Republicans are still haunted by Arizona’s rejection of the party’s top candidate in the 2022 midterm elections, calling for an election poll, but only in Maricopa County.
The law, approved by a Senate panel on February 13, gives electoral officials in “counties with a population of two million or more” four elections to conduct a recount of 100 votes for all races in the November 2022 ballot. I’m asking you to choose a district. It’s the only county that discusses Maricopa County, which has been the focus of baseless accusations of election fraud since the 2020 election.
The state’s largest county has in recent years come to favor a Democratic candidate from a credible Republican stronghold, breaking the long-standing Republican dominance over the state. In the last few elections, Democratic statewide candidates like President Joe Biden, Gov. Katie Hobbs, Sen. Kirsten Cinema, and Sen. Mark Kelly have won in Maricopa County and won over Republican opponents. brought
These results have spurred numerous conspiracy theories as to why Republicans are losing the election in Maricopa County, and in 2021, will drive Republican state senators to fight the partisan election of Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020. We conducted election screenings and looked for possible fraud. A so-called “audit” found no evidence of fraud, but it did not quell the conspiracy.
Problems with on-demand printers during the 2022 election led to the rejection of hundreds of ballots, only exacerbating suspicion and conspiracy theories by election deniers.
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suggestion, Senate Bill 1471, the handcounts of all 2022 votes in each constituency must be compared to the tally of the same votes by the tallying machine. If a discrepancy of more than 0.10% is found between the two counts, the votes will be recounted by another volunteer group and another counting machine.
Election skeptics have long looked to handcounts as a solution to the allegedly rigged system. Tallying machines are at the heart of these allegations, with election deniers accusing them of miscounting ballots or changing votes outright. This claim dismisses or completely ignores the numerous state and federal standard tallying machines that must be met, the extensive logic and accuracy tests performed, and the limited hand counts used before and after elections. doing. verify their accuracy.
A limited post-election hand-count audit conducted last year found no significant errors in any Arizona county.
Handcount audit finds no issues with Arizona ballot tally
Critics of Republican pressure to hand-count every race on every ballot cite studies that human error contributes to margins Big enough to shake up a close election And the difficulty of counting so many ballots quickly. In the 2022 midterm elections, 1.5 million Maricopa County alone voted, with 80 contests each.
Fountain Hills Republican Sen. John Kavanagh backed the legislation and told his colleagues on the Senate Election Committee to quash some of the fears from hand-counting critics by rechecking a small portion of the ballot. The results, he said, ultimately indicate whether the hand count is viable, and extrapolate the data needed to recount the hand count. number of volunteers can be determined. whole The 2022 midterm elections over a 16-hour day.
“Basically… blows away some of the controversy about what is accurate, what is not, and how long it takes to do a (complete) hand count using controlled experiments. ‘” Kavanagh said at a hearing on the bill Monday night.
The bill moved along party lines and was opposed by all three Democrats on the panel. If the lack of support continues, it is unlikely that Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has vowed to only sign bills with bipartisan support, will approve it.
Senator Juan Mendes of the Democratic Tempe, while welcoming an example of the handcount’s flawed nature, said he doubted it would even convince election naysayers.
“This is not going to put an end to conspiracy theories,” he said. “Next year we’re going to see another bill that calls for 1000 votes, or all sorts of anecdotes about people talking to someone who was there and seeing things they thought shouldn’t have happened. will share the
That sentiment was quickly proved by Senator Sonny Borrelli, who said the bill’s parameters were not well met. Lake He argued that Havasu Republicans were infected with an algorithm that allowed tallying machines to change votes at certain thresholds, but could not reveal which thresholds they voted at, calling it a “scam.” I called. His future support depends on increasing the number of audited votes, he said.
“These machines have algorithms built in, but they may not, but there’s no way to verify that,” Borrelli said. “One hundred percent accuracy is what citizens demand. There are algorithms programmed to change things.”
Voters who sent Borelli and 89 other MPs to the Capitol counted their votes on electronic counting machines.
