Did the Maricopa County Audit Show That Donald Trump Won Arizona?

The results have not yet been announced.

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A widely shared social media post claims that the Maricopa County election audit results have been released, allegedly showing that Donald Trump won Arizona by “1,087,574 votes.” 

This is a false claim. No results from the audit have been released.

On November 30, Arizona certified its election results with Joe Biden beating Trump by 10,457 votes. In total, Biden received 1,672,143 votes and Trump received 1,661,686 votes. 

As we previously explained, the Arizona audit began on April 23 and was undertaken by Arizona Republicans promoting familiar voter fraud claims alleging that Donald Trump won the state. Senate Republicans hired Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cybersecurity firm whose leaders have also peddled baseless election fraud conspiracy theories.

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  1. Alex DeLarge

    Wow. You fact checked the Facebook page of some person named M.J. Moore, who had 39 shares. We're lucky you guys are on the case keeping the internet safe.

    My aunt says aliens probably helped build the pyramids. Can you fact check her Facebook page next?

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    1. Avatar photostaff-badge-circle
      Alec Dent staff-badge Staff

      Hi Alex! This is just one example of the many times this graphic has been shared on Facebook. While none of the individual posts receive more than a few hundred shares, a million people individually sharing a graphic has an impressive reach on its own, even if you’d prefer to see a fact check of a single post that got 1 million shares. In instances like this, we don’t normally list out every single post that has this graphic as it would take a lot of time and be a bit overwhelming for readers. But since you seem curious, here ya go. Enjoy this sampling of some of the many, many public Facebook and Instagram posts containing this misinformation (given most people don’t set their accounts to public, I think we can safely assume there are many more examples on private accounts):

      https://www.facebook.com/mtinyu/posts/4407642345922227
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/782992259281182/posts/862150874698653/
      https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10223761220530247&set=a.10207729224820374
      https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1953843201447314&id=100004649597406
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/1061721327588560/posts/1200556967038328/
      https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=256231319609155&set=gm.2987189171603291
      https://www.facebook.com/jeannette.mospaw1/posts/10225584675713958
      https://www.facebook.com/ernest.smith.104203/posts/4425586824121130
      https://www.facebook.com/dave.knoblock.50/posts/1768309280014677
      https://www.facebook.com/mcottomjr/posts/10165462856565192
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/550165529281388/posts/644262206538386/
      https://www.facebook.com/tim.galus1/posts/10220320073211224
      https://www.facebook.com/bhavatarini.bollereddat/posts/4061680740575902
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/928240317978618/posts/968793847256598/
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/687951421669783/posts/1209629716168615/
      https://www.facebook.com/bobby.jarrard.9/posts/4465769326769104
      https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=107958494876798&id=100069879434404
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/1102871440222107/posts/1117969255378992/
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/599060844212861/posts/938573846928224/
      https://www.facebook.com/frank.cobra1955/posts/2951074228496548
      https://www.facebook.com/randy.newell.71/posts/4003930206309824
      https://www.facebook.com/philip.lydon.5/posts/858838228088122
      https://www.facebook.com/TheHopkinsProjects/posts/10158567505047426
      https://www.facebook.com/lynn.evansrenick/posts/4496962847005158
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/1710768279236461/posts/2900505880262689/
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/187589928099029/posts/1620020874855920/
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/254006292815334/posts/377498040466158/
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/254006292815334/posts/376970337185595/
      https://www.facebook.com/carl.jenkins.184/posts/10219972720095958
      https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=118987423733775&id=100068675530494
      https://www.facebook.com/cate.chrostowski/posts/10221174356294622
      https://www.facebook.com/tim.lesh.54/posts/952335418918986
      https://www.facebook.com/joshuashapiro.cse/posts/10226012332158737
      https://www.facebook.com/gschnack/posts/10224481771607545
      https://www.facebook.com/phil.harney.92/posts/901567263772570
      https://www.facebook.com/jaqlynmariedesigns/posts/10222621638707255
      https://www.facebook.com/tpraast/posts/3976443275769751
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/126504154701643/posts/779269199425132/
      https://www.facebook.com/kate.kirk.9028/posts/342214240625486
      https://www.instagram.com/p/CQuLHQmBqZl/
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10223439799317953&set=a.1280883456978&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4387529581277261&set=a.100625323301063&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=133234985549713&set=a.104244588448753&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1789205134620150&set=a.279407265599952&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209004056096289&set=a.1318177412198&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=534139478014800&set=a.368661017895981&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1486564558355667&set=a.338860846459383&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209157965343253&set=a.1547460983473&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4140369952708043&set=a.114901578588254&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10220880347943230&set=a.1201870891675&type=3
      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159154783948280&set=a.118662888279&type=3

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      1. Avatar photo
        Victor Clairmont

        Ahem.

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ6wSei-NJU

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      2. Alex DeLarge

        Ok. I'll take your word for it that all of these nobodies aggregated together may add up to something.

        It seems to me the most important claims to fact check are those that are: (a) false; (b) likely to be believed; and (c) likely to have a big influence if they are believed. This obviously meets (a), but not (b) or (c).

        How does The Dispatch decide which claims to fact check, and why? Do you personally go prowling through random Facebook pages looking for fake claims? Or does Facebook send you the claim and ask you to do a fact check for them?

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          Dpatricola

          Don't be an insufferable ass, Alex. Alec clearly did a lot of research before posting this article. If you need to be fed I'm sure there are other sites you can troll on.

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        2. Avatar photostaff-badge-circle
          Alec Dent staff-badge Staff

          The Dispatch receives access to a tool that shows the most viral posts on Facebook containing specific buzzwords (for example, "coronavirus," "Biden," Trump" are all currently key words that are picked up). Not every post in the tool merits a fact check, its presence there merely means it is popular. Facebook plays no part in deciding what gets fact checked, we pick topics from the tool based on how wide the reach is and how sensitive the topic is. (It isn't true, for example, that the pyramids were built by aliens. I don't feel the need to fact check the matter, however, even if it gets lots of views.)

          Your a, b, and c criteria sounds nice in theory, but b and c are utterly subjective and almost impossible to quantify. What Alex DeLarge thinks is believable may differ from what Alec Dent thinks is believable. What Alex DeLarge will do after he reads a bit of misinformation cannot be predicted (though "make a snarky comment" seems a likely scenario). I do not, for example, think it's believable that Hillary Clinton is part of a secret child sex cult, and yet many people apparently do and it has been influential. The best metric for something's "believability" and "influence?" Likes, shares, re-postings, views. Which is precisely what we go by and precisely why this article was written.

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          1. Gabej1989

            That’s actually super interesting and helpful, thank you Alec! Is it even possible to include some of that data in future fact checks? It’s great context.

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          2. Alex DeLarge

            Oh, I don't think the believability and potential influence of a claim are that hard to figure out. For example, this claim about Maricopa audit results was just some text written on a page with no purported source, and was about an event that hadn't even happened yet. So it was obviously false and was never going to get any traction with anyone who matters.

            By contrast, to pick a counter-example, Dr. Fauci and the CDC claim that Ivermetcin (practically free) is no good but Remdesivir (expensive and patented) is great. And anyone who says otherwise (such as the inventor of MRNA vaccines) gets deplatformed and patients don't get the right treatments. In fact, all the published data seems to say the exact opposite of Fauci's claim. So that's the type of consequential claim worthy of a fact check.

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        Pat Riot

        Excellent. While you're at it show the daily top-10 of Facebook posts, which is always dominated by the Republicans who are supposedly being censored by Facebook...

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  2. Avatar photo
    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    How can you claim unannounced results are false, when we don't know yet the count? While 1 million seems doubtful, there still was a chance for Jim Carrey in the movie Dumb and dumber (no, not a biopic of the 2020 POTUS election).

    Once they release the results, then the fact check can make an assertive claim....
    (and no, I don't care what odds they're offering, I'm not taking R in the recount results)...

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    1. GregS

      The claim that the results have been released and that they show Trump winning by ~1M votes is false. The results have not been released. Since this is the first part of the claim, the claim is false.
      Perhaps you were being sarcastic though.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

        I looked at the original social media post, via the link. I would argue the original post is ambiguous as to whether that is an official release or more a leak of the team's findings. It didn't use the phrase "official" or "released", just "findings", which can be official or unofficial.

        I read the fact check as arguing the number and it being official was false. I argued calling the number as false cannot occur until they release the official results.

        Now, do I think the audit will substantially change the results? About as likely as my winning Saturday's Powerball, followed by news of that causing Scarlett Johannson to kidnap me, have doctors reverse my vasectomy, then making babies with me. Not zero, but zero's next door neighbor in a condominium association. And if my wife is reading this, of course I am not rooting for that to happen!

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        1. GregS

          Dude there have been no findings official or unofficial unless you claim that the writer of the post has secret knowledge of unofficial findings, which is not even claimed by the original article.
          I get that you think you're being very cleverly pedantic, but the fact check is accurate.
          The number as false can in fact be confirmed before the official or unofficial results are released. We already know the results of the election - we can say with confidence that Trunp did not win by ~1 million votes. Waiting for the announced "results" of the audit isn't necessary because everything we know about how the audit was done proves that any results it finds that do not match the certified results are probably false.

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          1. Avatar photo
            Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

            Greg: My name is Jay, not Dude, which is disrespectful. Is that your intention, to be disrespectful? I expect fact claims to be professional.

            I made no claims about the original post's source of information, only rejecting that the idea that they claim they possessing officially released information. Fact checking a non-claim is not fact checking! I don't know what source of information they have--that's the job of the...wait for it... fact checker. Which either didn't occur, or occurred but wasn't published.

            As for your statement "we can say with confidence that Trunp did not win by ~1 million votes.". That's not a fact, that's an opinion. You cannot fact check opinions, by definition! In hypothesis driven statistical analysis, one never "proves" anything as true, we reject the null hypothesis, and "state with confidence" that we accept the hypothesis. But that, by definition, makes it not a fact. Words have meaning, they should be used correctly. BTW, It's an opinion I hold as well (as I originally noted), but it is not a fact. Once this committee releases its findings, then I can claim the number claimed by this anonymous SM post are false.

            I encourage you to search the WSJ archives, for a James Taranto BOTW column on fact-checking. He does a nice job of describing the inherent subjectivity (which organizations doing fact checks often argue doesn't exist).

            What would I have done as a professional journalist with this fact claim request? First, I would have rejected doing it as irrelevant. An anonymous source makes an unsubstantiated claim? yawn, not newsworthy. Assuming my editor required I'd do it, and assuming I was doing my best effort I would have

            A) Make very clear what I am claiming to fact-check/(not fact-check). Is it the validity of the source, the accuracy of the numbers, both, something else, etc.

            B) Point out the SM post is anonymous, and makes no claim to being an official source, nor does the post disclose its source.

            C) Sought out the original source material, documenting what I found/(did not find). If I cannot find the original source document, all I can truthfully claim is "I was unable to substantiate the original source document".

            D) Regarding the vote total, I would have asked a college professor of statistics to provide an estimate of the likelihood it could be correct. A good stats prof can probably do it in zir's head, but maybe 1 minute in excel. I'd guess easily less than 1 in a million. I would then state that while it cannot be disproven, the odds of the post's numbers being accurate are less than 1 in a million, or whatever likelihood number the statistician gives you.

            E) I'd thank God I'm not at Snopes, where their fact checkers are fact-checking claims on a web-site that claims to be satire (C'mon, does anyone really fear Trump will enlarge to 50' tall and shoot lasers out his eyes?). Seriously, fact-checking the Babylon Bee seems to me a signal of a slow news day, or someone with a gullibility problem.

            F) I would also add a disclosure that I do/(do not) own shares in any tinfoil or tinfoil hat companies (since this is, IMHO, approaching tinfoil hat conspiracy level nonsense)

            In short, if you're going to fact-checks, put some effort into it....

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  3. Avatar photo
    Pat Riot

    This is the same political party some Democrats in Washington think they can negotiate in good faith with.

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    1. David B.

      Well, it's a few of the most extreme nutcase subset of that party anyway. But just like I don't want to take AOC as representative of all Dems in the country or even in congress, I don't want to take the nutjobs in AZ as representative of Republicans nationwide. I'll leave that for the clickbaiters. "Can you BELIEVE what _______ just did??!!!!"

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        Pat Riot

        Extreme? This action is:

        1. Run by the official Republican party of Arizona.

        2. Not denounced by any elected member of the Republican party.

        3. Driven directly from the Big Lie of the Republican party's leader and presumed presidential nominee for president in 2024, and continuously supported by same.

        4. Is being considered for every single State in the USA where Republicans have a majority in the legislature.

        5. Is a key part of the *primary* State-level Republican legislative agenda for 2021, which is voter suppression laws.


        "Can you believe what the REPUBLICAN PARTY AS A WHOLE just did??!!!!"

        And no, AOC never incited an insurrection or voted to quash the investigation of one. She is a liberal-leaning politician in the normal scale of such things we've had in this country for decades. What today's Republicans are--all of them who wish to stay in the party (i.e. not Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney etc.)--are completely different, unprecedented, and a threat to our constitutional republic as a whole.

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        1. David B.

          I would argue on their behalf that there are many that are just spineless politicians who don't have the cojones to come out and state that the stuff going on in AZ et al. is ridiculously stupid, but they believe that it IS stupid. And they have not voiced any support for it. Let's go through your points:
          1. What IS the official Republican party of AZ? Any elected officials? I think not. It's the super-goober folks who have shown up to every Republican precinct mtg since 2000. Not representative of the Republicans in the state.

          2. See intro stmt. Also not supported by any (many?) members of the Republican party. Should they denounce it? Absolutely. But they're spineless politicians and born scared and had a relapse.

          3. Agree. And those party folks at the precinct and probably state level appear to be "full buy in" Trump worshippers. Sad.

          4. Dunno. Could be. Considered.... whatever. The set of things that are "considered" includes water-powered engines, etc. Non point here.

          5. I'm afraid you might be right here. I'm grudgingly "considering" giving you this one.

          I'm part of the Republican party (well, not in any official capacity but vote by and large Republican with notable exception of 2016 and 2020 presidential vote, where the Republican party nominated a trustless, lying liberal), and I didn't JUST DO THIS. So...

          Look, Trump, and Cruz et al. are despicable Americans who care more about their careers than the future of their country. It's disgusting. But let's try not to lump every Republican in the country as being represented by the worst of the worst.

          Or if it makes you feel better, do it. And keep driving the divisiveness. Your call.

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            Pat Riot

            The reason they "don't have the cajones" to say anything is because they will get bounced out of office if they do. The reason for *that* is because the Republicans in AZ represent the mainstream of the GOP primary voting base. Who cares about what certain politicians may feel, "in their hearts"? What matters is what they *do*.

            The AZ actions are being run from the AZ state legislature, it must be, which is majority Republican. If the GOP of AZ is not representative of the GOP of AZ then I can't imagine what you think actually is.

            Voter suppression is the *primary* GOP legislative agenda of 2021 where Republicans have majorities. It is driven by Trump, Trump and Trump.

            If you are part of the Republican party, you support Trump whether you want to or not. If you say you don't then Trump likes that even more because you might sway a few people to join *his* party who actually hate him.

            Asking people to pick country over party is not, "divisiveness".

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  4. Richard Kennedy

    So, 1.08 mill vote lead out of 2.1 mill counted. THAT’S some lead! Nobody can see through that? One wonders who is doing the thinking these days.

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      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      Well, recent surveys show that 7 out of 4 recent public high school grads struggle with math as much as politicians do.

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        scott

        Unless I'm wrong, and I'm never wrong, surveys are accurate 100% of the time...60% of the time.

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        1. David B.

          Is that a derivative of the Anchorman quote: "60% of the time, it works ALL the time."

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            scott

            Yes, and I get the quote right 60% of the time, ALL the time.

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    2. David B.

      Right. Would mean 0.55M for Biden and 1.55M for Trump, or Trump got 74% of the vote counted so far, which was somehow mistakenly counted originally as Trump losing. Surely that would be the biggest state winning margin by either candidate for president in this election by probably at least 10 points. Maybe biggest ever?

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      1. Mack

        No, that’s not right. It’s worse than that. The post may discuss the audit in Maricopa County, but the totals it adjusts are the STATEWIDE results — which this misbegotten audit is not investigating.

        Further, the results as given would imply a drastic change in the total number of votes cast. The post claims that the audit results increased Trump’s total by over 700k, and decreased Biden’s by almost 400k. So, the post is asserting that the audit discovered, and counted, a number of previously uncounted votes that would (at its absolute minimum) be greater than the total number of ballots cast in the state of Wyoming in 2020!

        Since the author is foolishly adjusting the statewide results, that would be a little less than 65% of the vote for Trump in a two-candidate race, or as the post puts it, “almost two thirds.” (Even that math is suspect, by the way, since over 1.5% of ballots in Arizona were cast for third-party candidates. I doubt whoever put this together stopped to consider that.)

        If these figures were true — which of course they are not — it would be the biggest American election scandal of all time. Unfortunately, since most Trump supporters believe it WAS the biggest American election scandal of all time, they will consider the outrageousness of this scenario as evidence for their beliefs. I doubt they’ll be shaken for a second by these inconsistencies.

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      2. Clark Andersen

        Exactly. Do they think people aren't going to do that math? It's crazy.

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          Michael Darwin

          "People" won't do the math. Some people will. Probably many people. But once you get to numbers bigger than what's in most folks checking accounts, people's eyes tend to glaze over. A lot of people predisposed to believe this will just see "Trump won by lots!", feel vindicated, stop reading, and share it.

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          George.Skinner

          A scary thought is that perhaps that's exactly what some of Trump's supporters believe the result should've been. There's been many interviews and reports indicating that they couldn't even comprehend a result where he lost. Math and reason aren't inputs to a calculation of probability - it's blind faith.

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          1. David B.

            Sure. His hardcore worshippers just believe he won, full stop, no data needed. But clearly that group does not constitute a majority of the country. Otherwise, we'd have a different president right now.

            Oh wait, I forgot The Steal.

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      George.Skinner

      It does bring to mind the Iraqi elections where Saddam Hussein won with 99.8% of the vote.

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    4. Clark Andersen

      Seriously, this is so stupid.

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