Arizona Republican Party Announces Independent Audit of Maricopa County Elections

The Arizona Republican Party announced it would be conducting an independent and private audit of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office performance in the 2018 election, after the performance of the Democrat County Recorder was widely criticized on numerous procedural and legal grounds.

In a press release, the State Party Chairman, Jonathan Lines, announced that he had asked Stephen Richer, a Phoenix attorney with substantial history in public and private audits and investigations of major organizations, to oversee the project.

This comes after the Maricopa County Recorder’s office- the county’s election division led by Democratic donor Adrian Fontes- has become a target of suspicion and criticism among election integrity hawks for numerous reasons, including taking a whopping six days to release enough ballot returns for the outcome of the competitive Arizona Senate election to be decided in favor of Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema. As of today- November 15th- a total of nine days since election night- ballot returns are still being released by the County Recorder.

That’s enough time to make Maricopa County hands down the slowest and most inefficient county in accurately counting ballot returns in the United States, lagging behind other large counties with similar populations.

If the Democrats who run Maricopa County’s election system are at all concerned with combatting “election interference,” maybe they should look into the mirror before being so quick to blame “conspiracy theorists” for the confusion and uncertainty they’ve inspired amongst many people for their long record of incompetence and poor conduct.

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