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There was no significant electoral fraud in 2020 in Arizona’s Maricopa County, election reviewers again acknowledged in testimony before Congress Thursday.
The County Presidential Election Review ordered by the State Senate released its findings in September, nearly 11 months after the election, and came to the same conclusion as Maricopa County: President Joe Biden won the county.
“The most important findings of the audit are that the manual count of physical ballots closely matches the county’s official results in presidential races and in the US Senate,” the former secretary of state said. Arizona, Ken Bennett, who served as liaison between the Senate and the listeners, said in his testimony.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee had invited Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the cybersecurity group that conducted the review but had never handled an election audit before being hired in Maricopa County. Logan himself had challenged the election results after they were certified by election officials and Congress in January, though he has since deleted the Twitter account where he posted them. He refused to appear before the committee to testify.
“I invited Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan to testify to give him the opportunity to defend his company’s actions to Congress and the American people. Unfortunately, less than 36 hours before the hearing, Mr. Logan informed the Committee that he is declining to appear, “said Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, DN.Y., in a statement.” Obviously Mr. Logan doesn’t want to answer tough questions under oath about the highly questionable partisan audit his company has conducted. ”
The review, which lasted more than five months, was largely funded by private fundraising groups that raised more than $ 6 million in donations. One of the groups was led by Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com, who promoted baseless plots about the election.
While the report concluded that there was no significant difference between the Maricopa County vote totals showing Biden won and the exam results, some Arizona Republicans, including the member of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Still rejected. on the results.
Biggs continued to falsely insist in Thursday’s hearing that “we don’t know” whether Biden won the 2020 election.
Former President Donald Trump continued to say the election was corrupt, despite the auditor’s findings. At a rally in Georgia late last month after the audit report was released, he still insisted Biden lost in Arizona.
“The headlines claiming Biden won are fake news and a very big lie,” adding that the so-called forensic audit showed Trump won. “They made the headlines that Biden wins in Arizona when they know it’s not true. He didn’t win in Arizona. He lost in Arizona.”
The vote totals have been certified across the country by bipartisan officials, and the more than 60 lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies to challenge the election results have failed in courtrooms, even those with judges appointed by Trump.
Two Maricopa County Supervisory Board officials, both Republicans, also testified Thursday. Bill Gates and Jack Sellers both spoke out against partisan scrutiny and did not admit the idea that the election was stolen.
Maloney played a voicemail message left by former President Donald Trump’s close ally Rudy Giuliani, who spent months pursuing conspiracy theories related to voter fraud in some of the country’s battlefield states.
Giuliani asked if there was a “way to solve this problem so that things are going well for everyone. We’re all Republicans, I think we all have the same goal.”
“Let’s see if we can do this outside the courts, my God,” he said.
Gates said he believed it was an attempt to interfere with the election results.
“This voicemail message was left at a time when we were in a dispute with the State Senate overturning the ballots and voting machines. I think he was trying to get us to settle this lawsuit, so that they can very quickly get the ballots before the Electoral College certification on Jan. 6, ”Gates said.
Neither Gates nor Sellers have responded to pressure from Giuliani and other Trump allies, such as that of Arizona GOP President Kelli Ward, to “stop the count.”
The so-called audit cost taxpayers at least $ 450,000, according to the Arizona Republic’s review of the process records. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs first said the county would have to create a new contract for its voting machines because they were likely compromised. This was overturned as part of a deal the county reached with the state Senate in late September.
Auditors and Republicans, including Trump, alleged that a number of violations were uncovered during the partisan review. The county debunked all of their claims and set up a website to respond to the Cyber Ninjas’ claims.
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