The story too tough to die
Arizona attorney general: Election fraud in Maricopa ‘raises questions’ about 2020.
A blockbuster review of Maricopa County’s mismanaged 2020 election by Arizona’s attorney general is raising new questions about the final vote in a state former President Donald Trump was expected to win but lost to Joe Biden by 10,457 ballots.
“We have reached the conclusion that the 2020 election in Maricopa County revealed serious vulnerabilities that must be addressed and raises questions about the 2020 election in Arizona,” said an “interim report” issued today by Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
The 12-page report, reviewed by Secrets, did not condemn the county’s handling of the election outright but raised enough questions about voter identification, ballot handling, and counting to prompt Brnovich to call for a vast tightening of the rules.
It also revealed that he is readying criminal and civil fraud charges against some individuals the attorney general’s Election Integrity Unit has probed.
“The EIU’s review has uncovered instances of election fraud by individuals who have been or will be prosecuted for various election crimes,” said the report on its first page. The investigation is ongoing.
The report followed an Arizona Senate probe into the election and ballots in the state’s most populated county. In his follow-up review, Brnovich found serious irregularities with how signatures were verified and ballots safely transported in a state where some 80% voted by mail or absentee.
Brnovich, who has led the nation in calling for election integrity laws and even won a Supreme Court case on the issue, said in his report, “Whether we agree with peoples’ reasons for questioning election integrity or not, we should go above and beyond our call of duty to assure Americans that each legal vote was counted, and no illegal votes were allowed.”
The issue, and his calls for reform, could directly impact his future, as he is running in the GOP Senate primary to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in the fall.
Among the key findings in his report to Senate President Karen Fann:
- Maricopa officials were not cooperative with his demands for information.
- In many cases, election officials were given less than five seconds to verify voter signatures on file with ballots filed early.
- The number of ballots nullified because of problems dropped even though those filed nearly doubled in 2020.
- There were “multiple violations” in how about 20% of ballots in drop boxes were handled and delivered to election offices.
- Some $8 million in outside funds and grants were used in the vote count, now illegal under a recently passed law. Notably, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife funded more than half of that.
“We can report that there were problematic system-wide issues that relate to early ballot handling and verification,” said the report.
Added Brnovich, “With each passing election, Americans on all sides of the political spectrum have less confidence in the integrity of our elections. This is a crisis that should be addressed immediately with bipartisan solutions grounded in the rule of law.”