The Arizona Senate leadership announced on Wednesday that it has hired a team of independent auditors to complete a “comprehensive, full forensic audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, including a hand recount of all ballots.”
The Trump campaign sued Arizona election officials last year, alleging irregularities in Maricopa County, a county he won in 2016. According to state-certified results, Biden won the county by just over 45,000 votes and barely won the state by a 10,457 vote margin.
The Arizona Senate has compiled a team of forensic auditors to conduct the audit: Cyber Ninjas, Inc., Wake Technology Services, Inc., CyFIR, LLC, and Digital Discovery. Cyber Ninjas, a cybersecurity company, will lead the team.
“The audit will validate every area of the voting process to ensure the integrity of the vote,” a press release from Arizona Senate Republicans states. “The scope of work will include, but is not limited to, scanning all the ballots, a full manual recount, auditing the registration and votes cast, the vote counts, and the electronic voting system.”
A report will be issued at the conclusion of the audit.
“Our people need to be assured that the Senate and Maricopa County can work together on this audit, to bring integrity to the election process,” said Senate President Karen Fann. “As Board Chair Sellers and County Recorder Richer wrote in the Arizona Republic ‘a democracy cannot survive if its people do not believe elections are free and fair.’ They also acknowledge a significant number of voters want the additional assurance that a full forensic audit might bring. I look forward to continued cooperation.”
🚨BREAKING: Arizona Senate hires auditor to review 2020 election in Maricopa County #ElectionIntegrity pic.twitter.com/8Lbys4Ngd8
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) March 31, 2021
The audit will be completely independent without any involvement of Senate leadership. A report is expected to be issued in about 60 days.
Even if the audit were to prove Trump legitimately won Arizona, that would not be enough to change the outcome of the election. At least two more states would have to need to be audited and results flipped for Trump to be proven the legitimate winner of the Electoral College.
Nevertheless, Jenna Ellis, former Senior Legal Adviser and Counsel to President Trump, and host of the “Just The Truth” podcast, was encouraged by this development.
“This kind of action is necessary for continued election reform and to ensure integrity for all future elections,” Ellis told PJ Media. “Every state legislature’s first duty moving forward is to ensure no future election is corrupted and irredeemably compromised like 2020 was. In a very short window last November, state legislatures including Arizona failed to fulfill their constitutional obligation to protect election integrity. States have asked me what they can do now moving forward. This is a good step, and there’s a lot more work to do. This is not over.”
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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter, Gab, Facebook, MeWe, Heroes, Rumble, and CloutHub.
