Sorting Trump’s Comments on Arizona Audit

Logan and Ben Cotton, a digital forensics analyst working on the audit, described the issues they believe require further investigation. Trump repeated them as proof that the election results are tainted.

County officials and election experts say the claims are false and based on a misunderstanding of election materials, which they say creates the appearance of irregularities where none exist.

Trump laid out his claims more specifically in a statement Friday night. A look at the irregularities he alleges in this statement:

TRUMP: “168,000 fraudulent ballots printed on illegal paper (unofficial votes)”

THE FACTS: This is all wrong. The ballots were not unofficial or printed on illegal paper, and even Logan never claimed they were fraudulent.

Logan pointed to the ballots, which were printed slightly off the front and back. He claimed it could result in the vote count for the wrong candidate if ink from one side bleeds to the other. He said the alignment issues mainly stemmed from the ballots, which are printed on the spot, and said around 168,000 ballots were cast this way. The overwhelming majority of voters in Arizona voted by mail.

“We see a lot of very fine paper being used, especially on election day,” Logan added.

The allegation points to the debunked “Sharpiegate” conspiracy theory that emerged in the days following the election. Election experts say the bleeding does not affect the vote count because bubbles on one side of a ballot do not line up with those on the other. Ballots that cannot be read are flagged and duplicated by a bipartisan team.

The Arizona Election Procedures Manual only says that ballots “must be printed in black ink on white paper of sufficient thickness to prevent the print from being discernible on the back of the ballot. “. Maricopa County uses Rolland’s 80-pound Votesecur paper, which is one of the papers approved by Dominion Voting Systems, which makes the county’s tabulation equipment, said Fields Moseley, a county spokesperson.

Logan provided no evidence that the alignment issues affected the vote count and said the issue requires further analysis.

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TRUMP, citing “74,000 ballots received in the mail that were never mailed (ballots appearing as if by magic)”.

THE FACTS: No, there were no ballots that magically appeared. He alleges that the number of completed ballots received in the mail by election officials exceeded the number of people who earlier requested mail-in ballots by 74,000. But that’s not what happened at all.

The allegation misrepresents reports created for political parties to track who voted early so they can target their efforts to get the vote.

A report tracks all requests voters make for an early poll, by mail or in person, up to 11 days before the election. The other report tracks all ballots received the day before the election. This leaves a 10-day window during which people who vote in person but do not request a postal ballot would appear on one report but not the other.

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TRUMP, claiming that “11,000 voters were added to the electoral rolls AFTER the election and still voted”.

THE FACTS: There is nothing wrong with voter lists increasing after election day. The lists are simply updated to reflect the people whose provisional ballots are added to the tally after election officials verify that they are eligible to vote.

The allegation that the updated tally was the result of electoral wrongdoing first came from Logan last week, when he told state lawmakers that “11,326 people did not turn up. presented on the November 7 version of the voters lists, after the votes were cast, but then appeared on the December 4 voters lists.

Maricopa County officials said Logan was probably referring to provisional ballots, which are cast by people who do not appear on the voters lists or do not have the proper identification on polling day. They are only counted if the voter later demonstrates that he or she was eligible to vote. To be eligible, these voters must have registered before the deadline.

“These go through a rigorous verification process to ensure that provisional ballots cast are only counted if the voter is eligible to vote in the election,” Maricopa County officials wrote on Twitter. “It happens after election day. Only eligible voters are added to the electoral rolls.

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TRUMP, alleging that “all machine access logs were erased and the election server was hacked during the election.”

THE FACTS: This goes against the obvious. The Maricopa County Election Server is not connected to the Internet, and independent auditors have found no evidence that the Election Server was hacked.

Trump’s hacking allegation refers to the unauthorized downloading of public data from the county’s voter registration system. This system, which is connected to the Internet and widely accessible to political parties and election officials, is unrelated to the election management system, the web of tellers, computers and servers that count the votes.

The election management system is “idle”, or kept disconnected from the rest of the county’s computer network and the wider Internet. Two companies certified by the US Election Assistance Commission to test voting systems found that machines in Maricopa County were not connected to the Internet and had no hardware or malware installed.

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TRUMP: “Arizona Shows Far More Fraud And Voting Irregularities Than It Takes To Change Election Results.”

THE FACTS: No. The number of potential fraud cases is well below President Joe Biden’s margin of victory in Arizona.

County election officials identified 182 cases where voting issues were clear enough to refer them to investigators for further investigation, according to an Associated Press investigation. So far, only four cases have resulted in charges, including those identified in a separate state investigation. No one has been convicted. No one’s vote was counted twice.

Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes out of 3.4 million votes. Of the four cases that resulted in criminal charges, two involved Democratic voters and two involved Republicans.