Election fraud or not, heads need to roll

Good news, Arizona. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors appears ready to call the bluff of Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, and of everybody’s favorite bug-eyed conspiracy theorist, state GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward.

On Wednesday, the county Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to order an independent audit of the tabulation machinery used to count votes in the presidential election.

The Republican-controlled board was poised to audit the results in early December but had to put that plan on ice because Ward kept suing the county, her claims of election fraud growing ever more ludicrous with each doomed lawsuit. (The machines and ballots were considered evidence, county officials explained, and thus needed to be preserved.)

Now, with Ward’s lawsuits in the trash (along with her reputation), the county is free to move forward with the audit.

Not because there is any indication of a problem with the county’s 2.1 million ballots — only a problem with Arizonans’ faith in democracy.

“While I am confident in our staff and our equipment, not all of our residents are. This is a problem,” Supervisor Chairman Jack Sellers, a Republican, said, in announcing Wednesday’s planned vote. “A democracy cannot survive if enough of its people doubt that its elections are free and fair.”

He’s right, of course, and we know where the fault lies for undermining Arizonans’ faith in our elections. I’m looking at you, Dr. Ward, and at you, Reps. Gosar and Biggs and you, too, Rep. Debbie Lesko. And I’m looking at you, state Sen. Kelly Townsend, Rep. Mark Finchem and Sen. Wendy Rogers.

The county’s proposed audit of its Dominion Voting Systems equipment apparently is separate from the state Senate’s plan to audit the equipment.

According to the draft scope of work, the audit will, among other things, analyze the machiner for its hacking vulnerability, verify that no malicious malware was installed, test that tabulators were not sending or receiving information over the internet and confirmt hat no vote switching occurred,

It comes after the machinery passed every pre- and post-election test in each of the state’s three elections last year, as required by state law.

It comes after the election results were certified by each of the state’s 15 counties and by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.

It comes after eight failed lawsuits by various Trump supporters, alleging the fix was in.

It comes after a county official — appointed by the GOP-run Board of Supervisors to oversee Election Day voting in Maricopa County — spent six hours in December, explaining to a legislative panel how each of the various conspiracy theories about how Arizona’s election was stolen are a load of horsepucky.

None of which was good enough for the likes of Ward and Gosar, who along with Biggs and others spent the last two and a half months screaming for people to stop the steal until finally the people tried. They broke into the nation’s Capitol, hoping to end the mythical heist.

So yes, please, please, bring on the audit.

If by some miracle, it turns up evidence of fraud, then heads should roll.

And if the results show no evidence of fraud — as every test thus far has shown no evidence of fraud — then heads should still roll. Politicians who spent the last two and a half months spreading lies about a stolen election should be held accountable. Arizona’s congressional representatives who stood on the House floor and voted to reject their own state’s election results.

Oh, I don’t expect the Wards and Gosars of the world to be satisfied, even if the audit comes back clean. They have too much to gain in keeping the lie alive and the base riled up.

I suspect Supervisor Sellers knows this, as well.

“Some will never be satisfied but this vote (to audit the results) is not about them,” he said, in his statement announcing Wednesday’s vote. “The best we can do, in my opinion, is to err on the side of transparency, to embrace the opportunity to once again show our work and to put facts in their proper place at the center of public discourse instead of at the periphery.”

Facts once again at the center of public discourse. Cue the hallelujahs.

And if those facts are as expected when this audit is done?

Cue the resignation calls.

For Gosar and Biggs and Lesko and for the rest of the Trump zealots who tried to steal an election, dealing a blow — but fortunately, not a death blow — to democracy.