Phony Arizona Election “Audit” Reveals Nothing About 2020 Electoral Votes

Obviously Joe Biden won, but that wasn’t the point.

Arizona protestors

Trump supporters protest outside the Maricopa County elections center in November 2020.Christopher Brown/ZUMA Wire

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The so-called audit of Arizona’s 2020 presidential election results led by state Republican lawmakers was never a credible audit, and in spirit it was something for more malicious. But now it’s officially over, and you’ll never guess who the real winner of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona was. You’ll want to sit down for this. Are you sitting down? You sure?

The winner was Joe Biden.

According to an early version of a “three-volume report” reviewed by the Arizona Republic, the results of the purported audit of the state’s largest county, Maricopa, “show Trump lost by a wider margin than the county’s official election results.”

The idea that Arizona’s election had somehow been stolen from former president Donald Trump has been weaponized to powerful effect on the political right. On January 6, a large number of US House and Senate Republicans objected to the certification of the state’s electoral votes. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) even voted against accepting Arizona’s electors after a mob of people who believed the election had been stolen stormed Congress, beat police officers, and called for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged.

The election results in Arizona had already been audited, long before January 6, by actual professionals, and the topline results hadn’t changed. The only reason ever to have thought that the results might be different on this effort was that it was not being done by professionals, but instead a small Florida firm called the “Cyber Ninjas” that had been chosen by Republican senators from Arizona despite not even submitting a formal bid. The Cyber Ninjas had never done anything like this before, in fact. Their CEO, however, had previously claimed that a defeated Trump had really won the state. What was their methodology like? Here’s the Associated Press:

The auditors are checking for bamboo fibers to test a theory that tens of thousands of fake ballots were shipped from Asia. A onetime treasure hunter who claims to have invented a new method to automatically spot ballot fraud says his technology is being used in the review.

Okay, yeah, sure. On a broader level, the fake audit already served its real intended purpose. The point was to leave an official imprint of skepticism on an electoral process that never warranted it. To amplify conspiracies and foment anger about the election, while the legislature went ahead and made it harder for certain people to vote—and, to show fealty to an ex-president who continues to hold sway over a political party veering farther away from democracy.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate