“Incredible organization and integrity taking place in Arizona with respect to the Fraudulent 2020 Presidential Election,” said Trump in a statement Monday afternoon. “These are Great American Patriots, but watch, the Radical Left Democrats ‘demean and destroy campaign’ will start very soon.”
Cillizza: What’s the genesis of this recount? Didn’t Arizona already recount the entire state?
Fifield: When the general election results came in showing that Arizona elected Joe Biden as president, the results were immediately challenged by the Trump campaign, which claimed widespread fraud. The campaign and the Arizona Republican Party filed numerous lawsuits, but the courts dismissed them.
Maricopa County performed multiple audits of its election as required under state law, including a hand count of a statistically significant number of ballots and two logic and accuracy tests of voting machines. That wasn’t enough for several Arizona Republican senators who had questions about the election results, including Senate President Karen Fann. So the county hired two independent auditors to thoroughly examine its voting machines, including to see whether they were hacked into or tampered with. All of the county’s audits came back clean, showing that votes were counted accurately, but that still wasn’t enough for many senators, including Fann.
Cillizza: Why Maricopa County in particular? And why not the whole state?
Fifield: Maricopa County is the largest county in Arizona and has as very mixed electorate. It is one of the largest swing counties in the nation. That made it a target for the Trump campaign, which challenged election results in several swing states where [Joe] Biden won on narrow margins. That focus on the county from the start, in particular, led to this audit being considered only here and not across the state.
Cillizza: Who is overseeing this recount? Are state election officials involved?
Fifield: The county judge granted the Arizona Senate access to the ballots, voting machines and voter data, so this is technically the Senate’s audit. But the Senate has relinquished control of the audit to private contractors.
Cillizza: What is the goal here? What could a partial recount of the state’s ballots tell us?
Fifield: Senate President Karen Fann says the goal of the audit is to identify whether fraudulent votes were cast in the election and identify there are any problems with the county’s voting process. Fann said any irregularities identified could be used as the Arizona Senate crafts new laws to change Arizona’s voting process.
Critics say that the audit is a late attempt to overturn the state’s election results, nearly six months after the election.
Cillizza: Finish this sentence: “The effect of this latest recount on Arizona’s politics will be _________.” Now, explain.
Fifield: “The effect of this latest recount on Arizona’s politics will be either huge or miniscule, depending on how it all plays out.”
If the results are believed to be accurate and fair by Senate Republicans, and the results say that there was fraud or misconduct in the election, the legislature may attempt to dramatically change how voting happens in our state.
The audit results could be used by state lawmakers not just here, but across the country, in attempts to push through numerous changes to how we vote.
