The Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward implied this week that local officials who do not comply with the demands of auditors in the ongoing audit of 2.1 million votes in Maricopa County, could be arrested.
According to the Daily Beast, the controversial audit is bringing to the fore the long simmering feud between the state and local Republicans. In an interview with One America News, Ward threatened local officials with arrests if they do not co-operate with auditors.
“There have to be consequences,” Ward said. “There could be arrests of people who are refusing to comply.”
The controversial audit was launched in April after Trump’s repeated lies about fraud, and the Arizona Senate president, Karen Fann, subpoenaed ballots and voting machines. The process has been dogged by controversies since then.
Auditors are reportedly conducting tests, like shining UV light on the ballots, and checking ballots for bamboo fibers, on the basis of a conspiracy theory that claimed fake ballots had been shipped from Asia. Also, a former state lawmaker who lost his re-election bid in 2020 and travelled to Washington on January 6 to Washington to attend Donald Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ rally was seen taking part in the process.
But, the biggest blunder of all came last week when the group conducting the audit announced on Twitter that the GOP-led Maricopa County deleted voter data.
“Breaking Update: Maricopa County deleted a directory full of election databases from the 2020 election cycle days before the election equipment was delivered to the audit. This is spoliation of evidence!,” the group wrote.
The claim was amplified by Donald Trump who wrote in a statement: “The entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED! This is illegal and the Arizona State Senate, who is leading the Forensic Audit, is up in arms. Many Radical Left Democrats and weak Republicans are very worried about the fact that this has been exposed” adding “the story is only getting bigger and at some point it will be impossible for the weak and/or corrupt media not to cover.”
Stephen Richer, the Republican Maricopa County Recorder calls Trump “unhinged.”
“Wow. This is unhinged. I’m literally looking at our voter registration database on my other screen. Right now,” Richer tweeted. “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country. This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5. If we don’t call this out…”
Auditors later conceded in a meeting with state officials that the directory had not been deleted. The auditors had just copied the files incorrectly.
