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Though Arizona has traditionally been reliably "red," Democrats had a pretty good year in the Grand Canyon State in 2020. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris carried Arizona at the presidential level -- the first Democratic ticket to win the state since 1992 -- while Mark Kelly won the state's U.S. Senate race.
Naturally, given what's become of Republican politics, it wasn't long before some on the right responded to the results by alleging election fraud, especially in Maricopa County, easily Arizona's largest county by population. In fact, some GOP state lawmakers were so convinced of wrongdoing that they ordered the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to turn over voting machines for some kind of political inspection. When local officials balked, Republican legislators considered having them arrested.
It's against this backdrop that the Arizona Republic reported late yesterday on the results of an independent audit of Maricopa County's election results. Not surprisingly, it found that "the election was sound."
Maricopa County on Tuesday released the results of election audits from two independent auditors it hired to verify that voting machines were not hacked, were not connected to the internet and counted votes properly during the 2020 general election. The auditors found that the county used certified equipment and software, no malicious hardware was found on voting machines, the machines were not connected to the internet, and the machines were programmed to tabulate ballots accurately, according to a letter from county election directors to the supervisors.
Local election officials further explained that the result of the audit, along with other recent reviews, "confirm that Maricopa County Elections Department's configuration and setup of the tabulation equipment and election management system provided an accurate counting of ballots and reporting of election results."
Or put another way, the conspiracy theories are wrong. Votes were not switched. Machines were not hacked.
If the outcome sounds familiar, it's because we've seen reports like these before. Other post-election audits and recounts also reviewed vote tallies Republicans didn't like, and also failed to produce the kind of evidence GOP officials hoped to see.
What's discouraging, however, is that it almost certainly won't matter. Far-right conspiracy theorists, certain of electoral shenanigans in Maricopa County, will either discount the independent audits or assume that the auditors are part of same larger nefarious scheme.
"The Big Lie" will remain Republican canon, and audit results like these will do nothing to shake the GOP crusade to impose new voting restrictions in the wake of the 2020 results.