The Ongoing 2020 Election: Maricopa County Recount

[Breccia]

CNN

What? Don't you know CNN is Fake News? You can tell because they keep saying there is no election fraud!

(points at report) See?

[Benggaul]

Took a little peek around comments related to this and of course they're all saying it's MSM lies and "how can they know this before the report is even out?" and "the point of the audit wasn't to see who won!" etc. etc. etc..

Not that I expected anything different. Trumpers never lived in the realm of reality; why should we expect them to change their tune now?

[Levelfive]

Took a little peek around comments related to this and of course they're all saying it's MSM lies and "how can they know this before the report is even out?" and "the point of the audit wasn't to see who won!" etc. etc. etc..

Not that I expected anything different. Trumpers never lived in the realm of reality; why should we expect them to change their tune now?

This sums it up as succinctly as I've ever seen: "the fake audit may have inadvertently affirmed biden’s victory in arizona but that won’t matter because “the election was stolen” is an ideological belief about the proper order of things, and not a factual claim."

https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/14...644259331?s=20

[beanman12345]

I mean, even though it essentially came back with the same results, always remember it was still all complete bullshit scam fraudit. Also so much security has been compromised, and the cancer is already spreading to Texas and Pennsylvania is trying too, Wisconsin, Michigan Ugh.

GOP is dying(both figuratively and literally with 2k of em dying every day) for obvious reasons to anyone with a functioning brain, and they've decided to try to kill the country with them.

[Breccia]

"how can they know this before the report is even out?"

Wow. So, these people didn't even read the article, did they?

"the point of the audit wasn't to see who won!"

That's some fine goalpost movin', Lou. Not that they have a choice...well they do, they could be honest. They're choosing not to be.

Maricopa's two independent recounts ended late Feb. The AZ Senate intervened late March. Let's see what people were saying in the month of March, shall we?

Gov. Ducey 'Confident' in Arizona's Election Results, But Expresses Interest in GOP Led Ballot Audit

Senate President Karen Fann said she is still working to get this process started more than four months after the election was completed.

Fann said she hoped to have bipartisan teams reviewing each batch to provide a level of accountability. So far, though, Democrats see the entire effort as purely political show and won't participate.

"It's too bad the Democratic Party doesn't believe in getting answers for our constituents,'' she said."I think that's our job.''

Hmm. Oh, and this:



It looks like the most prominent AZ Party of Trumpers, and I guess any Republicans they had left, were already trying to hide behind "we need to restore trust". Karen (yeah, I'm going to call her that) wanted to restore trust. Therefore, I have full faith that she will take this third and final recount as evidence that the election was fine, and that changes aren't needed. (snicker)

I will also point out that Karen said other things would happen that did not, such as transparency and bipartisanship. She hired conspiracy theorists that were taking shadow backer money. Oh, and she did it on purpose. She lied.

Other people were...less concerned about covering their asses. Lindell flat-out said there was massive fraud.

I did not find Trump saying anything in the span of Feb/March. I didn't have to, of course, From December:

The Arizona Republican Party released a tweet Tuesday asking voters if they were “willing” to give their lives to overturn the results of the 2020 November election -- an attitude adopted after President Trump has repeatedly claimed the election was fraudulent.

Despite dozens of failed court cases and a lack of evidence pointing to widespread voter fraud throughout the election, Trump and his supporters maintain the belief that the election was rigged.

Ali Alexander, activist affiliated with Stop the Steal -- a movement focused on overturning the election's results in swing states, released a tweet Monday saying, “I am willing to give my life for this fight."

Quick interruption here: he's not dead. Just subpoena'd. Also I think he was kicked off Twitter. (checks news) Yep.

Arizona’s Republican Party then retweeted the message and asked followers whether or not they too would be willing to die to reverse the election’s results.

“He is. Are you?” the group tweeted.

Incidentaly, that FOX News article -- yes I cite FOX News, especially for stuff like this -- calls out an AZ Republican who fought back against any overturning attempts, saying (probably correctly) that such would be illegal.

As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.

It's tucked at the very end, I mean, it is still FOX News.

There's more from NBC News:

A top Republican in Arizona refuted President Donald Trump’s meritless attempts to overturn the election results there in a sharply-worded statement Friday while also joining other Republicans in calling for an election audit of its largest county.

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, said in a statement that it was highly unlikely, under state law, that the legislature there could appoint its own electors to deliver the state's Electoral College votes to Trump. The president’s legal team, which includes former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has claimed in its sputtering legal fight that widespread voter fraud in Arizona and other states is the reason Trump lost the election.

Bowers, however, put those claims to rest.

“Our state’s canvass was completed on Monday, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris received the most votes, so those are the candidates whom the state’s presidential electors must vote for,” he said in the statement. “Nothing in the U.S. Constitution or the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court even suggests that the Arizona Legislature could retroactively appoint different electors who would cast their ballots for 2 different candidates.”

Trump, just a few days before, had given a 45-minute speech directly to the country that was all about election fraud. Naturally, none of his claims were substantiated at the time, and none have been substantiated since. There is a full transcript here, with AZ-related claims including

In Detroit, everybody saw the tremendous conflict and the horrible way that the two Republican canvassers were treated so horribly because they wouldn’t vote when they saw that 71% of the precincts didn’t balance. Also, there were more votes than there were voters. Think of that. You had more votes than you had voters. That’s an easy one to figure, and it’s by the thousands. In Arizona, in-person voters whose balanced produced error messages from tabulation machines were told to press a button that resulted in their votes not being counted. Also in Arizona, the attorney general announced that mail-in ballots had been stolen from mailboxes and hidden under a rock.

Ultimately, I am prepared to accept any accurate election result, and I hope that Joe Biden is as well. We already have the proof. We already have tens of thousands of ballots more than we need to overturn all of these states that we’re talking about. This is an election for the highest office in the greatest country in the history of the world. Every reasonable American should be able to agree, based on what we have already documented, that we need a systematic analysis of the mail-in ballots to review the envelopes. It’s about the signature. If they’re on the envelopes, we can only review the envelopes, and that will tell us everything.

If you're wondering about the bolded, it's this story right here. It was eighteen, all blank. They were returned to the mailboxes, and it was in time for the election. Trump was at the minimum intentionally being deceptive about, for all we know, an act one of his own supporters carried out. Most likely, he was just flat-out lying.

If you're wondering about "enough proof" well, apparently he was lying about that, too.

He also had proclaimed there was election fraud around the same time in this tweet:

(click)

Hmm.

(click click click)

Oh. Right. CNN's got enough.

"Such total corruption," Trump tweeted Monday as the state's Republican governor, Doug Ducey, certified President-elect Joe Biden's narrow win in the state. "So sad for our country!"

Ducey decided to fight back. And he used Trump's favorite medium to do it.

In a nine-tweet thread on Twitter, the Arizona governor laid out -- in clear terms -- Arizona's election laws, asserted that those rules were followed and affirmed his faith in the result. (Biden won the state by more than 10,000 votes.)

More recently, July to be more precise, Trump was still saying there was election fraud in Arizona.

Far more recently, of course, Trump tried pushing it yet again only to be shut down by Cyber Ninjas themselves holy shit.

Trump backpedaled hard from praising a group of "highly respected" GOP auditors in Arizona after their "audit" of the state's election results confirmed that Joe Biden won in the general election. He also released a misleading statement Friday morning falsely claiming the audit found "significant and undeniable evidence of FRAUD!"

The statement was contradicted by a spokesperson for the Cyber Ninjas, who earlier told an NPR affiliate in Arizona, "Was there massive fraud or anything? It doesn't look like it."

Why would Trump release that praising message without a report to praise? Did someone lie and tell him there was fraud to be found? Did he assume, as I had before, that Cyber Ninjas would say "we found fraud but can't show our findings"? Because I stopped doing that when the courts said they couldn't do that.

"Interesting that the Unselect Committee of political hacks 'dropped' their subpoena request the night before Arizona is expected to announce its findings from the Forensic Audit on voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election Scam," Trump said in his original statement, which was sent around 11 p.m. ET on Thursday.

"This is what they do, this is what they are good at — but everybody will be watching Arizona tomorrow to see what the highly respected auditors and Arizona State Senate found out regarding the so-called Election!" the statement continued.

Oh, that's not what he walked back. This was:

Shortly after 10 a.m. ET on Friday, Trump released a new statement calling attention to the "huge findings in Arizona."

"However, the Fake News Media is already trying to 'call it' again for Biden before actually looking at the facts—just like they did in November!" the statement continued, adding that the sham audit "uncovered significant and undeniable evidence of FRAUD!"

Trump insisted in his second statement that "until we know how and why this happened, our Elections will never be secure."

And then, of course, no FRAUD! was found. No Fraud was found. No fraud was found. Biden picked up enough votes to fill four school busses. Trump didn't even bother to move the goalposts. He has always said the Arizona recount was about fraud, including lying that they found fraud when they did not. I'm still baffled. Why comment on the report when it wasn't out yet? Why claim you knew what was in it when you clearly did not? This wasn't a prediction, he didn't say "I think they found fraud" he said "they did find FRAUD!" This wasn't even a vague claim like "there was fraud, I'm sure of it" he said Cyber Ninjas found it.

So once again, I will call out @TexasRules and why not @GreenJesus @Thwart and any Trump supporter on these forums. Oh, this isn't a 24 hour challenge. I just want you to read that your manchild Trump got caught in an objective lie. It's indefensible. Don't waste your time, you have a single scroop of ice cream to cry into.

Trump might publicly have been telling people there was mass fraud. His lawyers, under oath, were not.

Donald Trump's campaign, along with the Republican National Committee and the Arizona Republican Party, had filed a lawsuit on Saturday alleging Maricopa County poll workers routinely disregarded procedures designed to give voters a chance to correct ballot mistakes on Election Day.

At the start of proceedings on Thursday morning, attorney Kory Langhofer stressed the plaintiffs were "not alleging fraud" or "that anyone is stealing the election" — simply raising concerns about a "limited number of cases" involving "good faith errors."

"Restore the trust" I see. Of course, they failed.

Claims of systemic problems seemed to fall apart under questioning, however. None of the witnesses indicated they had any real reason to believe their votes weren't counted — except for learning after the fact that poll workers shouldn't have pressed buttons for them.

Judge Daniel Kiley was unconvinced, ultimately granting the motion to exclude the declarations collected online.

“The fact that your process for obtaining these affidavits yielded affidavits that you yourself found to be false does not support a finding that this process generates reliable evidence,” Kiley said. “This is concerning.”

In the end, it comes down to the same thing: yelling at the rabid fanbase that there was massive fraud which there wasn't, behind closed doors or when there were consequences (lying to the American people is not a crime) saying it's about "restoring the trust". Well congratulations, trust restored. Arizona was fine. The first two recounts were also fine, apparently. And as some of the posters here have already indicated and I'll get in late on that bandwagon, Trump couldn't even win a rigged fight.

He is a fat, sad, fat, dickless, fat orange clown. He does nothing but lie, and whine, and have sex outside marriage.

[Machismo]

I want to note, Fox News has not reported on it at all... at least not on their website.

[Breccia]

The AZ Senate has begun the official hearing.

Okay, let's see what happens. There is one last chance for Cyber Ninjas to snort the Kool-Aid powder.

[Edge-]

https://twitter.com/HunterBassler/st...96342069604357

Senate President @FannKfann said she regrets the “lack of cooperation” from Maricopa County during the Senate GOP’s recount.

She then confirmed that the votes were close to what Maricopa County said they were. @12News #AZAudit

How dare Maricopa County not "cooperate" with every insane, overly burdensome, pointless requests for things like routers, after the requests for standard things like voting machines resulted in a $3M bill to buy new voting machines because nobody knows what the hell the chain of custody for them was.

Man, it's like when I asked my barber to cooperate with me and give me a free haircut and he told me to do it myself. I can't believe I still go to that guy!

[Breccia]

The AZ Senate is calling up people under indictment and conspiracy theorists, but apparently, it's all over but the posturing.





As expected, it leads with "there was no fraud" than launches into "BUT THERE ARE BIGLY YUGE PROBLEMS WE NEED SUPPRESSION" like myself and everyone else here knew they would.

This, of course, immediately shows "restore the trust" was a blatant lie. The election results were accurate. There was no fraud found. The loss of trust was willful by the side who didn't like the result, especially in this case. If I decide, for whatever reason, that Cruz is a thief, and the Texas DA says "well there's no probable cause" I don't really get to say "well you should look through his records anyhow, and then arrest him just to be sure, to restore my trust".

EDIT: And yes, "strengthen our democracy" is the term I guess Team Trump is going to go with. "No, you can't vote Mr. Brown Person, we have to strenghten our democracy".

[PhaelixWW]

The AZ Senate is calling up people under indictment and conspiracy theorists, but apparently, it's all over but the posturing.

This all can be very succinctly paraphrased as: "The process works! Here's how we fix it..."

[Breccia]

How dare Maricopa County not "cooperate"

"No private company should be trusted with the keys to our democracy".
-- Karen, who complained when Maricopa didn't hand the keys of democracy to a private company

I also like the way she called out Maricopa for not keeping the ballots etc handy and ready, when Cyber Ninjas left them out in the rain.

[Edge-]

"No private company should be trusted with the keys to our democracy".
-- Karen, who complained when Maricopa didn't hand the keys of democracy to a private company

I also like the way she called out Maricopa for not keeping the ballots etc handy and ready, when Cyber Ninjas left them out in the rain.

I'm just sad that with TX starting up their pointless "audit" and TX counties already bristling at this, that we're not done with this absolutely stupid fucking shit of the highest order.

I genuinely loathe everyone involved with these shams and spreading these lies. Like, genuine hatred.

I was looking forward for politics to get boring again, but apparently Republicans are committed to making sure it's a reality TV spectacle in perpetuity.

[Machismo]

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall of all those Qanon chat rooms.

[cubby]

I'm just sad that with TX starting up their pointless "audit" and TX counties already bristling at this, that we're not done with this absolutely stupid fucking shit of the highest order.

I genuinely loathe everyone involved with these shams and spreading these lies. Like, genuine hatred.

I was looking forward for politics to get boring again, but apparently Republicans are committed to making sure it's a reality TV spectacle in perpetuity.

Same here - I figured after Trump lost and it settled down a bit, things would get boring/normal again (as politics should be). But it's just gotten worse.

[Zaydin]

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall of all those Qanon chat rooms.

The Trumphadis are already busy moving the goal posts.

[Machismo]

The Trumphadis are already busy moving the goal posts.

Oh, I'm enjoying it.

[Zaydin]

Oh, I'm enjoying it.

Or if they aren't moving the goalposts, they are pretending this big fat amount of nothing is a huge smoking gun.

[Machismo]

Or if they aren't moving the goalposts, they are pretending this big fat amount of nothing is a huge smoking gun.

That's what they are doing.

"Look at all the FRAUD!!!"

It's times like these that I remember the line from Dumb and Dumber:

"So, you're telling me there's a chance."

[Breccia]

So while the QAnon conspiracy theorists and rabid fanbase point at...near as I can tell, complaints about smudged signatures...truth is truth.

"Truth is truth, numbers are numbers," Fann said at a Senate hearing on the review, which found only small variations, yielding 99 additional votes for Biden and 261 fewer votes for Trump. "Those numbers were close, within a few hundred."

The conclusion will dismay Trump supporters who had pushed for the review, many in the expectation that it would prove his unfounded assertions that he was robbed of re-election due to orchestrated fraud. So far no such proof has been produced either by Trump or his backers.

Outside groups tied to the "Stop the Steal" movement and other efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 results raised nearly all of the $6 million to fund the inquiry, viewing it as a catalyst for similar investigations in Pennsylvania, Michigan and other battleground states that Trump lost.

It wasn't. Trump lost. Get over it.

Trump, who had predicted the Arizona inquiry would substantiate his claims, issued a statement that appeared at odds with the review's findings, calling it "a big win for democracy and a big win for us."

Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer who represented Republican George W. Bush when he prevailed over Democrat Al Gore in a 2000 electoral dispute, called the review's conclusions a "huge defeat" for Trump.

"This was Donald Trump's best chance to prove his cases of elections being rigged and fraudulent and they failed," Ginsberg said on a media call organized by the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan policy group.

Question: is it really a failure, if what you're trying is impossible? Does "failure" imply there was a chance of success?

While finding the overall vote tallies largely matched up, the report highlighted a series of alleged problems, including 10,342 potential voters who voted in different counties, which Cyber Ninjas termed a "critical finding."

As part of a point-by-point rebuttal on Twitter, Maricopa County called that claim "laughable", suggesting those conducting the review may have failed to account for people with matching names and birth years in different counties, a not uncommon occurrence in a state of more than 7 million people.

Okay this question is dangerous: how does the "fraud" (eyeroll) in the 2020 election compare to, say, 2018? Or 2016? Or 1996? Conspiracy theorists are going to say "WAAAAAAAAAAH 10,000 votes WAAAAAAAAAH" but how many people move in/out of a multi-million county in an election cycle? Because honestly, 10,000 people moving in 2 years sounds low.

[Edge-]

Okay this question is dangerous: how does the "fraud" (eyeroll) in the 2020 election compare to, say, 2018? Or 2016? Or 1996? Conspiracy theorists are going to say "WAAAAAAAAAAH 10,000 votes WAAAAAAAAAH" but how many people move in/out of a multi-million county in an election cycle? Because honestly, 10,000 people moving in 2 years sounds low.

I know the next move. They need an ever better audit firm to re-audit the Cyber Ninja's audit. Let's Benghazi this shit, endless audits in the hopes that one of them will give us a result we like!