This phony Arizona election “audit” just got even more idiotic
Former “president” Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail, promoting his big lie. He has changed the narrative a bit, but the lie continues. During his speech, he praised Arizona state senators for organizing an audit of the 2020 votes. Only Trump can praise an exercise in ridiculous futility. Palmer Report revealed earlier that Arizona had employed the services of Cyber Ninjas, an alleged cybersecurity outfit that has absolutely no experience in auditing elections. With this being their first undertaking, one must wonder how well or accurately they will conduct this so-called audit. CNN gave us some insight.
Doug Logan is the CEO of Cyber Ninjas. He claimed that they found 74,243 mail-in ballots with “no clear record of them being sent.” How does Logan know this without seeing missing postal markings? His auditors conducted “door-to-door questioning” of Maricopa County voters, and that by talking with people, they were able to determine whether inconsistencies are “real problems” or “clerical errors of some sort.” What? That makes no sense whatsoever, none. So, is he saying the people they spoke with did not use mail-in ballots? If so, what in the world does that prove? Only Republicans could find such an ill-equipped, incompetent outfit to conduct an “audit,” but it gets worse. According to CNN, Liz Harrington, a spokesperson for Trump, Lauren Boebert, and Trump jumped on the bandwagon, repeating the information as truth. No wonder the Republican party is such a hot mess right now. If Logan told them he had a bridge for sale cheap in San Francisco, they would probably repeat that as well.
CNN gave us the facts on these allegedly “miscounted” ballots. CNN reported that there are no “magically appearing ballots” in Maricopa County, which was verified by Maricopa County and experts. Instead of these ballots “missing,” the numbers derive from both mail-in ballots and early in-person voting ballots. Garrett Archer, who is an ABC election analyst and former official in the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, said that the ballot request list is never updated after a date certain, and thereafter, the total is added to the in-person vote totals, so what Logan is looking at is a combination of in-person voting and mail-in ballots, not mail-in ballots alone. Logan is merely proving that he is unqualified to audit elections since he does not even bother to learn how this works.
Logan’s other claim is that Maricopa County “stopped verifying voters’s signatures at some point in the election.” Where did Logan get this nonsense? He claims to have an affidavit (from whom no one knows) that verifies that the “comparison points” of signatures were systematically reduced “after some time” from 20 to 10 to 5 before they stop comparing altogether. Stephen Richer, a Republican member of the Maricopa County Recorder’s office told CNN that Maricopa County never modified its “rigorous signature verification requirements” and that “any suggestion to the contrary is categorically false.” Yet, the lies keep coming. The problem is the people who believe this crap. As long as they have people willing to fall for anything they are fed, the lies will continue.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years