Maricopa County elections officials refute all fraud claims from audit of 2020 results
Jan 5, 2022, 3:02 PM | Updated: 3:09 pm
County Elections Department Director Scott Jarrett (Maricopa County Screenshot)
(Maricopa County Screenshot)
PHOENIX — Maricopa County elections officials during a hearing Wednesday provided a rebuttal to all claims of fraud brought forth during the audit of 2020 results conducted by contractors of the Republican-led Arizona Senate.
The county also released a 93-page report that detailed 87 potentially questionable ballots. Cyber Ninjas, the audit’s lead contractor, said in its final report on Sept. 24 that over 53,000 ballots were potentially questionable.
A total of 40 claims made by the Cyber Ninjas were rebuffed by county election officials.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, County Recorder Stephen Richer, County Elections Department Director Scott Jarrett and other officials participated in the hearing.
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“It’s my hope that this will be the last word on the November 2020 election, because you’re going to hear the facts today in detail,” Supervisor Bill Gates, who was elected as the board’s chairman earlier in the day, said at the top of the hearing.
The county said it had forwarded 37 instances where a voter could have unlawfully cast multiple ballots to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
There were also 50 instances in which a ballot was potentially double counted, according to the report.
Maricopa County, in the report, went in-depth on other claims and popular misinformation, including that the server had connectivity to the internet.
The hearing could signal the conclusion of a nearly year-long review into the 2020 election that saw Joe Biden defeat Donald Trump to become president.
On March 29, Arizona Senate President Karen Fann announced that she’d hired Cyber Ninjas to lead CyFIR and two other contractors in the audit.
In that announcement, Fann said she expected to get the results in about 60 days, but the review took more than four months.
The physical process started April 23 at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum and underwent multiple delays and extensions, generating plenty of controversy along the way.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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