The Arizona Senate lacks the authority to recall electors, the legislative body’s Republican president said on Friday.
That statement by Karen Fann came in response to fellow state Sen. Wendy Rogers, who called for a new election after the Arizona Senate held a briefing in which contractors hired for its 2020 election audit in Maricopa County said they don’t have enough information to complete a report.
Fann told One America News Network, a cable news channel with a reporter who is controversially helping to fund the audit while covering it, that the Arizona Senate has the power to help the auditors get the materials and information they say they need (likely through more subpoenas, along with a door-to-door canvass), but the question of decertifying the election will be left up to others.
“The Senate body — we do not have the authority to do that. So, this is what we have said, and I want to make this very clear on the record,” Fann told host Natalie Harp.
“We as a Senate body — we have the ability to subpoena information because we make laws. And we’re entitled to have the information to determine how to write those laws. That’s why we are successful in court, and that’s what we’re doing. It’s all about election integrity. It’s not about the Trump-Biden race. It’s not about the Kelly-Martha McSally race,” she added, referring to the presidential election and the U.S. Senate contest won by Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly.
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President Joe Biden won Arizona and its 11 electoral votes by more than 10,000 votes out of more than 3.3 million cast across the state. His lead was due partly to his advantage in Maricopa County, where the Democrat scored nearly 45,000 more votes than former President Donald Trump.
Maricopa County officials, who have said the auditors are incompetent and refuse to cooperate fully with the review, previously authorized two election machine audits that found no irregularities in the county’s 2020 election. There was also a hand recount of a statistical sample of ballots that did not turn up any problems.
But Trump still insists the presidential election was stolen in battleground states such as Arizona and praised the “brave” GOP-led state Senate after it held its hearing Thursday with Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and two other people involved with the partisan audit. He also shared the statements attributed to Rogers and other state senators saying they have heard enough.
“I call for the Biden electors to be recalled to Arizona & a new election must be conducted. Arizona’s electors must not be awarded fraudulently & we need to get this right,” Rogers said in a pair of tweets.
Pressed on whether anything can be done if widespread malfeasance is uncovered, Fann passed the buck for determining a path forward.
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“I am not saying there is no way it can be done. What I am saying is our Senate body does not have the authority to do it. However, we will turn [the audit’s findings] over to the attorneys general, not only on the state level, but on the federal level. And we will turn it over to Congress, and they can make those decisions. And that is, I’m saying, if there were any wrongdoings,” she said.
“It could be that we might just find a lot of irregularities in the sense there were problems with the votes,” Fann acknowledged. “But if, if, if those determinations show there was enough difference in a count of the electoral — particularly since it was such a small margin here as it was in some other states, then Congress is going to have to take care of that.”
“They are going to have to make those decisions. This has never happened, in my knowledge, in the history of America. So, I don’t think there’s any precedent set for it at this point,” she said.
