AP’s review supports statements made by many state and local elections officials — and even some Republican county officials and GOP Gov. Doug Ducey — that Arizona’s presidential election was secure and its results valid.
And still, Arizona’s GOP-led state Senate has for months been conducting what it describes as a “forensic audit” of results in Phoenix’s Maricopa County. The effort has been discredited by election experts and faced bipartisan criticism, but some Republicans, including Trump, have suggested it will uncover evidence of widespread fraud.
“This is not a massive issue,” said Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who oversaw the Maricopa County election office during the 2020 election and lost his re-election bid. “It is a lie that has developed over time. It’s been fed by conspiracy theorists.”
The AP tallied the potential cases after submitting public record requests to all Arizona counties. Most counties — 11 out of 15 — reported they had forwarded no potential cases to local prosecutors. The majority of cases identified so far involve people casting a ballot for a relative who had died or people who tried to cast two ballots.
In addition to the AP’s review of county election offices, an Election Integrity Unit of the state attorney general’s office that was created in 2019 to ferret out fraud has been reviewing potential cases of fraud.
A spokesman for Attorney General Mark Brnovich told the AP in April that the unit had 21 active investigations, although he did not specify if all were from last fall.
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