During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union over the weekend, Cindy McCain — the widow of the late Senator and veteran John McCain — criticized Arizona Republicans over an ongoing election audit in Maricopa County (which includes Phoenix) that GOP state Senate leaders are pushing months after the election ended.
The far-right news network known as One America News recently reported that frontline workers involved in the audit effort were using UV lights to check for watermarks on ballots, which appears to reflect belief on the auditors’ part that watermarks were (or at least may have been) secretly placed on legitimate ballots to distinguish the votes from the imaginary fraudulent votes that certain Trump supporters claim swung the election outcome. Needless to say, the watermarked ballot conspiracy theory is nonsensical.
McCain pointedly commented as follows:
‘The whole thing is ludicrous, quite frankly. It’s ludicrous. This also comes from a state party in Arizona that refused to be audited themselves on votes that were cast within their own party… The election is over. Biden won. I know many of them don’t like the outcome. But elections have consequences. This does not surprise me. Things are just aloof and crazy right now with regards to the election.’
McCain’s reference to the Arizona GOP’s refusal “to be audited themselves” refers to party leadership’s refusal to conduct an audit of a recent race for state party chair. Check out her comments below:
Cindy McCain calls the Arizona audit of 2020 election ballots in Maricopa County "ludicrous."
"The election is over. Biden won. I know many of them don't like the outcome. But elections have consequences." #CNNSOTU https://t.co/q8U1JEZ22i pic.twitter.com/ctgNCZnYmW
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) May 2, 2021
The recount effort in Maricopa County is proceeding under the supervision of the GOP-controlled Arizona state Senate, whose lawyers “won legal custody of the ballots and election machinery this year,” NBC explains.
At one point, state Senate Republicans and the private firms that they’ve brought in to assist with the theatrics requested a National Guard deployment to protect their recount operation, but Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey refused to activate the Guard. The private firms involved in the effort eventually crafted their own threat assessment document, which included a suggestion that “Antifa” — a nickname for a loose coalition of left-wing activists — might attack the audit facility. The idea that there could be an Antifa attack on the recount facility is so staggeringly delusional that it’s a wonder that any of these people are able to operate in the real world at all.
