Experts Call It A 'Clown Show' But Arizona 'Audit' Is A Disinformation Blueprint

[Nevilledog]

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Daniel Dale
@ddale8
Good piece from @MilesParks about how the Arizona thing is much more of a lie-propagation tool than an “audit”:

Experts Call It A 'Clown Show' But Arizona 'Audit' Is A Disinformation Blueprint
"It's an audit in name only," says one former election security official. "It's a threat to the overall confidence of democracy, all in pursuit of continuing a narrative that we know to be a lie."
npr.org
8:02 AM · Jun 3, 2021

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/03/1000954549/experts-call-it-a-clown-show-but-arizona-audit-is-a-disinformation-blueprint

To Matt Masterson, the review of 2020 ballots from Maricopa County, Ariz., that's underway is "performance art" or "a clown show," and definitely "a waste of taxpayer money."

But it's not an audit.

"It's an audit in name only," says Masterson, a former Department of Homeland Security official who helped lead the federal government's election security preparations leading up to November's election. "It's a threat to the overall confidence of democracy, all in pursuit of continuing a narrative that we know to be a lie."

By lie, he means the assertion from former President Donald Trump and some of his allies that election fraud cost him a second term in the White House.

And, Masterson says, the strategy chosen by the Arizona's Republican state Senate leaders is working as intended to undermine confidence in the outcome of last year's vote.

The process is a simple exercise in how disinformation spreads and takes hold in 2021. And experts fear it presents a blueprint for other states and lawmakers to follow, one that is already showing signs of being emulated across the country.

*snip*

[dalton99a]

1. It is a template for Republicans in other states