Did Maricopa County ‘Delete All Records Used for Election Results’?

In response to the recent release of the results of the Republican-led Maricopa County “audit,” a widely shared tweet claims that “Someone from @maricopacounty intentionally went into the system and chose to delete all records used for election results.” 

The claim is the same one made at the Arizona “audit” presentation last month, where, as, previously noted, Ben Cotton, founder of digital security firm CyFIR and a member of the audit team, falsely accused Maricopa County of intentionally deleting general election results in the county’s election management system.

This is a false claim. 

Maricopa County officials quickly debunked the claim on Twitter, explaining the election management system has storage limits, so Maricopa County has  “data archival procedures.”