Fox News Channel analysts earned the opprobrium of many prominent conservatives when it called the Arizona presidential race for Democratic nominee Joe Biden even as ballots were still being counted.
Since then, the race has continued to tighten and just over 11,000 ballots were believed to be separating the two candidates as of Thursday afternoon — and the state is now the target of mounting calls for an election audit, as reported by Breitbart.
“Help restore credibility”
The razor-thin margin and concerns over potential voting irregularities have led Arizona state Senate President Karen Fann to lay out her concerns in a public letter.
“Assuming the allegations of fraud are without merit, an independent analysis would help to restore credibility and hopefully end the current controversy over fairness in the election process in Arizona,” she wrote.
While she made clear that she was “not claiming fraud was involved in Arizona’s election,” Fann stressed that “we must do everything we can to satisfy Arizonans that the count was lawfully done.”
Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, made it clear that she is not on board with the challenge.
She responded by dismissing Fann’s request for transparency, arguing that the concerns are “unreasonable” and not backed up by fact.
“There is no ‘current controversy'”
“It is patently unreasonable to suggest that, despite there being zero credible evidence of any impropriety or widespread irregularities, election officials nonetheless have a responsibility to prove a negative,” Hobbs said. “To be clear, there is no ‘current controversy’ regarding elections in Arizona, outside of theories floated by those seeking to undermine our democratic process for political gain.”
The Democratic official went on to “respectfully decline” the GOP lawmakers “request to push aside the work that remains to be done to ensure an orderly completion of this election and instead launch and fund with taxpayer dollars a boundless ‘independent’ evaluation of ‘all data related to the tabulation of votes in the 2020 General Election.'”
Of course, Fann is not alone in seeking further examination of Arizona’s election methods and results.
As President Donald Trump recently tweeted: “If we can audit the total votes cast, we will easily win Arizona also!”
Breitbart pointed out, however, that the state requires a high legal threshold — a race separated by 0.1% or 200 ballots, whichever is smaller — to trigger an automatic recount of an election.
The post Arizona GOP legislator calls for audit when presidential race tightens to 11,000-vote margin first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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