Maricopa County ballot audit takes day off Sunday, to resume Monday

PHOENIX — The Maricopa County audit of the November election was paused for a day off on Sunday, AZ Audit announced in a tweet.

The count will be resumed on Monday morning.

The audit started on April 23, and Veterans Memorial Coliseum is being rented out until May 14. On Thursday morning, Senate liaison and former Republican secretary of state in Arizona Ken Bennett told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show that about 150,00 ballots had been inspected.

“With the progress we’re making, I believe we can get the 2.1 million ballots counted during the time that we’re here at the Coliseum,” Bennett said.

This is the second Sunday in a row that the audit was paused to give workers a day of rest. It was not clear if this will be the case next Sunday as well.

After multiple reviews of the election results in Maricopa County found no issues that would overturn Biden’s narrow victory in Arizona, a judge ruled the Senate could access Maricopa County’s 2.1 million ballots for a hand recount.

On Thursday the contractor overseeing the audit complied with the Maricopa County court order to release its policies for ensuring voter privacy and ballot secrecy.

The three documents released by Cyber Ninjas cover procedures for hand-recounting Maricopa County’s ballots, collecting and handling digital evidence, and securing the county ballots and tabulation machines at the state fairgrounds.

Biden won Arizona last year by 10,457 votes and won in Maricopa County by 45,109 votes.

The Senate audit can’t overturn the results of the election. Republicans in the chamber say the audit will help restore voter confidence and help lawmakers create changes to election laws.

The public can watch the audit process online.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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