This week, authorities in Maricopa County, Arizona, completed a hand count audit of the county’s tabulations from the recently concluded presidential election — and not a single issue was uncovered. During a hand count audit, batches of ballots are re-counted in order to search for any discrepancies, and — no matter the recent flimsy claims from Republicans of widespread fraud in the recent election — this process is routine following elections in Maricopa County. This year’s audit was completed with a 100 percent match rate, according to local authorities, and three local political parties participated in the process — which yet again undercuts the lies from Trump that Republican observers have been systematically excluded from post-Election Day ballot tabulation processes.
It's official. We completed our hand count audit and had a 100% match! Thank you to all 3 Maricopa County political parties, who appointed members to participate! pic.twitter.com/JhBcPYWhY3
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) November 9, 2020
The 100 percent match rate in Maricopa County’s hand count audit means that no changes will be made to local results because of the process. In 2016, Trump won Maricopa County by about 44,000 votes. In this year’s presidential race, Joe Biden led in the county as of Wednesday afternoon, after the vast majority of votes in the state had been counted. On Wednesday, Biden’s lead in Maricopa County sat at almost 46,000 votes, and he led in the state of Arizona as a whole by about 12,800 votes as of that same point — although in 2016, Trump won the state by about 91,000 votes. The Associated Press has already called Arizona for Biden in the current race — it’s the first time that a Democratic presidential candidate has (apparently) won Arizona since Bill Clinton was on the ballot in 1996.
Republicans have brought a lawsuit over the results in Maricopa County, claiming that some local poll workers didn’t properly provide voters with the chance to fix issues with their ballots on Election Day.
Maricopa County tabulation machines alert voters when perceiving an “overvote” on their ballots, meaning an appearance of more than one selection for the same race. Voters are supposed to have the opportunity to fill out a new ballot if the tabulation machine determines an “overvote” is present, but the Republicans claim that some poll workers pressured voters to move along. It’s unclear what, if any conclusive evidence that there is for this allegation; over and over again, the GOP has failed to prove their fraud allegations. Maricopa County attorney Thomas Liddy said that on Election Day, tabulators only detected 180 potential “overvotes” in the presidential race. It’s “absurd” to assume that all 180 of those detected overvotes had been recorded improperly, Liddy added. In other words, there’s no systemic problem, and 180 votes would not change the outcome of the presidential race in the state.
