In one very sad way, Trump has won Arizona
Congratulations are in order to the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party.
Trump and his boots in the desert may not have won Arizona, but they have succeeded in undermining Republicans’ faith in the election.
With bullhorns and hashtags and even a lawsuit – everything but actual proof – they’ve convinced a sizable number of Arizonans that President Donald Trump was robbed of the state’s 11 electoral votes.
That elections officials handed out Sharpies to Republicans, knowing it would void their votes.
That tabulation equipment tipped Trump votes to Joe Biden.
That Maricopa County poll workers “consistently, regularly and systematically” took action that deprived Trump of “potentially thousands” of votes.
Never mind that elections officials have repeatedly said that Sharpies actually are preferred because the ink dries quickly, that Arizona’s tabulation machines worked well and those “potentially thousands of votes” lost due to “systematic poll worker error”?
It was at most 191 — ballots containing more than one vote in the presidential race. (The machinery kicks out the ballot, giving voters the option of filling out a new ballot, but the lawsuit claims poll workers told people to resubmit the flagged ballots or they pressed the “green button” themselves, meaning the presidential votes wouldn’t count.)
191 votes. That is 0.1% of the 166,875 votes cast in person on Election Day, according to Scott Jarrett, director of Election Day and emergency voting in Maricopa County. That compares 1.3% of ballots overvoted in the 2016 presidential race.
191 votes. And that’s assuming every one of those votes would have gone to Trump.
Who, by way,
11,000 votes.
So naturally, Trump and the Republican Party sued both the state and Maricopa County.
Team Trump’s attorney, Kory Langhofer, says the lawsuit doesn’t suggest conspiracy.
“This is not a fraud case ... ,” he said, during a hearing on the lawsuit Thursday. “We are not alleging anyone is stealing this election. The allegation here is, in a limited number of cases, there are good faith errors.”
He should tell that to one of his clients, state GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward. She’s been revving up Republicans since the polls closed, vowing to “Stop the steal” – though how that steal occurred seems to change as conspiracy theories come and go.
“We’re are looking at everything because there’s a lot of funny business going on out there,” Ward said in an in
lost by more
than
terview with 3TV on Saturday, the day the lawsuit was filed.
There was no funny business — or at least no evidence thus far suggesting that it is so.
There was only the serious business of 3 million Arizonans casting their ballots and thousands of elections workers busting their humps to count those votes — and yes, taking their time to get it right.
During Thursday’s hearing, several people testified they aren’t sure now whether their votes for Trump counted. This, even though they say they voted for Trump – and only Trump – and thus there is no reason to believe their votes wouldn’t have counted.
And besides that, Sharpies. Meanwhile, a poll observer in Guadalupe, testifying for the plaintiffs, acknowledged that he saw nothing amiss on Election Day.
“At the time I would say no,” he said, when asked whether poll workers were intentionally giving bad instructions. “I’ve learned some things since then but at the time everything looked normal.”
That was then, before the GOP decided that “potentially thousands of votes” were taken from Trump.
Trump and the Republicans dropped their lawsuit on Friday, given that it wouldn’t change any results. But they’ve already succeeded in their efforts to sow distrust in Arizona’s election process and cast doubt about the legitimacy of Biden’s win.
It doesn’t matter that numerous checks, both before and after the election, were made by a variety of commissions and government agencies – with the political parties looking on – to make sure the voting equipment works and the count is accurate.
Doesn’t matter that state law requires a hand-count sample audit after the election, which has turned up no problems in Maricopa County.
Doesn’t even matter that Attorney General Mark Brnovich has investigated every claim brought to his office, including #Sharpiegate, and found no evidence that Arizona’s election was hijacked.
“Whether you won or lost, it’s important that people have confidence in the system,” he told 3TV Thursday. “I think it’s important that whatever the result is, we all need to have confidence and faith that the system worked, and that when you voted, the vote counted and it counted for the person you voted for.”
Meanwhile, consider this small sampling, from my inbox this week:
“You have NO BUSINESS telling us that the election was not stolen,” a reader named Jeff wrote, after I pointed out that if the fix was in surely defeated Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes would have started with his own race. “Your opinions are invalid based on your own lack of honesty, integrity and journalistic standards. And nobody said it was Adrian Fontes who rigged the election. If anything, it’s even more suspicious that so many people voted for Biden AND the Republican nominee for recorder in Maricopa County.”
“You’re all dirty in this coup and voters will not forget it,” wrote Dave. “The truth will come out, Trump will be your president again, and the USA will thrive. I realize that’s what you liberals hate the most. When this country proposers. (sic)”
Then there was this, from Jim.
“Read your article about the AZ ag (attorney general) stating there was no voter fraud in AZ. Did you not see the Facebook post about the Sharpie’s vs. ball point pens? Obvious the ag didn’t. I understand you are protecting your job at AZ Republic so don’t call yourself a journalist. I have a copy of the video. Guessing Facebook blocked it by now.”
Sigh ...