There has been no shortage of fervor in Arizona of late, as a third-party audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results continues to draw disparate and fiery opinions.
On the left, the investigation has been lambasted as a ruse designed to rile up the MAGA Movement and cast doubt on the efficacy of our electoral process. Over on the far-right, however, there is a very real belief that the audit is not only necessary, but that it could help to preserve the sanctity of future elections as well.
One of the most prevalent complaints that Democrats have had about the audit is that the company performing it, Code Ninjas, appears to be hellbent on finding wrongdoing in the election – not simply recounting.
This has led to worries that their methods could taint the very equipment that they are examining.
Maricopa County will not reuse most of its voting equipment after it has been with Arizona Senate contractors for its audit of November election results, the county announced Monday.
The potential cost to taxpayers is so far unknown. The county is about halfway through a $6.1 million lease with Dominion Voting Systems for the equipment, but it’s unclear whether it will have to pay the rest of the money owed under that lease, and whether the county or Senate will be on the hook.
The Senate handed the machines over to contractors in an attempt to tell whether they had been hacked or manipulated during the election, even though a previous independent audit commissioned by the county found that was not the case and the machines counted votes properly.
Hobbs had written in a May 20 letter to the county’s Board of Supervisors, recorder and Elections Department director that if the county tries to use the machines again, even if it performs a full analysis in an attempt to determine whether the machines were still safe to use, her office would “consider decertification proceedings.” In Arizona, voting systems must be certified to be used in elections.
The results of the Maricopa County audit won’t be known for some time, but the mainstream media has already dismissed the probe as being disingenuous and biased, and so there is little chance that the culmination of the count will make much of a splash.
