under Trumpism is like a scarlet letter....after the record number of Republican Voters switching sides...outpacing the Democrats doing the same in 2021.

RIP

wrbtrader
 
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Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said there is “very little election fraud” but that it “happens occasionally,” comments that clashed with ongoing claims from former President Donald Trump’s wing of the party, which has insisted that voter fraud is rampant and the 2020 election was stolen, NBC News reports.
 
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