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During a House hearing Thursday on the recent ‘audit’ of the 2020 Arizona election results conducted by supporters of former President Donald Trump, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Struggled with Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, who refused to accept his results showing Joe Biden won the state.
“Who won the election in Arizona: Donald Trump or Joe Biden?” Raskin asked Biggs at the start of the hearing, which was called by the House Oversight Committee.
“We don’t know. There are a lot of issues with this election that took place,” Biggs replied. The two-term Republican congressman was re-elected last year to represent the state’s fifth district in the same election whose results he questioned.
The “audit” of the heavily populated Maricopa County was carried out at the behest of the Arizona State Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, and conducted and funded by pro-Trump organizations. It showed that Biden had won 45,469 votes, a larger margin than the official result, which was 45,109.
“That’s the problem,” Raskin said. “Donald Trump refused to accept the results, and unfortunately we have one of the biggest political parties in the world following him off the edge of this electoral madness, and it is dangerous for democracy.”
The CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the company that conducted the partisan audit, declined to appear at the hearing to testify despite being invited. Before Doug Logan and his company were hired in Arizona, he made unfounded allegations of fraud in the 2020 election and was working with Trump allies to overturn the election results as early as last November.
At the same hearing, two Maricopa County GOP election officials, who oversaw and accepted the results, testified about threats they and their families received from Trump supporters for refusing to say the election had been stolen.
Jack Sellers, chairman of the Maricopa County Oversight Board, said he had police stationed outside his house for several nights due to specific threats against him.
Vice-chairman of the board, Bill Gates, said his family has been the target of numerous death threats.
“I have three daughters,” Gates said. “We have been subjected to many threats over the past few months. We have been doxxed.… We have received phone calls to the Supervisory Board saying that people are coming to kill us and our families.”
Gates later added that he believed that “a lot of people” who led the audit weren’t focused on “rebuilding trust and, instead, I think, was more about raising doubts, and I think we still see it today, quite frankly. “
As the Trump campaign disputed the results, Sellers and Gates received phone messages on Christmas Eve from Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, who suggested they contribute to the effort since they were all Republicans.
“I would like to see if there is a way to fix this problem so that everything is going well for everyone,” Giuliani said in a voicemail message to Sellers, which aired during the hearing. “We’re all Republicans. I think we all have the same goal.”
Republicans on the committee spent much of the audience speculating that other aspects of the election, including postal ballots on potentially hacked voting machines, called the results into question. They also cited the millions of Americans who are suspicious of the 2020 election results, fueled by Trump and his allies hammering baseless fraud allegations.
Polls show that most Republicans believe Trump’s claims about the 2020 election, despite the lack of evidence. An August Yahoo News / YouGov survey found that 66% of Republicans continue to insist that “the election was rigged and stolen from Trump”, while only 18% believe “Joe Biden won fairly”.
The 2020 election theft conspiracy theory had real-world consequences, starting with the Jan.6 riot on Capitol Hill, which left several dead and the impeachment of Trump. Republican lawmakers in at least 18 states have passed restrictions since last November that make voting more difficult, arguing that such policy changes are needed to restore confidence in the election. A number of Republicans who have said they believe the election was stolen are now running for the highest electoral posts in their states, raising concerns about what could happen if there is another close race in 2024.
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