Leading voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams on Thursday night compared Arizona GOP senators’ sketchy audit of the state’s 2020 election votes to the pro-Trump Capitol insurrection on January 6 aimed at disrupting Congress’ election certification process.
“It’s a continuation of the ‘Big Lie,'” Abrams told CNN…
It’s the Big Fraudit.
Oh, and…
“But more importantly and more concerningly, it’s a continuation of the insurrection, of this attempt to disenfranchise voters and to dismiss the legitimacy of our elections,” she continued. “And we know that this is only part of a larger intention.”
Yes yes yes, say it again and again and again.
“it makes us look like idiots.”
It provides another data point in the GOP profile but it does not, in and of itself, make you look like idiots.
To TPM legal peeps
How is any of this even legal?
The AZ state legislature can make their own rules, that I get
but the election has been federally certified, so what gives?
Keep throwing shade on the shady, Ms. Abrams.
Sunlight (and Covid-fighting bleach) is the best disinfectant.
Stacy, I love you.
And that love includes profound respect.
You know, I think she’s 100% correct!
I think I get that but don’t like what it implies: they are mishandling ballots which, as I understand it, is both a federal and state crime, but the state is controlled by an insurgent political party and the feds don’t want to inflame the natives. Basically it reminds me of all the dodges free states engaged in, in an effort to avoid inflaming the situation in the slave states before the Civil War; an effort that mainly only wasted time while encouraging the slave states’ treason.
“it makes us look like idiots.” … looks like a duck, walks like a duck…
Ken Bennett is apart of this sham of a farce of sham of an audit. Bennett had served as AZ SoS, which is why I find it puzzling that he has made comments on both sides of the issues with this fraudit. Bennett should know the ins and outs of how voting is done in AZ, but like any executive I wonder if he really knows the processes? Since none of the Republicans on the Maricopa County BOE are involved, then who on this fraudit scheme knows anything?
Besides by now we should all be aware that this has nothing to do with counting ballots, it’s all about trying to prove their crazy ass theories of Chinese fraud ballots were counted, that Cyber Ninja dude really, really wants to get his hands inside the electronic vote tabulating machinery. This why the excuse of not turning over their plans was tied to “intellectual property rights”.
I lived in AZ for 13 years. Elections, with their permanent mail-in voter list, were one of three things the state did right. And guess what. Republicans won lots of elections there! They were and still are perfectly competitive in the state, and the nationally attention-attracting crazy shit they did, such as the unconstitutional “show me your papers” SB1070, were perfectly representative of a lot of people I encountered.
The second thing AZ did right was to appoint an independent commission to draw electoral districts, This eliminated the flagrantly gerrymandered district of Trent Franks, the christian creeper who wanted his staffer to be a surrogate mom, but he wanted to inseminate her the old fashioned way. For years, his district literally traced the route of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, to lump the Hopi Reservation in with the area around Luke AFB and the tightwad retirees in Sun City and all its iterations west of Phoenix.
The third thing was to opt out of daylight savings time.
Trumpists are shameless in sucking big money from their credulous supporters to pursue evidence of their fictional claims. This audit, aka snipe hunt, should have been paid for by RNC or Trump’s PAC.
We would have heard from Trump already if the two-left-foot Ninjas were finding meaningful numbers of fake ballots, duplicate votes, or tabulation errors, “Our auditors are finding amazing things in AZ”
Actually the longer this audit is in the news, the more it helps Democrats. It shows Republican Trumpists’ willingness to throw away money while also highlighting the vacuity of so many evidence-free claims that Trump lost because of massive fraud.
Excerpts from an opinion written by one of the Republican Members of the Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County, 4 of 5 of whom are Republican and none of whom are supporting the fraudit. The fraudit has extended their rental agreement to June 30th, since we have reached the date when they originally said they would be done and they have barely actually reviewed 20% of the ballots (400,000 out of over 2 million).
As a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, I helped oversee and then certify results for three major elections in 2020. I saw the detailed planning done by our elections team, saw them expertly pivot to make sure people could vote when and how they wanted during a pandemic, and asked tough questions in my oversight role once the results had come in and the protests had begun.
I can say with confidence the election was safe, secure and fair.
There was no foul play.
There was no vote switching.
The November election was one of the best we’ve ever run.
For certifying and then defending the results of the 2020 general election, I’ve been sued, subpoenaed and chastised, primarily by Republicans. For embracing reality, I’ve had my conservative credentials questioned and even my integrity challenged.
True Republicans would not stand idly by while auditors paid with taxpayer dollars chased insane rumors that ballots were flown in from South Korea to change the outcome of the presidential race, or that secret watermarks on the ballots revealed by UV lights would expose fraud once and for all.
This is what the Arizona Senate is doing with their Cyber Ninja audit.
The Big Lie will ruin the GOP and our republic
True Republicans would instead support what the Board of Supervisors did to address constituent questions following the November election:
** First, follow Arizona law and conduct all required tests, including hand counts, to ensure reported results were accurate.*
** Second, get answers to credible questions from elections experts in a transparent public hearing.*
** Third, hire certified, experienced audit firms to test the equipment to make sure it wasn’t hacked or didn’t malfunction in any way that would affect votes.*
We need more Republicans to return to dealing in truth and reality.
We have been elected to lead, not to appease conspiracy theorists.
As far as the fraudit goes, it’s not too late for Republicans to say look, we did our best and we aren’t happy about it, but President Biden really did win.
Everything you said is absolutely correct - I was always especially proud of the independent commission that helped reduce gerrymandering.
AZ State Repubs are showing their asses to the world and it is not a pretty sight.
I’ve seen reports that a wireless router was found connected to the machinery so it would appear that he already has. I’ve also seen reports that someone other than Bennett was seen opening the cage to the ballot boxes even though he is the only one who is supposed to have a key.
ETA: here’s a link to the wifi router issue; x.com
They are studying how to control future elections, that is all.
I wish Stacy Abrams lived in Virginia – she’d be a shoo-in for governor. But – Virginia is really too small for her now. And Georgia and the rest of the country need her more.
The “BIG LIE”…
Remember everything trump does is the “biggest, the bestest ever, no one has ever seen such biggness”
Sp in that vein… we have "the BIG LIE™
It ain’t logical I tells ya!!!