Hans von Spakovsky, a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission and former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Justice Department, says the audit of 2020 presidential election results in Arizona’s Maricopa County shows some “serious potential problems.”
He wrote at the Daily Signal, a part of The Heritage Foundation where he is a senior legal fellow, that it was not surprising that the audit revealed a recount of ballots very close to the “official” results from last November, giving Joe Biden the win.
He explained, “A recount does not verify or check whether ballots were cast by registered voters who are actually deceased; who do not actually live where they claim to live; who cast multiple votes because they are registered more than once; or who are not entitled to vote even though they are registered because they are not U.S. citizens or are felons who have not yet had their right to vote restored.”
He said, “A simple example illustrates this problem. If a homeowners’ association has an election and the new president wins with 51 out of 100 votes, a recount will no doubt confirm that she received 51 votes. But it will not reveal whether 10 of her 51 votes were cast by individuals who falsely claimed to live in the neighborhood when they actually live elsewhere.”
He said the Maricopa audit “lists some disturbing findings. That includes 23,344 ‘mail-in ballots voted from a prior address’; 9,041 ‘more ballots returned by voter than received’; 5,295 ‘voters that potentially voted in multiple counties’; 2,592 ‘more duplicates than original ballots’; and 2,382 ‘in-person voters who had moved out of Maricopa County.'”
This all in a county where Biden won by a handful – some 10,000 – votes.
This problem appeared following the 2020 election in Arizona like it did in several other swing states where small numbers of ballots resulted in a Biden victory. There were enough suspicions that multiple lawsuits were filed, with many thrown out on technicalities before anyone could evaluate the evidence.
What is known about the election is that multiple local officials changed state laws to accommodate mail-in ballots, even though the Constitution allows only state lawmakers to do that. In fact, one state already has begun an investigation revealing “evidence” of that misbehavior.
Further, leftist Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook handed over some $350 million to mostly leftist election officials for them to run their operations. The impact of those millions, some of which was used to turn out voters, hasn’t been determined.
Von Spakovsky said other problems were found in Arizona, too.
“Such as voters whose ballots were counted despite the fact that they registered to vote after the state deadline for registration had already passed.”
He warned, “These are serious potential problems that should be investigated by election officials with the involvement of law enforcement. For example, the individual voter files of the 5,295 ‘voters that potentially voted in multiple counties’ should be pulled, and each voter should be investigated to determine if they have multiple registrations and, in fact, illegally cast more than one vote in the 2020 election.”
He said,” All of the potential problems that the auditors found ought to be investigated to verify what actually happened in each case with each of these voters. That is the only way to determine whether there were 5,295 double votes cast in the election or whether some or none of these voters were, in fact, double registered. This claim might be found to be valid—on the other hand, an in-depth investigation might find that there is no validity to this claim or any of the other claims.”
When the Arizona state Senate revealed last week the results of its audit of the 2020 presidential election race in Maricopa County, which confirmed more than 57,000 problem ballots in a county won by Joe Biden by a handful, some may have thought the issue was over.
They would have been wrong.
This week, Arizona Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Brnovich announced a review of the issue, and so did officials in Maricopa County.
The Arizona Senate’s report that was released on Friday raises some serious questions regarding the 2020 election.
Arizonans can be assured our office will conduct a thorough review of the information we receive.
— Mark Brnovich (@GeneralBrnovich) September 28, 2021
Brnovich said his office asked the Arizona Senate to provide supporting documents to its report, and he’s insisting that Maricopa County “preserve all documents and data.”
“The Arizona Senate’s report that was released on Friday rises some serious questions regarding the 2020 election,” he explained. “Arizonans can be assured our office will conduct a thorough review of the information we receive.”
County officials also said they will be “producing a comprehensive report addressing all of the allegations and questions from the Arizona Senate’s final audit report.”
NEW: In the coming weeks, Maricopa County will be producing a comprehensive report addressing all of the allegations and questions from the Arizona Senate’s final audit report. We will take the time needed to be thorough & accurate. #AZAudit
More: https://t.co/LyKertc86p
🧵⬇️— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) September 29, 2021
Von Spakovsky noted critics of the audit in Arizona “are crowing that the audit confirms that President Joe Biden won the election in Arizona.”
He said, however, they simply “either don’t understand the purpose of an audit or are trying to deliberately obscure the most worrying findings in the audit.”
Further, he said an audit is not to overturn an election, since that deadline has long passed.
“Instead, audits are intended to determine whether voting machines worked properly; whether applicable state and federal laws and regulations were followed; whether the voter registration list was accurate and up-to-date and only allowed eligible individuals to vote; and whether all eligible voters were able to vote, that their vote was properly counted, and that their votes were not voided or nullified by fraud, mistakes, or errors,” he said.
He continued, “What is most disturbing about the reaction to the audit report is that so many seem to think that this is the end of the review process since the hand recount showed that Biden won and, thus, nothing else needs to be done. This attitude is especially disturbing in Maricopa County election officials, who from the very start have done everything they could to obstruct the audit and who are now claiming that since their ‘canvass’ was accurate, they don’t need to do anything else.
“That attitude is wrong. The audit seems to have revealed that sloppy, careless, and chaotic procedures were utilized in Maricopa County during the last election. Officials there have a duty to not only investigate all of the potential problems the audit found, such as potential multiple registrations by the same individual, but to correct their procedures and implement better training for their election workers to ensure that such problems, if confirmed, do not happen again.”
He said law enforcement also is obligated to get to work.
“Casting multiple ballots in the same election is a crime, as is registering and voting where you don’t actually reside. Failure of state election and law enforcement officials to fulfill their duties to investigate will reflect poorly on them.”
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