For those who believe that Donald Trump was robbed of a second consecutive term as President of the United States in 2020, the road to redemption runs through Maricopa County, Arizona.
That’s where a massive audit of the contest’s results is currently underway, and where the “stop the steal” movement appears to be making its final stand.
Just days ago, Trump supporters were bolstered by a claim that the auditors could not locate or access a major electoral database, with many alleging that this was evidence of manipulation.
This week, they walked back those claims.
Firms hired to run a partisan audit of the 2020 election for Senate Republicans in Arizona said Tuesday that data was not destroyed, reversing earlier allegations that election officials in the state’s most populated county eliminated evidence.
The claim of deleted databases was amplified by former President Donald Trump and his supporters, who believe conspiracy theories about election irregularities.
Ben Cotton, the founder of a computer forensics firm working on the audit, told key senators that he had recovered all data. The revelation came a day after Maricopa County officials released a scathing letter saying the auditors couldn’t find the data because they didn’t know where to look.
“I have the information I need from the recovery efforts of the data,” said Cotton, founder of CyFIR LLC.
The audit will continue in the coming weeks, despite a number of members of the Arizona Elections Board insisting that the entire process is a “sham”.
