The fact that we’re even talking about yet a fourth “audit” of Arizona votes cast in the 2020 election, when the three previous ones showed no signs of malfeasance, speaks to how democracy itself is on terra incognita — if not hanging by its nails over the abyss altogether. The Arizona State GOP, “used its subpoena power to take possession of all 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County and the machines that counted them, along with computer hard drives full of data,” per the New York Times and since then it’s been full on fiasco, orchestrated by a Big Lie conspiracy theorist Trump supporter, who runs a company called Cyber Ninjas, which has never audited an election before and is wildly in over its head. And that’s not even the crazy part. Here’s the crazy part.
The head of Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based firm that Republican senators hired to oversee the audit, has embraced Mr. Trump’s baseless theories of election theft and has suggested, contrary to available evidence, that Mr. Trump actually won Arizona by 200,000 votes. The pro-Trump cable channel One America News Network has started a fund-raiser to finance the venture and has been named one of the nonpartisan observers that will keep the audit on the straight and narrow. [emphasis added]
If the survival of democracy depends upon OAN keeping it real, it’s time for democracy to bend over and kiss its ass goodbye.
The audit has been beset by amateur mistakes that critics view as evidence the auditors are not up to the task. Hand counters began the day using blue pens, which are banned in ballot counting rooms because they can be read by ballot machines. For days leading up to the audit, a crew from a group of Phoenix television stations, azfamily, had unfettered access to the supposedly secure facility as auditors were setting up equipment and receiving ballots and counting machines.
But wait — there’s more. Daily Beast:
The counting has just begun, but already the audit has become almost inextricable from the far-right internet. There, audit-watchers share tips and concerns about security offered by Ron Watkins, a man suspected of helping birth the QAnon craze.
The audit, it should be noted, is nonbinding. Arizona’s Republican governor, secretary of state, and state Supreme Court chief justice all previously certified Biden’s victory. Nevertheless, the recount has been embraced by a conspiratorial set seeking to cast doubt on the 2020 election, including former President Donald Trump himself. […]
Even before the audit kicked off, Watkins suggested that it might be attacked by rioters. “Will Maricopa county deploy police to protect the auditors from rioters?” he posted on his Telegram channel in mid-April. “Will the police end up standing down? You cannot have information security without physical security.”
He wasn’t the only QAnon-adjacent person stoking those fears. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn claimed, without evidence, that anti-fascists and Black Lives Matter activists would attack the audit. “I’m telling you now, I’ll say it today, because we have intel that they may be bringing people down from Portland and Seattle to disrupt,” Flynn said during a speech this month. “I mean to disrupt finding the truth, discovering the truth?“
Watkins has continued to imply the left was traveling to protest the audit—a process virtually no one outside of the far right has taken seriously. “If you have proof, chat logs, or information regarding BLM or antifa booking rooms in Arizona to protest the audits, please email me,” he wrote several days later.
Then you’ve got Donald Trump and the Arizona Rangers kicking in their two cents. Trump, who has an ongoing feud with Gov. Doug Ducey — not to mention Fox News — over the election being called for Joe Biden on Election Night, issued a press release demanding that the governor call out the National Guard. Then there’s the Arizona Rangers, “a civilian law enforcement auxiliary that has raised more than $130,000 on GoFundMe since it began patrolling outside the audit. On Monday evening, the two most recent donations (each for $100) read, “Because I want the truth out once and for all, plus I want the right President back in Office, and that is Trump” and “THEY CANT STOP WHATS COMING! WWG1WGA!” (“WWG1WGA” is a QAnon slogan.)”
Bat guano reigns and it rains bat guano.
Also on Monday, [Doug] Logan, the Cyber Ninjas CEO, argued in court that his auditing methods should remain a secret and that a court hearing on the recount should be closed to the media and the public. That commitment to secrecy comes even as conservative outlets are promoting what they claim are the audit’s yet-to-be-announced findings.
One image, which appeared on far-right network OAN and some similarly conspiratorial blogs, shows a tally of supposed Arizona ballots flagged as suspicious for reasons like “absentee ballots cast from addresses other than where voters legally reside.” The result, the unsourced graphic claims, is more than 250,000 “possible illegal votes.”
The provenance of the graphic is unclear. A spokesperson for Logan and the audit effort did not return a request for comment on the graphic, or whether the audit had even processed 250,000 ballots to begin with. Hosts of OAN, which promoted the graphic, have been involved in launching a fundraiser for the audit. Despite the recount’s ongoing status, one of those hosts recently appeared in an OAN broadcast in which she declared that the process “will unravel the Democrat schemes from 2020.”
Another standard riff on the unsourced graphic came in a blog post that announced “It’s happening Patriots! The truth is coming out… TRUMP WON!”
If you were to distill democracy all the way down to one base element, it would have to be free and fair elections, with the corollary being that a belief in same and an acceptance of the results of same are crucial.
If any candidate in history had a right to complain about potential fraud, it was Al Gore. He did not choose to keep that controversy alive, because he perceived, and rightly so, that the downside was to undermine faith in the democratic process and that was too important to risk. Donald Trump has no such compunctions. In fact, the more he can erode norms and destroy the fiber of America, the happier he is. He sees that as the path back. And so do his acolytes in Congress and his deluded followers.
I hope that all the ballots, hard drives, etc that were sent to these idiots have back up copies that are kept safe somewhere.
I would assume, since this is round four, that measures have been taken. This is totally nuts. Nothing good can come out of this. I fear for the 2022 election and God help us all in 2024, with seeds of distrust like this being sown.
Backups of electronic files would be something of a task but relatively doable even if only given a short amount of time before handing the stuff over. The ballots themselves are another story. Copies of 2 million ballots would be a time consuming process and cost quite a bit of money, even if instead of paper copies each ballot was photographed instead. However I’m not sure that would even be legal. The original paper ballots are preserved for a reason – to allow for a PROPER audit or recount and as with any legal matter in any jurisdiction that I’m aware of whenever the choice between an original document and a copy has to be made the original (if it can be produced) is the one that is accepted.
What I don’t get is how, other than a corrupt and/or fascist RWNJ judge allowed the AZ legislature’s Republicans to take possession of those ballots in the first place. As far as I’m concerned they are public documents, and even though the legislature is GOP controlled (and AZ has a GOP Governor) there are still laws that are supposed to control if and how a recount is conducted, and those same laws which were adhered to before the recount and certification in last fall’s election were adhered to – including transparency and objective monitoring of the procedure.
From where I sit only one political Party being granted possession of the actual ballots, and control of access to them while “organizing” this travesty of a “recount” and the secrecy in which this process is unfolding is effectively turning over election ballots to a private entity. I just don’t see how that can be legal and how, if necessary this didn’t get appealed (up to SCOTUS if necessary).
But the real damage was done the second those ballots were delivered to the AZ GOP. From that point on the could make any wild-ass claim they wanted and the idiot MAGAts out there would eat it up with a spoon. I fear we’ve crossed the Rubicon when it comes to our elections as this won’t be the only place (I fear) in which this shit goes down before this year is over with.
Still, for the future if it’s not already in there HR-1 needs to be amended (assuming Machin and Synema will stop fucking over the Democratic Party and the strong majority of Americans) to have a clear, strong provision that ANY recount of ballots in federal elections will be kept secure and ONLY be counted under the supervision of the appropriate state officials and subject to monitoring by representatives of any political Party with candidates on those ballots AND independent media. Smarter people than me can work out the exact language. But there should also be a provision that NO single political Party EVER be granted custody of federal election ballots from any election. Hell, call it the Arizona GOP Amendment!
I just hope it won’t be too little too late.
Well stated Denis.
The obvious truth and how to deal with it.
The fact that the GQP has the ballots, that a GQP controlled company was hired to do the recount, and the fact that there is zero transparency and accountability all invalidate this so called “recount”. Especially as the three previous recounts found no problems with the ballots and the vote count! This is just the republiQanons trying to manufacture fake evidence of election fraud to support the Orange Monster and its lies!
Is Sherriff Joe (Arpaio) handling security for them?
We just barely turned blue in the last election. The GOP in this state is terrified that we will get even bluer. That’s why they are doing this. Total waste of money and time that could be used differently.
What’s happening in Arizona is just plain bullshit. And if they their ass before they find a hole in the ground it will just be a miracle. If they find fraud it’s because they already set it up. It’s been six months since the elections. They had plenty of time to switch envelopes.
That reminds me. Nobody knows how long the ballots sat in a room unguarded. We know that because someone opened the door and seen them.
This will get solved. By unCivil War part deux. Mark my woids
“A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.” Paul Simon
Finally an audit by PROFESSIONALS AND NOT A PUCH OF LIBERAL LACKEYS WHO COULDN’T FIND THEIR WAY OUT OF AN OPEN PAPER BAG! THIS AUDIT WILL EXAMINE THE THOUSANDS OF BOGUS MAILED IN BALLOTS. THIS IS THE MOST THROUGH AUDIT EVER PERFORMED AND AN NECESSARY ONE TO PROVE THE LIBERALS WON. THEY SHOULD BE OVERJOYED THEY’RE BEING CONFIRMED ONCE AND FOR ALL. BUT……THEY DON’T SEEM TO BE AS HAPPY AS ONE WOULD EXPECT. THE LEVEL OF PUSH BACK BY THE LIBERALS IS DIRECTLY CORRELATED TO THE LEVEL OF CHEATING THAT TOOK PLACE. “THE LADY (LIBERALS) DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH, ME THINKS” – WS
There are laws and procedures in the various states including AZ for conducting audits and recounts. Those laws provide for independent observers and representatives of political Parties involved, as well as media access, to mainstream media as well as shall we say outlets known more for the shit they make up that is easily and repeatedly debunked over and over again. Anyway, the law and the proper oversight mandated by law was followed in AZ after the election.
What is happening now does NOT follow the law in AZ or any other state. That’s why it’s not just a farce, but a dangerous one. Ballots sat for weeks, even months and weren’t properly secured. A company with no experience is in charge of counting and right off the bat made a HUGE error and ruined ballots by not knowing something as basic as not to use blue pens to mark a ballot (which begs the question of they the fuck they would be marking ballots in the first place? What marks and where? There’s a difference between a small x or check mark in a corner and something near where a vote for a specific candidate can be marked. However, a company known to be hugely supportive of Trump is fucking with ballots that have been counted, audited and re-counted via AZ law and with full access to to process by observers of the candidates and overseen by a range of media outlets instead of as now only the batshit crazy OAN which tried to work out a deal with Trump himself as a regular contributor!
It’s sad to see people like you that appear to truly believe things that a grade school child, or at least a Jr. High kid who’d taken a civics class (I’m old enough that I had civics in both Jr. High and High School!) would easily recognize as bullhit.
Oh. One final thought. Using a word or phrase in caps here and there for emphasis (like many sites this one doesn’t allow for using italics in comments) but an entire post or virtually an entire post in all caps is considered shouting and a no-no when it comes to manners. People who do so aren’t taken seriously, and while they might not care another consequence is that they can find themselves put in a “timeout” or banned from a site. Including this one. You might want to keep that in mind if you want to continue to be heard on this forum.