Amid claims of election fraud, the Arizona Senate is initiating its own audit of the 2020 presidential race after Maricopa County did the same.
Arizona state Senate Republicans justified their investigation Friday despite Maricopa County’s parallel audit announced two days prior, saying they would rely on a “qualified auditing firm” to conduct a “forensic audit” of the results.
“There are two primary reasons we have determined the Senate needed to retain its own independent auditing firm. The Senate has consistently called for an auditor certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). We have now learned the EAC does not certify auditors as such,” said state Senate President Karen Fann. “The other primary reason is that the scope of the audit must be broader than the one proposed by [Maricopa] County’s vendors, [and] our firm will perform everything we have required in the subpoenas.”
State Senate Judiciary Chairman Warren Petersen applauded Fann’s decision as a necessary step toward ensuring election integrity.
“Maricopa County has chosen two companies to audit their election. Unfortunately, their limited scope does not fulfill the demand of our subpoena, which called for a deep forensic audit,” said Petersen. “We need to do more than make basic checks on the machines to make sure they were working. … I’m grateful the President has chosen a firm that will do that work. Only then will our voters feel confident about the results of the election.”
The Maricopa County audit, initiated by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday, will involve an independent forensic audit of the county’s ballot tabulation equipment, primarily on the Dominion Voting Systems machines used to record vote tallies. Foreshadowing the Senate’s audit, approval for the audit was not unanimous among board members.
“We trust the process, but we take many steps always, day after day, to verify we are doing the right thing, and this is just part of the process this board is known for,” Clint Hickman, the supervisor for District 4, said Wednesday.
Further complicating matters is the narrow projected victory of the state’s incumbent GOP chairwoman, Trump loyalist Kelli Ward. Having been declared the victor by a mere 42 votes, Ward is being subjected to demands for a reexamination of her own race by challenger Sergio Arellano.
“This isn’t about the chairman’s race,” Arellano, the Arizona businessman who came in second place to Ward in their weekend election face-off, said in a written statement obtained by the Arizona Republic. “This is about election integrity.”
Ward rejected calls for her race to be audited, saying the results are “final.”
“Because no one challenged the election on the day of the election — there were no complaints, and actually, there was a lot of unity that was claimed there at that meeting — these are the final, final results of that election,” she said.
While pro-Trump advocates such as Ward seek to mold the party in the image of former President Donald Trump, other high-profile Republicans have expressed support for President Biden. Gov. Doug Ducey, former Sen. Jeff Flake, and Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Sen. John McCain, were censured by the Arizona GOP after they either did not support Trump’s election challenges or endorsed Biden in his 2020 presidential bid.
The censure vote was celebrated by Flake and McCain, with the former saying he was in “good company” and the latter calling the rebuke “a badge of honor.”
Trump narrowly lost the Grand Canyon State during the 2020 presidential election, the first Republican presidential candidate to do so since former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole in 1996. The loss spurred a wave of lawsuits alleging voter fraud in Arizona, eight of which have been rejected by judges.
