Amy B. Chan

Whether they call it looking for anomalies, or quality checking, or uncovering a conspiracy so vast it somehow tossed the election to Biden, the bad-faith review of Maricopa County’s 2020 election was not a search for truth. Because the truth is that elections in Arizona are conducted by professionals of all parties who follow specific and uniform rules to ensure the security of ballots and the accuracy of results. I know because I served as an election official for the state for years. I have seen this firsthand. The organizers of this bad-faith review are finally issuing a final report. It’s a report that asks you not to believe your lying eyes.

When Arizona voters made their choice in the 2020 general election, they did so in an election system that was tried and true, where the rules didn’t change and every procedure and law was followed. Every safeguard Arizona’s legislature and election officials created in advance of the election was followed meticulously to ensure the integrity of the vote.

And when the nation’s Electoral College votes were certified by Congress on Jan. 6, the will of Arizona voters was heard and Joe Biden was declared the 46th president of the United States of America. For months, however, some have hoped that the Arizona state Senate leadership’s ballot review would change that outcome, or at least cast doubt. And, quite frankly, some have simply taken advantage of that hope and cashed in, raising large sums of money for their own campaigns and entities.

The ballot review in Maricopa County has been biased and unprofessional from the beginning: searching for Chinese bamboo fibers, “counting” ballots whizzing by on a make-shift conveyor belt. The floor of the Coliseum seemed more like a life-sized game of Mouse Trap than any kind of professional endeavor. And it is certainly not reflective of any experienced, accredited audit.

In contrast to the 2020 election and actual audits that were conducted by professionals, there are countless ways in which this exercise gave the lie to any serious review:

• from the on-air fundraising that seems unnecessary since the Senate has a contract with the vendor to pay for the audit,
• to the cast of controversial characters,
• from the money raised and spent in relative secrecy,
• to the ever-changing parameters.

Every aspect of this process is an abject lesson that real election audits run by real election officials under real regulations provide real results – and you can check the math. Elections in Arizona are conducted by local election officials who are not politicians and have no political gain or agenda. They follow established procedures that have been developed to ensure Arizona’s electoral process is free, fair, accurate, verifiable and transparent. This is the system voters should instill their confidence in. Not the so-called audit in Maricopa County that has risked our election integrity in the name of spreading mistrust in our democratic norms and raising money.

Nobody should trust the disinformation dressed up as the so-called audit’s final report.