Arizona's Audit Continues to Be a Clusterfuck
If you’ve forgotten about the Arizona “audit” of Maricopa County’s votes in the 2020 election, you can be forgiven. At times, it seems like the audits’ backers have forgotten about it too.
Arizona state-Senate Republicans launched the process this spring as a response to false claims of election fraud spread by several of themselves, as well as former President Donald Trump. The Senate hired Cyber Ninjas, a firm run by a “Stop the Steal” backer that has repeatedly declined to offer any evidence it is qualified for the job. The process was originally expected to conclude by May 14. This was a hard deadline, because the coliseum rented for the count was due to hold another event. But the count missed that deadline, and the process resumed later in May.
May turned to June, and Donald Trump was reportedly telling people that he expected to be reinstated to the presidency in August, once the audit proved that fraud had tainted the election results. (Never mind that there remains no evidence of widespread fraud, and that there’s no mechanism for a former president to be reinstated mid-term.) By July, the due date was mid-August.
Now August is past, and Trump hasn’t been reinstated—and neither has the public seen the results of the audit. In fact, it’s been hard for the public to have any sense of what’s going on at all. I spent several days this week trying to get answers from several of the principals and couldn’t get any closer to an answer. Finally, on Thursday, a spokesperson for Arizona Senate Republicans said the findings of the audit would be released in a public hearing on September 24. That would be five months after the audit began, nearly 11 months after the election, and four months after the initial scheduled completion date.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/arizonas-audit-continues-to-be-a-chaotic-mess/ar-AAOzWi9
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The audit is being funded largely by private money, which keeps taxpayers off the hook but also raises questions of influence and farms out a governmental function to conservative donors.
They are getting us used to the idea that private entities can challenge election results & demand access to everything related to our vote. Look for this to happen all over red America whenever their candidate loses, only they won't wait six months like they did this time. They'll be there the day after the election, demanding to be part of the process.
There had to have been some federal election laws broken during this clusterfuck. Where the hell is the DOJ? Oh, I forgot. They sent a letter. Back in June.
We are stupid to have let this continue to this long. It emboldens them & we look weak. 
It will get fixed somehow though. 
