Party says it hopes audit will “produce a fair, factually-based report” of tally.
WFB:
The Arizona Republican Party announced Thursday it will conduct an independent audit of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office after legal issues and other complaints arose in the days-long count to decide Arizona’s next senator.
After Election Day, about 650,000 votes were not yet tallied in counties across Arizona, but the lion’s share of those outstanding ballots resided in Maricopa County, the fourth-largest county in the country.
The vote count in the race between Martha McSally (R.,) and the eventual winner Kyrsten Sinema (D.,) went on for six more days beyond Election Day, in which time the GOP sued Maricopa County questioning how long the county could “cure” ballots where the signature on the ballot was not a good enough match to the voter’s signature on file.
In instances such as this, the recorder’s office may contact the voter to verify the ballot. However, some recorder’s offices stopped this “curing” process when polls closed at 7 p.m. local time on Election Day, while Maricopa County continued to cure ballots beyond that.
Days after the suit was filed and before the senate race was called, a settlement was struck allowing Maricopa to continue curing ballots up to an appointed time, but it also gained assurances that other counties would have the same time to cure all of their signature-flagged ballots as well.
In addition to the lawsuit, the GOP raised questions over the decision by Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes to open ’emergency voting’ centers, which were available on the Saturday and Monday before Election Day.
The GOP said the emergency voting centers, which are allowed by law, were nothing more than extensions of early voting, which under Arizona law is required to end on the Friday before Election Day. Beyond that, the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors also wrote to Fontes to express concern over the emergency voting centers that were being used for the first time ever in a general election in the county.
There was also scrutiny on the location of the centers, with the state GOP arguing that it had been placed in “bluer” locations, and that Republican-leaning areas were left out. more
From what I’ve read about McSally, does it even matter which gal wins? Might even be better if (R) loses
Is McSally firmly behind this effort to investigate for fraud, or is this whole mess just too embarrassing and unseemly for her RINO sensibilities? Maybe she should issue a blistering rebuke of her party for such crass, almost racist, vote-grubbing tactics. Or maybe it would be better if Ben Sasse or Jeff Flake delivered that lecture for her.
Emergency voting centers? Definition – A boiler room operation where Democrat operatives work around the clock to manufacture enough D votes to overtake the Republican lead and claim victory.