With three percent of a small sampling of 100 ballots audited in Maricopa County, Arizona found to be altered, similar results across the more than two million votes cast there would be enough to change the outcome of the presidential election in the state.
With 11 electoral college votes at stake, Arizona certified the results of the presidential election in favor of Biden on Monday with a margin of about 10,000 votes over President Trump.
In her daily update Tuesday, Dr. Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party said there was “explosive news” about her lawsuit.
In today's update, Chairwoman @kelliwardaz announces the findings from our investigation of 100 duplicate ballots, in which TWO votes were discovered to have been altered and removed from President @realDonaldTrump's total. pic.twitter.com/6Dg9zd2XGd
— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) December 2, 2020
Ward filed a petition in Arizona’s Superior Court for Maricopa County on November 24 to examine a sampling of mail-in ballots along with the signed envelopes for comparison against the signatures on file.
The petition also requested an inspection to compare “duplicate” ballots to the original ballots from which they were duplicated.
Duplicate ballots are re-created or duplicated by election workers for the voter, when an original ballot is damaged or cannot be read by the machine, explained Ward in her Twitter video of Tuesday.
The Judge presiding over the case, Randall Warner, wanted to err on the side of transparency and allowed an audit of 100 ballots.
This, despite the fact that Arizona’s Secretary of State Katie Hobbs – who has said Trump supporters are neo-Nazis, according to Ward – called a special emergency hearing with the judge to make the case that the duplicate ballots should only be examined by their attorneys and be privileged.
Judge Warner questioned the reasoning for keeping the information secret from the public and denied the defendants’ request.
On Wednesday, Ward revealed that one ballot was changed from Trump to Biden and another was just taken away from Trump without any apparent reason or explanation.
On Thursday, Ward broke down in her daily update that with one ballot being taken from Trump and given to Biden and another ballot being discarded, it amounted to a three percent swing away from Trump.
In today's update, Chairwoman @kelliwardaz outlines the next legal steps we are taking in our investigation of duplicate ballots and reaffirms her strong support for all elected Republicans who are fighting for election integrity. pic.twitter.com/UUU6SGt3Ar
— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) December 3, 2020
President Trump reacted Wednesday on Twitter to the news about three percent of the 100 count sampling being “tainted or worse.” He pointed out that if the results were carried forward, it would be approximately 90,000 more votes than needed for him to win the state.
In Arizona, it turns out that 3% of the votes cast in the 100 count vote sampling were tainted or worse. This would be, if carried forward, approximately 90,000 votes more than we would need to win the State. Now we were granted a much larger sample to work with. Wow!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2020
Ward said that Maricopa County had agreed to a larger sampling of 2,500 duplicate ballots, but appeared to be backing out of that deal.
The parties were headed back to court Thursday, and Ward posted an update to Twitter.
Listening to the Election Contest trial in #Arizona. Observations:
1.Attorneys are rather annoying. Especially some of their voices.
2.The attorneys for Maricopa County appear to want any “eyes on ballots” to be prevented at all costs. Why? 🤔 1/6— Dr. Kelli Ward 🇺🇸 (@kelliwardaz) December 3, 2020
Ward committed to keeping up the fight for election integrity, to make sure that the true person who won the election is awarded the electoral votes and to keep America great and encouraged all Republicans to do the same.
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Laura Baigert is a senior reporter at The Tennessee Star.
Photo “Ballot Worker” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
