Republicans requested and funded an investigation into the 2020 election in Arizona’s biggest county, but the investigation found no evidence that former President Donald J. Trump was cheated out of victory. The investigation took months and received harsh criticism.
On the contrary, according to a study by the cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas, it discovered 99 more votes for President Biden and 261 fewer votes for Mr. Trump in Maricopa County, which contains the rapidly expanding metropolis of Phoenix.
In a presentation to the State Senate on Friday afternoon, Karen Fann, the Republican Senate president who had commissioned the vote review, stated, “Truth is truth, and numbers are numbers.”
Mr. Biden won Arizona by about 10,500 votes, making his victory in Maricopa County by approximately 45,000 votes critical to his overall victory. Under strong pressure from Trump supporters, the Republican majority in the State Senate requested an investigation into the county’s presidential and U.S. Senate elections, as well as the election for the seat held by Democrat Mark Kelly.
Despite the fact that there were no significant discrepancies between the revised total of votes and the official count by Maricopa County election authorities, review officials tacitly recognised Mr. Biden’s win in the race for president. In addition, they said, “a number of additional variables,” the majority of which were disputed by credible election experts, contributed to the results being “extremely near to the margin of error” for the election.
While making their hours-long presentation before the State Senate, the review officials did not concentrate on the statistics that indicated Mr. Biden’s victory, but instead offered an endless stream of hypotheticals, none of which were confirmed, and all of which hinted at a rigged election. They were well-prepared, with PowerPoint presentations, ballot scans, and explanations of obscure election laws.
Officials conducting the study said that duplicate votes may have been tallied, that signatures on ballot envelopes were suspicious, that 23,344 mail-in ballots may have been sent to the incorrect addresses, and that 10,342 voters may have cast ballots in more than one county. They claimed that thousands of voters may have migrated out of the county or the state, that mail votes that were never delivered to voters may have been tallied, and that 282 people may have been declared deceased.
At the conclusion of her presentation, Ms. Fann called on Arizona’s attorney general, who happens to be a Republican, to examine the allegations of irregularities. According to election administration specialists who were on hand to observe the procedures, none of the allegations were supported by evidence.
