AZ Senate Announces Election Audit Moving Forward: County Officials Agree to Turn Over All Subpoenaed Info
Arizona state Senate President Karen Fann announced on Wednesday the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has agreed to turn over all subpoenaed information sought in relation to reviewing the integrity of November’s election.
In Maricopa County — which is the Grand Canyon State’s most populous, encompassing the Phoenix metropolitan area — Democratic President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by 2.2 percentage points or about 45,100 votes.
In doing so, the former vice president garnered about 337,900 more votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton did in 2016, when Trump won the county by 45,500 votes or 2.9 percentage points.
In other words, there was a 5.1 percentage point swing in favor of Biden.
The Arizona Secretary of State’s official tally has Biden defeating Trump by 10,457 votes.
On Wednesday, the Arizona Senate Republicans’ official Twitter page released a statement from Fann concerning the integrity of the 2020 election.
“I am pleased to announce that after a hard-fought battle to seek information on behalf of Arizona voters regarding the integrity of the 2020 election, we have reached a favorable agreement with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors,” Fann wrote.
“Not only has the Board agreed to turn over all the relevant information we sought in our subpoenas so that we may perform an audit,” the state Senate leader continued, “but they also acknowledge that the Legislature is a sovereign power of the state and that the county is a political subdivision, and as such, the Legislature has the constitutional and statutory authority to issue subpoenas.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Statement from Senate President @FannKfann on agreement with Maricopa County Board of Supervisors#AZSenate #ElectionIntegrity pic.twitter.com/xboOoQ3r9G
— AZSenateRepublicans (@AZSenateGOP) January 20, 2021
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Subpoenas brought by then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Eddie Farnsworth and Fann on Dec. 15 called for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to turn over the metadata of the original ballot images from the Dominion Voting Systems equipment, along with various reports and logs related to the election.
“There is technology that can look at those ballots to see if there are any anomalies, to see if there’s any dual voting and whether or not these were pre-printed,” Farnsworth said in a December interview.
The board of supervisors, however, did not comply with the subpoenas and instead went to court to seek to block them.
In late December, a state superior court judge affirmed the Judiciary Committee’s right to enforce its subpoenas; however, the Senate was not in session at the time.
Last week, when the 2021 legislative session began, new Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen issued another subpoena to the board of supervisors, also signed by Fann, threatening legislative contempt charges if they failed to comply.
Arizona GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward, who was aware of the ongoing negotiations between the Senate and the board of supervisors, told The Western Journal on Wednesday that Arizona will be a “trailblazer” in conducting its audit of Dominion voting machines and the ballots cast.
“I think our legislators are going to be great leaders in that, not just here in Arizona, but for the whole country, because these kinds of analyses have never been done before after an election,” she said.
Ward explained that though it’s a very new undertaking, there are experts who have completed these kinds of tasks in other states.
One of the anomalies she mentioned that is worth reviewing is how the GOP did well statewide in Arizona, including retaining control of the state House and Senate, but former President Donald Trump and former Sen. Martha McSally came up short.
Many of these wins came in Maricopa County, including flipping the county recorder from Democrat to Republican and retaining every other GOP-held, county-wide office, along with the open county treasurer seat.
In fact, the only Democrat to win county-wide was the incumbent Sheriff Paul Penzone.
All four of Arizona’s Republican members of Congress, whose districts are either entirely or partially in Maricopa County, won re-election.
“It was a red wave,” Ward said. “Other than the question in my mind and in the mind of millions of people, the results of the presidential as well as Senator McSally’s race. But if you look below those two, it was a red wave.”
The chairwoman recounted that she received a call from Trump on Monday night and the two discussed election integrity.
“His main question was, ‘Is the Arizona legislature going to stay on top of this and not drop the ball?’ And I said, ‘Mr. President, as long as I’m the chairman, I am not going to allow them to just sweep this under the rug,'” Ward said.
“I’m not going to allow anyone to sweep this under the rug, because election integrity is my number one agenda for this 2022 cycle.”
