PHOENIX, Arizona, May 4, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The 2020 election audit ordered by the Arizona state senate is moving forward despite Democrats’ attempts to obstruct it, said former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett.
Bennett, audit liaison for the senate, told local news on Monday that the review is “ramping up” as the second week of counting begins. The livestreamed audit includes an examination and recount of nearly 2.1 million ballots cast in Arizona’s Maricopa County last year, in addition to a forensic investigation of voting machines and interviews with voters.
Bennett said that between 150,00–175,000 ballots have been tallied so far, although the pace is expected to accelerate in the coming days. “They’re ramping up the personnel needed,” the former secretary of state said, noting that counting tables at the Veteran Memorial Coliseum, the venue for the audit, doubled this week from 20 to 46.
“The first two days were very low counts, but the count is picking up significantly every day,” Bennett said. “We’re doing things that will get us to a number of ballots per day that will allow us to be done with the counting by May 14.”
The coliseum is scheduled to host graduation ceremonies in mid-May, which would require a temporary halt of ballot counting if the election audit is not finished by then. The audit could resume a week later, however, and fair officials have granted access to the site “for as long as we need it,” Bennett said.
The ballot review process, led by Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based IT firm hired by the senate, involves dozens of volunteer teams, sometimes checking ink or creases or examining ballots with UV lights. Nearly all data from the six truckloads of Maricopa voting machines delivered for inspection have been collected, Bennett reported last week. He told the Gateway Pundit that “now they’ll move into phase two, which is analyzing that data.”
The Arizona senate has pledged $150,000 for the effort, with other funding coming from FundTheAudit.com, which says that it has raised more than $1.2 million of its $2.8 million goal. The group was founded by election integrity advocate and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne.
“All kinds of things are going to be surfaced in the weeks ahead”
Democrats and Maricopa County officials had sought for months to block the Maricopa audit before it finally launched on April 23. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors initially had defied subpoenas that the Arizona senate delivered in December, until a county judge sided with lawmakers earlier this year.
Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, a Democrat, and the Arizona Democratic Party subsequently sued to pause the audit the day before it started. Maricopa Judge Daniel Martin shot down that challenge as well, in part because Democrats refused to put up a $1 million bond to cover delay costs. Arizona GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward has since warned that leftist activists may still be attempting to “undermine” the audit as observers.
Maricopa County, which incorporates the city of Phoenix, had been implicated in several 2020 election controversies and alleged irregularities, like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous multi-million dollar election process funding spree.
Emails have shown that the Zuckerberg-backed nonprofit Center for Tech in Civic Life (CTCL) granted Maricopa County $3 million last year for “drive through voting” and “absentee voting equipment.” Experts have said that the likely illegal money helped Democrats “clinch victory by greasing the skids for voter turnout.”
Additional emails released in March revealed that CTCL operatives were given improper access to ballots in Green Bay, Wisconsin –– a key jurisdiction with a similar arrangement.
House Democrats, in a strict party-line vote, recently passed legislation to conduct a massive federal overhaul of America’s elections and voting protocols, making the inconsistency, confusion, and funny business that plagued 2020 the new, permanent norm in our country.
The bill is called H.R. 1 (also known, ironically, as the “For the People” Act), and, if passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate, will mark the beginning of a once-in-a-generation transfer of power from the people of our country to its politicians.
That’s we must act NOW, and implore our U.S. Senators to vote against this dangerous legislation when it comes before them for a vote.
Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition asking all U.S. Senators to oppose H.R. 1 as a matter of national importance.
Democrat sponsors have attempted to promote H.R. 1 as a bill to expand voting rights in America, but, in reality, it is the exact opposite.
Among the 791-page bill’s provisions are the following:
- Transfer of control over congressional elections from state governments to the federal government, even though the Constitution explicitly states that such authority belongs solely to states.
- Automatic voter registration, which would require every state to add all eligible citizens to their voting rolls (unless they manually opt out) under the law. This would, additionally, shield illegal aliens who are automatically registered to vote from prosecution, without making an affirmative declaration about the status of their citizenship.
- Mandatory early voting in all 50 states for at least 15 days prior to an actual election, as well as unlimited ballot harvesting and a 10-day deadline extension past an election for mail-in ballots to be received and processed.
- Mandatory, nationwide mail-in voting, without any requirement that individuals provide a form of personal identification upon applying for their mail-in ballot. This would also require that those individuals who request a mail-in ballot be automatically registered to receive mail-in ballots in every election to follow.
- Transfer of control over drawing congressional district maps from each individual state’s legislature to “independent” commissions – another power reserved, in the Constitution, for states specifically.
- Federal funding of campaigns, which would use taxpayer dollars to match campaign contributions made by Americans citizens to candidates for federal office at a rate of 600% (you read that right – your money, being used to fund campaigns and candidates you may not support, nor even have the chance to actually to vote for).
And, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
If H.R. 1 passes the Senate and goes to Joe Biden’s desk, the American people may never participate in a free, open, and fair election ever again.
It is, therefore, imperative that we act to save our Republic from this disastrous legislation NOW.
Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition which urges all U.S. Senators to oppose the anti-democratic piece of legislation, H.R. 1, today.
And, after signing this petition, please CLICK HERE to DIRECTLY CONTACT your U.S. Senators by using the simple contact form LifeSite is providing, here. It is a simple, one-click process, and you don't even have to look up any of your Senators' contact information.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Here’s the anti-people agenda of HR 1 on election reform' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/heres-the-anti-people-agenda-of-hr-1-on-election-reform
'Democrats’ horrifying ‘For the People’ Act would supercharge vote fraud, end America' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/democrats-horrifying-for-the-people-act-would-supercharge-vote-fraud-end-america
'The Democrats’ ‘For the People’ Act would make it impossible to hold free and fair elections in America' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/democrats-are-pushing-the-for-the-people-act-in-attempt-to-make-impossible-to-hold-free-and-fair-elections-in-america
**Photo Credit: Shutterstock
“I think it’s going to be incredible, I think it’s going to be eye-opening because I personally think that — I have no question we won Arizona,” President Trump said about the Maricopa audit. “So, we’ll see what happens, but I have a feeling I know what’s going to happen because it was a totally crooked election.”
Republicans have referred to the audit as a means to help draft future legislation and have stated that it cannot legally change the outcome of the election, as Arizona certified the results last year. Patrick Byrne, however, has indicated that the effort could have far greater significance.
“We’re not going to let this happen again, but don’t believe for a minute that 2020 is over yet,” he told NTD Television recently. “There’s all kinds of things from that election that are going to be surfaced in the weeks ahead.”