Republican state senators in Arizona held a hearing Thursday to share the findings of an audit of 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County.
Following the nearly two-hour hearing full of bombshell allegations, former President Donald Trump issued a passionate statement to his supporters via email.
“Arizona Senate hearings on the Maricopa County Election Audit is devastating news to the Radical Left Democrats and the Biden Administration,” Trump wrote.
He began by mentioning that more than 74,000 ballots had been counted “with no clear record of them being received.” This was one of the key findings mentioned in the audit hearing, and Arizona GOP Chairwoman Dr. Kelli Ward reiterated it on Twitter.
“Canvassing is necessary,” she wrote. “It is the one way to know if the problems are real problems or just clerical mistakes. There are ~ 74,000 ballots that came back but there is no indication that they were ever sent out by the county!”
Canvassing is necessary. It is the one way to know if the problems are real problems or just clerical mistakes. There are ~ 74,000 ballots that came back but there is no indication that they were ever sent out by the county! From #FOIA shows logs don’t match!
— Dr. Kelli Ward 🇺🇸 (@kelliwardaz) July 15, 2021
In addition, Trump said the audit hearing revealed “[v]ery big printer and ballot problems with different paper used.”
Lead auditor Doug Logan said the team had observed many ballots that appear to show Sharpie marks bleeding through from one side of a ballot to another. He added that this “can potentially cause you to vote for someone that you didn’t intend to vote for.”
Doug Logan: This is an actual ballot in Maricopa County with bleed through that would have been counted as an over vote. pic.twitter.com/dMaS0cvbFL
— Audit War Room (@AuditWarRoom) July 15, 2021
To avoid this problem, Maricopa County said it would use a bleed-proof paper called VoteSecure. If the pictures Logan showed are legitimate, it would appear other paper was used for some ballots.
Despite the findings revealed Thursday, Trump said, the county “refuses to work together with the Senate and others who are merely looking for honesty, integrity, and transparency.”
The Arizona Republican Party seemed to confirm this allegation on Twitter, saying, “Arizona Audit meeting at AZ State Senate reveals Maricopa County still has not provided many materials needed for complete audit – including routers, chain of custody, and images of mail in ballots.”
BREAKING: Arizona Audit meeting at AZ State Senate reveals Maricopa County still has not provided many materials needed for complete audit – including routers, chain of custody, and images of mail in ballots#ArizonaAudit #AmericasAudit #ElectionIntegrity
— Arizona Republican Party (@AZGOP) July 15, 2021
In order to truly confirm the legitimacy of the election, it would behoove Democrats to complete the necessary audits and substantiate their claims that widespread fraud did not occur.
Instead, they continue to make themselves appear suspicious by refusing to properly review the results.
“Why do the Commissioners not want to look into this corrupted election?” Trump continued. “What are they trying to hide?”
Given the evidence presented Thursday in Arizona, those questions seem to be valid.
The former president concluded his statement by invoking an idea on the minds of many of his supporters.
“The highly respected State Senator Wendy Rogers said in a tweet the hearing today means we must decertify the election,” Trump wrote. “In any event, the Senate patriots are moving forward with final results to be announced in the not-too-distant future, but based on today’s hearing, why even wait?”
The phrase “decertify the election” is undoubtedly a controversial one, but Rogers threw her support behind the idea in a tweet after the hearing.
DECERTIFY THE ELECTION
— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) July 15, 2021
In another tweet, Rogers called “for the Biden electors to be recalled to Arizona” and declared that “a new election must be conducted.”
to turn over, & tens of thousands of unauthorized queries demonstrating how insecure the election was, I call for the Biden electors to be recalled to Arizona & a new election must be conducted. Arizona’s electors must not be awarded fraudulently & we need to get this right.
— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) July 15, 2021
While Trump himself did not directly endorse the decertification of the election, he did call for the full audit findings to be released.
Given the multitude of legitimate questions surrounding the ballots in Maricopa County, that seems like the next logical step.
