What To Know About The Arizona Election Audit

PHOENIX, AZ — An audit of results from the 2020 election in Arizona's largest county by the state senate has entered its second week.

The audit, which is being overseen by a firm called Cyber Ninjas, comes after Republican lawmakers subpoenaed the more than 2 million ballots and nearly 400 tabulation machines.

The audit, which officially started on Friday, has drawn immense criticism from Democratic lawmakers at the state and national level.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told CNN on Monday that the audit effort was a political stunt and a "farce."

"A group of Republicans are continuing to try to appease their base who refuse to accept that ... Trump lost Arizona and that he's not the president anymore," Hobbs told CNN's Chris Cuomo.

Here's what to know about the Arizona audit:

Why is this happening?

The audit into the Maricopa County results of the 2020 election was approved by Arizona's state senate, which has 16 Republican and 14 Democratic members.

The volume of misinformation about the election result in Arizona persisted, even after various Arizona Republicans called Biden's victory legitimate, as far back as early December.

"As a conservative Republican, I don't like the results of the presidential election," Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers said in an early December statement. "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."

The misinformation about the 2020 election was continued by the Arizona Republican Party itself, which said in a since-deleted tweet in early December, including a GIF from the movie, "Rambo," with the caption, "This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something."

A total of eight lawsuits were filed to block the election result in December, all of which were thrown out, either by state or federal courts, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear the party's challenge.

The continued presence of misinformation after Arizona certified the election in late November forced Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to denounce those pushing it.

The Republican Party is the party of the Constitution and the rule of law. We prioritize public safety, law & order, and we respect the law enforcement officers who keep us safe. We don’t burn stuff down. We build things up.
— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) December 8, 2020

A few weeks later, the audit process began in late December, when Senate President Karen Fann and Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee chair, Sen. Eddie Farnsworth, filed a subpoena for ballots and voting machine information for a forensic audit.

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge allowed the Arizona Senate to access the more than 2.1 million ballots in late February, according to the Associated Press.

“There is no question that the Senators have the power to issue legislative subpoenas,” Judge Timothy Thomason wrote. “The Subpoenas comply with the statutory requirements for legislative subpoenas. The Senate also has broad constitutional power to oversee elections.

“The Arizona legislature clearly has the power to investigate and examine election reform matters,” the ruling says. “The Subpoenas also do not violate separation of powers principles. Production of the subpoenaed materials would not violate confidentiality laws.”

The audit comes after Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1996 to carry the Grand Canyon State.

Biden wound up carrying the 48th State by just under 11,000 votes, or .3 percent, in 2020.

“We hold an audit,” State Senator Eddie Farnsworth said at a Judiciary Committee hearing. “And then we can put this to rest.”

For months, the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors refused to turn over voting machines and ballots from the election.

The Arizona Senate tried and failed to hold the board, which has four Republican and one Democratic member, in contempt in February, but failed by a single vote.

In late February, the board handed over the ballots after Thomason's ruling, setting the stage for the election audit.

An audit of Maricopa County's election equipment in late February found that the machines weren't hacked or connected to the internet, providing more evidence against claims by Trump and his lawyers that the election was corrupted.

So far, more than 78 pallets carrying 2.1 million ballots have been delivered to the audit site, according to The New York Times, which is being held at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum near downtown Phoenix.

Who is overseeing the audit?

The Arizona election audit is being overseen by Florida-based firm, Cyber Ninjas, which is run by Ken Bennett, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, which is another point of contention for Democrats.

“You know the dog that caught the car?” said Steve Gallardo, the lone Democrat on the Republican-dominated Maricopa Board of Supervisors, according to the New York Times. “The dog doesn’t know what to do with it.”

The Arizona Republican Party counters that the Democrats are trying to shirk their obligation to transparency by lambasting the audit process.

The audit has drawn criticism from Republicans, like Georgia Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling, who argue that the actions taken by Arizona Republicans serve to undermine confidence in elections.

What impact will the Arizona audit have?

It's tough to say right now. Fann, who was a major force behind the audit, said in December that any audits would not change the 2020 election's result.

“A lot of our constituents have a lot of questions about how the voting, the electoral system works, the security of it, the validity of it,” she said, according to The New York Times. “...What else could we do to verify the votes were correct and accurate.”

Hobbs, in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, argued that the audit into the 2020 election result could set a dangerous precedent for future elections in America.