Maricopa County supervisor urges GOP colleagues to move on from 2020

PHOENIX – Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates hopes his fellow Arizona Republicans can move on from 2020 now that election review results are expected to corroborate what he’s known since votes were officially tallied in November: Joe Biden won.

“To me this is hopefully the beginning of the end of the big lie,” Gates told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News on Friday. “Now we have had a report issued by the Cyber Ninjas that shows that Joe Biden won Maricopa County.

“It’s now time for those other elected officials, the Republicans in the state, to stand up, speak out, say this election is over, Joe Biden won. There is absolutely no reason for my fellow Republican elected officials to remain silent.”

Cyber Ninjas and the other contractors hired by Arizona Senate Republican leaders to review the 2020 presidential and U.S. Senate elections in metro Phoenix were set to present their findings during a livestreamed hearing Friday afternoon.

Draft versions of the report were leaked to multiple media outlets Thursday night and revealed that the contractors’ hand recount of nearly 2.1 million ballots produced results similar to the ones certified by state officials, including Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

The draft alleges a number of shortcomings in election procedures and suggested the final tally still might not be reliable.

County officials are saying any discrepancies are likely to be the result of the Cyber Ninjas’ lack of expertise and haphazard procedures.

“When you get into these sort of anomalies that they may take and try and show systemic problems with Maricopa County elections, that’s where I push back,” Gates said.

“And I would argue that many of these faulty conclusions that they may draw is because of the fact that these individuals who did this audit report do not have election experience, one, and, two, are known partisans.”

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann has publicly maintained that she wanted the review done to find ways to improve election integrity, not as a means to overturn the election results.

However, many supporters of former President Donald Trump see it as a step toward somehow returning him to office.

Despite his skepticism, Gates said wouldn’t be against considering valid recommendations for improving the election system if there are any in the report, which is coming out more than five months after the review started and nearly 11 months after the election.

“To the extent that there are good suggestions, if there are any, with our processes moving forward that come out of this process, that’s great,” he said.

“But it’s time to move on from the 2020 election.”

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