Audits in Arizona’s four largest counties, which accounted for 86% of all votes for state president, found no evidence of the systematic electoral fraud that President Donald Trump complained about. No irregularities were found in Maricopa County, which is the most populous county in the battlefield state and includes Phoenix, according to reports. Officials in Pima County, home of Tucson, audited a random sample of 4,239 votes in the presidential race and found only a two-vote gap.
The audit results come as Arizona currently has a narrow margin between President-elect Joe Biden and Trump. Biden is ahead of 11,390 votes, or about 0.34 percentage point, and more than 3.3 million votes were cast statewide. Thursday morning, there are less than 25,000 ballots to count, according to the office of the secretary of state. CNN did not project a winner.
Earlier Thursday, Trump
tweeted: “From 200,000 votes to less than 10,000 votes. If we can verify the total number of votes cast, we will easily win Arizona too! The numbers he cited were inaccurate – Biden’s lead in Arizona did not drop below 10,000.
Under state law, bipartisan audit commissions routinely perform manual counting audits of advance ballots and ballots on election day in Arizona’s 15 counties. Audits, which counties begin within 24 hours of the polls close, must include five races, including the presidential race. By regulation, they must count the regular ballots on polling day of at least two ridings or 2% of the ridings, whichever is greater. The constituencies are selected at random, by drawing lots.
Three GOP-leaning counties – Yuma, Gila and La Paz – failed to conduct the audits because local Republican Party presidents failed to nominate members to participate, election officials said. Their lack of involvement is surprising, given that Trump has spread baseless accusations that Republican poll watchers have been sidelined.
The Trump campaign has also taken Arizona to court in one of several minor lawsuits it has launched in battlefield states. The Trump campaign filed a complaint on Saturday in an attempt to block solicitation or certification of all ballots cast in person on election day in Maricopa County until they can be reviewed.
In the lawsuit, which reignited refuted claims that Sharpie pens deprived voters of their voting rights, the campaign argued that some voters’ ballots had been rejected by tabulation machines due to flaws, such as stray marks or ink stains from Sharpie pens. The campaign is trying to make its case using statements from two voters who suspected, but had no evidence, that their ballots had not been counted.
A Maricopa County election official told the court that only 180 ballots issued on election day were even reviewable and that there was no systemic problem with the election.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz and Kara Scannell contributed to this report.
