The Arizona “Fraudit” Just Went Code Red, and Trump Is Licking His Chops

The dangerous precedent being set cannot be overstated

The so-called “audit” in Maricopa County, Arizona has reached new levels of dangerous, with the organizers (in a very Trumpian fashion, via tweet) accusing county election officials of deleting files off a server before it was delivered. The allegations were repeated in a letter from the GOP State Senate President Karen Fann, who called for a meeting to discuss the inflammatory, unfounded allegations. The Chairman of the Maricopa County Supervisors, Jack Sellers, speaking for the entire board comprising four Republicans and one Democrat, responded to Fann with a strong denial and condemnation:

Yesterday I received a letter from the Senate President asking that members of the Board and other Maricopa County subject matter experts come to a meeting and resolve “three serious issues.”  At the same time, the Senate’s audit Twitter account accused County election officials of deleting files off a server before it was delivered. That would be a crime – and it is not true.

I know you have all grown weary of the lies and half-truths six months after the 2020 General Election.  Our Board is tired of it too – especially when those lies turn into threats directed at us and County employees who are public servants doing their job. It is dangerous to spout accusations of this magnitude via a tweet.

After reviewing the letter with County election and IT experts, I can say the allegations are false and ill-informed.  Moreover, the claim that our employees deleted election files and destroyed evidence is outrageous, completely baseless and beneath the dignity of the Arizona Senate. I demand an immediate retraction of any public statements made to the news media and spread via Twitter.

The damage from the tweet and Fann’s letter, however, was already done. Adherents to the Big Lie have already retweeted the claim over 13,000 times, with right-wing media such as Breitbart and pundits like Mike Huckabee filing the echo chamber with the wild claim before it was even examined or answered. Per the Washington Post, Trump himself issued a statement on Thursday calling Fann’s letter “devastating” and falsely claiming that it documented “voting irregularities, and probably fraud” in the county. His base is eating it up, and it could lead to even more political extremism and violent rejection of democratic electoral outcomes.

Like the false statements about over-votes in Michigan counties (which proved to be false) and hidden ballot boxes under tables in Atlanta (also false), these accusations of deleted files in Arizona are sadly proving sufficient by themselves to buttress unfounded beliefs that the election was marred by fraud and was outright stolen.

GOP leaders in other states are likely watching these events carefully. The Arizona experience essentially mean that a hopelessly biased and private company, with no actual legal authority to conduct an audit and no actual experience in auditing, can be co-opted by partisan local officials, who then use the power of their legislative subpoenas to hand over the public’s voting records to it. That done, the mere allegation of an irregularity—one that has not even been reviewed by the other side—is enough to disastrously undermine faith in the election among a certain large sector of voters.

The official Maricopa election county Twitter account responded angrily to the accusatory tweet by the auditors. As an indication of how bad things have gotten, the county had to put Cyber Ninjas and their “audit” on blast, hashtagging that #RealAuditorsDont release false conclusions without understanding what they are reviewing; hire conspiracy theorists; require volunteers to sign NDAs; leave ballot and election equipment unsecured; ban news reporters; hide their processes; take money from biased news organizations; and have no end date for their audit.

Like election officials in Georgia, exhausted Republican officials in Maricopa County, Arizona are now faced with trying to disprove a negative while being accused of fraud and collusion. If there is a witch hunt happening in America, it is the bizarre quest to find GOP traitors paid off by Dominion Voting Systems and the pedophile Democrats. 

The Georgia election circus in late 2020, with threatening phone calls from the former president and tedious official recounts, was an orderly affair compared to what is now happening at the direction of the state GOP in Arizona. It is possible that this particular level of crazy proves too much for moderate state voters in 2022, and that it actually moves Arizona even farther into the blue column. Perhaps only widespread electoral humiliation can stop the GOP from poisoning our politics further. But sadly, if and when this happens, the GOP may claim once again that they lost so badly only because of election fraud.