As I’m sure you are well aware, the 2020 battleground state of Arizona has had more than its share of controversy over the last year or so. Chief among those has been the claim that election or voter fraud may have happened on quite a large scale.
The claims are only fueled by the fact that the state which was awarded to former President Donald Trump in 2016 and has leaned to the right more so than not gave now President Joe Biden a win of more than 12,000 votes in 2020. That and that the COVID pandemic allowed voting laws and regulations to be altered drastically during the last voting cycle, leaving many to wonder how well they worked.
Naturally, this has begged some questions as to what happened during the 2020 general election, especially after a series of “inconsistencies” has turned up in the results.
And so, with much trepidation, a forensic audit, and the first of its kind, has been conducted in the state’s Maricopa County, where the greater part of Phoenix resides. Or at least state officials and senators are trying to complete one.
However, it seems at every turn, the county itself, including Maricopa’s Board of Supervisors, has been unwilling to comply with even the smallest of requests.
Now, at this point, I’m sure the Board is tired of being poked and prodded. And I’m sure they never really liked the idea of being second-guessed, to begin with.
But you’d think, as county officials and elected ones at that, they would also want transparency and their voters to be able to trust in them. Clearly, that’s not the case right now, or else people would have never called for such an audit in the first place.
So why would they then refuse and strongly object to handing over records that could exonerate them of all wrongdoing? If everything was above Board as they say it is, why not let it be proved?
As of right now, the Board has yet to hand over “all ballot envelopes or images of them, routers, network logs, and all county voter records to date.”
The Board was asked for this information clear back in December before the audit was even fully put together. But, unfortunately, as of July 26, the state Senate had yet to receive anything similar. And so, subpoenas were issued to get the information.
Yet, the Board is still unwilling to comply.
On August 2, the Maricopa board let that refusal be known. In his refusal to comply, the Board’s chairman Jack Sellers wrote that he has “little time to entertain this adventure in never-never land.” Apparently, he doesn’t think transparency and voters’ confidence in our election process is very important.
And so, on August 6, Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich approved a request to open a full investigation into the county’s Board of Supervisors.
According to the letter announcing the investigation, “the Attorney General will reach one of three conclusions.”
The first is related to the possibility that no wrongdoing on the part of the Board can be found, at least regarding whether or not they broke state or Arizona Constitutional laws. Should that be the case, no further action will be taken, obviously.
However, if broken laws or statutes are found during the investigation, the AG will provide the Board with 30 days to “resolve the identified violation.” Should the Board comply, again, no further action will be necessary.
If the Board is found guilty and yet fails to resolve the issues at hand, the Attorney General’s office has announced that they will then file an appropriate legal action with the Arizona Supreme Court and “notify the state treasurer, who shall withhold and redistribute state shared monies” intended for the county’s use.
The Board has until August 20 at 5 p.m. to respond to the letter of investigation – not that it will matter much what that response is. It seems that we might get some answers after all, although, you can be sure, more fireworks are likely before this show is over…
