A draft copy of the 2020 Maricopa County election audit has been leaked to KJZZ, a Phoenix-based radio station.
The validity of the draft report they obtained was confirmed by audit spokesman Randy Pullen, who said, “It’s not the final report, but it’s close.”
The media is already spinning the findings of the audit.
“The partisan review of Maricopa County’s 2.1 million ballots cast in the 2020 election found a vote count nearly identical to what the county had previously reported,” CNN reported. Like other liberal outlets, CNN focused on the results of the hand-recount part of the audit. As we know, hand recounts may account for slight discrepancies in counting but do not address irregularities or potentially illegally cast ballots.
So, let’s look into what the audit actually says.
“What has been found is both encouraging and alarming,” the report summary reads. “On the positive side there were no substantial differences between the hand count of the ballots provided and the official canvass results for the County.”
The summary continues:
However, while it is encouraging for voters, it does not allay all of the concerns:
- None of the various systems related to elections had numbers that would balance and agree with each other. In some cases, these differences were significant.
- There appears to be many ballots cast from individuals who had moved prior to the election.
- Files were missing from the Election Management System (EMS) Server.
- Ballot images on the EMS were corrupt or missing.
- Logs appeared to be intentionally rolled over, and all the data in the database related to the 2020 General Election had been fully cleared.
- On the ballot side, batches were not always clearly delineated, duplicated ballots were missing the required serial numbers, originals were duplicated more than once, and the Auditors were never provided Chain‐of‐ Custody documentation for the ballots for the time‐period prior to the ballot’s movement into the Auditors’ care. This all increased the complexity and difficulty in properly auditing the results; and added ambiguity into the final conclusions.
The audit team faults Maricopa County officials for not cooperating with the audit, which would have resolved many of these obstacles. “By the County withholding subpoena items, their unwillingness to answer questions as is normal between auditor and auditee, and in some cases actively interfering with audit research, the County prevented a complete audit,” the summary explains. “This did not stop the primary goal of offering recommendations for legislative reform to the Arizona Senate, but it did leave many questions open as to the way and manner that the 2020 General Election was conducted. As a result, while many areas of concern were specifically identified, our full audit results validating the 2020 General Election are necessarily inconclusive.”
While the media is claiming that the audit report confirms Biden’s victory, it does not. “There are sufficient discrepancies among the different systems that, in conjunction with some of our findings, suggest that the delta between the Presidential candidates is very close to the potential margin‐of‐error for the election,” the audit summary explains.
Here is a table showing the discrepancies and other issues found by the audit team and the number of ballots impacted. However, the audit team notes that no single finding would necessarily favor a single candidate. “In many cases there could be legitimate and legal votes within the Ballots Impact amount.”
From the Findings Summary of the Maricopa County 2020 election audit. pic.twitter.com/Ou0Dm4nVfj
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) September 24, 2021
Why do these matter? Because, according to the state-certified results, Joe Biden barely won the state by a 10,457-vote margin. The tiny margin of victory in the state-certified results means that these discrepancies are very troubling. There were 42,727 impacted ballots ranked as “high” or “critical” severity—that’s four times the certified margin of victory. If you include “medium” severity discrepancies, there were 53,214 impacted ballots—more than five times the certified margin of victory. Overall, there were 57,734 impacted ballots.
These findings don’t prove fraud, but certainly demonstrate the potential for fraud. And these impacted ballots have not been vetted.
So, has Joe Biden’s victory been proven? Not in the least. The truth is, we’ll never know the truth about how many ballots were impacted. Of course, the mainstream media knows this, which is why, deep down in CNN’s report about the audit, it laments that the draft report “shows that Cyber Ninjas and their subcontractors are still seeking ways to cast doubt on the election,” pointing to the thousands of ballots flagged.
The bottom line: The number of ballots impacted by discrepancies far exceeds Biden’s margin of victory in the state. Both sides of this debate will claim the report validates their position, but in truth, without proper vetting of the impacted ballots, we’ll never know if the election results were legitimate.
Even if the audit was able to investigate these ballots and determine that enough fraud occurred to alter the result, it is too late to change the election results. The audit team used their findings to make a series of election reform recommendations to improve the integrity of elections in the future.
“The Fake News is lying about the Arizona audit report!” Donald Trump said in a statement. “The leaked report conclusively shows there were enough fraudulent votes, mystery votes, and fake votes to change the outcome of the election 4 or 5 times over.”
Trump also noted that the number of potentially fraudulent votes is “many more times than the so-called margin of ‘victory,’ which was only 10,457.”
Source: PJ Media
