On April 23, Arizona Republicans began an election audit of 2020 election ballots from Maricopa County. Despite the fact that election results were certified in favor of President Joe Biden months ago, Arizona Republicans, peddling familiar election conspiracy theories, are insisting that Donald Trump won the state. Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has called the audit, which is currently in process, a “farce,” according to CNN.
Despite multiple audits by Maricopa officials that found no evidence of fraud, the ongoing audit is looking at 2.1 million ballots and 400 voting machines for evidence of voter fraud.
In light of the Arizona audit, several Facebook posts have been widely circulating that claim several thousands of fraudulent have been found in the audit thus far. One such post says that: “Over 200 Thousand Votes Found So Far Today!”
This is a false claim.
At this time no evidence of voter fraud has been reported in Maricopa County from this audit. The official Arizona audit website has not released any information regarding the results
Senate Republicans have hired Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cybersecurity firm that has previously promoted baseless election conspiracy claims, to conduct the Arizona audit.
It’s worth noting that the Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan was involved in a lawsuit in Antrim County, Michigan in December 2020, in which Trump supporters falsely claimed there were instances of voter fraud. Logan was listed as an expert witness in the case of alleged fraud in Antrim County after unofficial reports in the county were mistakenly reported due to a data-entry error. The Dispatch’s Alec Dent has previously explained the incident: “Antrim County revealed it had inadvertently misreported a number of votes in unofficial results, with state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox claiming that the error was due to ‘tabulating software glitched and caused a miscalculation of the votes.’ However, Michigan’s secretary of state announced that it was not a software issue, but ‘user human error’ that led to the misreporting, and clarified that ‘the correct results always were and continue to be reflected on the tabulator totals tape and on the ballots themselves. Even if the error in the reported unofficial results had not been quickly noticed, it would have been identified during the county canvass.’”
It’s also important to note the history of false voter fraud allegations in Maricopa County. The Dispatch Fact Check has previously addressed the false claim that there were 150,000 votes from voters who registered after the deadline:
In the month before the election, a federal judge ruled in favor of extending Arizona’s voter registration deadline from October 5 until October 23. An appeals court overturned that decision, and ended registration on October 15. The Tucson Sentinel reported that there were fewer than 20,000 new registered voters—not 150,000—in Maricopa County during the extended period between October 5 and October 15. Furthermore, in December a U.S. district court judge dismissed allegations of voter fraud, specifically claims of illegal votes and foreign interference in Arizona in December, saying that the case was “sorely wanting of relevant or reliable evidence,” reported USA Today.”
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