The Republican-led Maricopa County Elections Department released a report on Wednesday refuting the “faulty and inaccurate conclusions” of the Arizona election audit, Axios reports.
Republicans in the country, who have repeatedly refuted allegations by Trump allies of any issues that could have affected the outcome of the election, issued a 93-page report debunking the Cyber Ninjas audit findings point by point.
The report said that the audit made "faulty and inaccurate conclusions" about more than 53,000 ballots in its hand count of 2.1 million paper ballots, including claims about voters who moved or had duplicative voter registrations.
"In total, we found fewer than 100 potentially questionable ballots cast out of 2.1 million. This is the very definition of exceptionally rare,” the report said. "None of these instances impacted the outcome of races and a thorough review by our election professionals confirmed there were no systemic issues related to ballot counting and processing in the November 2020 General Election.”
“Flawed understanding”:
The report said that the audit’s analysis of “anomalies” from EchoMail, an audit contractor that reviewed early ballot affidavits, was based on a "flawed understanding of signature verification laws and practices."
The report refuted 80 points in total, including 22 misleading statements, 41 inaccurate claims, and 13 falsehoods.
The report added that 14 different allegations of fraud, manipulation or election tampering in the county were rejected by the courts.
"Despite all evidence to the contrary, false allegations continue to persist and damage voter confidence," the report said.
Other reviews continue:
Despite the failure of the Maricopa County audit to find any evidence of irregularities that could have impacted the outcome of the race, other states are still running election reviews more than one year later.
Republicans in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are overseeing reviews similar to the Arizona audit. Investigators in Texas recently failed to turn up any evidence in their own probe. And Trump allies in other states have also called for similar reviews or even a nationwide audit.
"This is corrosive to our democracy," Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, who filed a lawsuit to end his state’s review, told Politico. "We've continued to see lies being made about the integrity of our elections."
