OPINION:
President Biden’s Department of Justice has “concerns” about the integrity of the Republican-led election audit in Arizona, it told the president of Arizona’s state Senate.
The DOJ’s concerns stem from Arizona state Republicans using the outside firm Cyber Ninja to conduct the audit.
“Federal law creates a duty to safeguard and preserve federal election records,” Pamela S. Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, wrote to state Sen. Karen Fann.
The department is concerned that this is not happening in Maricopa County, where the records “are no longer under the ultimate control of elections officials, are not being adequately safeguarded by contractors, and are at risk of damage or loss.”
Ms. Karlan is also concerned with Cyber Ninja‘s tactics. The firm has pledged to “identify voter registrations that did not make sense, and then knock on doors to confirm if valid voters actually lived at the stated address.” Ms. Karlan said this “raises concerns regarding potential intimidation of voters,” which is prohibited by federal statutes.”
All of this “concern” is absolute garbage. The real concern from Biden’s DOJ is not with Cyber Ninja, but with the voting tabulations and errors it may find in Arizona’s audit. Best to raise suspicions about the firm’s credibility midway through the recount, just in case the results are not in Mr. Biden’s favor.
Mr. Biden won Arizona by capturing the state’s most populous county, Maricopa, by 45,000 votes. Former President Donald J. Trump narrowly lost the battleground state by 10,000 votes.
The former president has voiced concerns about potential fraud in Maricopa County. Arizona’s audit will hand-count 2.1 million ballots to make sure they’re valid and check for any voter machine and software irregularities.
Since Arizona has already certified its election results, the aim of the audit isn’t to challenge Mr. Biden’s presidency, but to restore people’s trust and confidence in the electoral process.
“When you’ve got half of the people who do not trust the electoral system anymore, rightly or wrongly, and they have questions, who is responsible for answering these questions?” Ms. Fann said Tuesday on KTAR News in Arizona, amid Democratic challenges. “This has been the sole thing, to get answers, so that if we have any problems, we can fix them.”
Yet Democrats are running scared.
The DOJ’s letter came about a week after Democratic voting groups demanded federal intervention. Last month, the head of the Arizona Democratic Party, state Rep. Raquel Terán, said that Cyber Ninjas was engaged in a “sham audit” intended to justify new voting restrictions.
Democrats are doing their best to label Arizona’s audit exactly that — a sham — instead of cheering it on as a way to restore confidence the voting system works.
Just Wednesday, Arizona Democrats settled with the GOP after failing to stop the audit in court. In the settlement, Arizona Republicans and Cyber Ninja agreed to allow independent election experts to observe the audit, take measures to secure personal voter information, turn over details about their auditing process and make the documents public. If Arizona Republicans or Cyber Ninja fails to comply, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is a Democrat, can sue both for breach of contract.
Seems pretty transparent and fair. Yet Democrats continue to be worried and concerned. Perhaps it’s because they know what they did, and are worried they’ll be caught.
The audit, which began last month, continues.
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