Maricopa Audit: 74,000 Votes Were In-Person Early Votes
The Claim
The auditors of the 2020 Arizona election recount have discovered 74,243 mail-in-ballots that come from an unknown source.
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Emerging story
The auditors of the 2020 Arizona presidential election claimed last week that they had identified 74,243 mail-in ballots that they could not identify as being sent via the mail.
This figure was then shared across social media, with accounts using language that indicated voter fraud, such as claims that the election system was “breached.” These posts have gained thousands of interactions within days.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found that the 74,243 ballots were not fraudulent, and their origin is not mysterious. The official government Twitter account for Maricopa County has clarified that these ballots were actually all in-person early votes.
Even before the Maricopa County Twitter account had provided this information, those reporting the 74,243 ballots as newsworthy were leaving out key information. The CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the company undertaking the audit, added to his claim that he believed the 74,000 ballots may have been the result of a clerical issue.
The auditors were likely unaware of the origin of the ballots due to their inexperience. Prior to the Arizona audit, Cyber Ninjas had never conducted any election auditing activity. Observers of the audit have also claimed that they had never seen a recount that had been so mismanaged, with vote counters frequently forgetting to tally ballots and there being no process for identifying and rectifying mistakes during the recount. Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Secretary of State, has also said that the misconduct of the Arizona recount will likely only needlessly undermine confidence in the election system.
Additionally, Arizona had already conducted one recount of its 2020 presidential election. This recount could find no discrepancies with the initial vote count.
