{"id":37586,"date":"2021-07-13T17:14:59","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T00:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=37586"},"modified":"2021-07-13T17:14:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T00:14:59","slug":"election-audits-in-five-states-set-off-warning-signals-report-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=37586","title":{"rendered":"ELECTION AUDITS IN FIVE STATES SET OFF WARNING SIGNALS, REPORT FINDS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by\u00a0Mark Hedin<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Jul 13, 2021<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By Mark Hedin, Ethnic Media Services<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new report by the Brennan Center for Justice examines so-called \u2018audits\u201d either under way or proposed for five states that voted to replace Donald Trump with Joe Biden as president in the Nov. 3, 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile details differ, in every case, the proposed election reviews fail to satisfy basic security, accuracy, and reliability measures that should be in place\u00a0for any election review. And the \u201cauditors\u201d themselves fail\u00a0to meet\u00a0basic standards of objectivity,\u201d\u00a0the report<\/a>\u00a0finds.<\/p>\n

In addition to Arizona, similar projects are taking shape in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan, all states that were won by Biden in the general election.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn each state,\u201d the report notes, \u201celection officials have already conducted post-election audits without any findings of widespread fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat these efforts are gaining traction more than six months after certification of the election is a blinking red\u00a0warning light,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe partisan attempts to review election results are organized by people publicly associated with pro-Trump conspiracy theories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe five so-called \u2018audits\u2019 are dressed up as fact-finding missions, but they are meant to create evidence that doesn\u2019t exist \u2014 fake proof of the myth that the 2020 election was somehow wrongly decided and false validation for the restrictions on the vote now sweeping the country,\u201d said\u00a0Gowri Ramachandran, counsel in the Brennan Center\u2019s Election Reform Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe procedures proposed for these reviews are not designed to obtain secure and accurate results and are radically different from proven election integrity procedures, such as post-election tabulation audits routinely conducted by election officials across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the report continues, \u201cThese plans have severe deficiencies in basic security, accuracy, reliability, and transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the issues identified in the report are that Arizona taxpayers will be on the hook for $2.2 million to replace the voting machines in question, because\u00a0the audit procedures violate federal standards for keeping election materials secure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Given the audits\u2019 failure to follow established protocols for handling election materials, for instance by giving unaccredited contractors access to voting machines, as has already occurred in Michigan and Pennsylvania, it is reasonable to expect others jurisdictions will incur similar costs, according to the report.<\/p>\n

While Arizona\u2019s already oft-extended audit is confined to Maricopa County, Wisconsin is embarking on a similar plan that could encompass the entire state.<\/p>\n

But, the Brennan Center report notes: \u201cImmediately following the 2020 election and\u00a0prior to the certification of election results, Wisconsin election officials conducted\u00a0a legally mandated audit of voting equipment used in the 2020 election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This audit confirmed that none of the\u00a0audited voting machines changed votes from one candidate to another, incorrectly tabulated votes, or altered vote totals in\u00a0any way.<\/p>\n

In addition to the\u00a0official audit, the Trump campaign exercised its statutory right to request and\u00a0pay for a hand\u00a0recount of votes in\u00a0Wisconsin\u2019s two most\u00a0populous counties\u2014Dane and Milwaukee \u2013 which also confirmed Biden\u2019s\u00a0victory in those counties, finding, in fact, that\u00a0Biden\u2019s victory had been undercounted by 87 votes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, after GOP legislators from Pennsylvania and 12 other states visited the Arizona \u201caudit\u201d site, Pennsylvania GOP state Senator Doug Mastriano called it \u201cthe model to use\u201d and proposed that his state follow Arizona\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

Even Arizona\u2019s Maricopa County recorder, Stephen Richer, a Republican, scoffed at the idea: \u201cThis is insane just from a competence standpoint,\u201d he said on CNN. \u201cI would say to\u00a0[visitors who observed the\u00a0Arizona review] \u2018this is not the audit you want, this is far from the gold standard<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestigations that lack procedural transparency, competence, independence, and\u00a0objectivity are easily leveraged by partisan actors,\u201d the Brennan Center report concludes.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, in\u00a02021, proponents of the lie that\u00a0the 2020 election was stolen are\u00a0looking to use the mere existence of these sham audits to\u00a0further their ends, just as they leveraged the existence of numerous baseless lawsuits in the lead-up to the January 6 attempted insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe partisan reviews of certified elections being pursued across the country \u2014 despite a host\u00a0of evidence that the results were fair and legitimate \u2014 represent more than a\u00a0break from best practices in election administration. They are an existential threat to our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brennan Center on July\u00a011 announced the creation of a new website, \u201chttps:\/\/notanaudit.com\/<\/a>,\u201d developed with States United Action, Fair Fight Action and United to Protect Democracy, to provide more details on the so-called \u201caudit\u201d process in the five states.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Mark Hedin\u00a0|\u00a0Jul 13, 2021\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights By...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37587,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37586\/revisions\/37587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}