The hand recount of more than 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona should be finished by the end of this week. The entire probe into the authenticity of the ballots and the recount is expected to conclude by the end of June.
The Washington Examiner reports:
“The counting will be done by the end of this week, and then the resources will shift to the paper evaluation,” Senate audit liaison Ken Bennett told reporters at the venue on Tuesday. “That may still take most of the rest of this month.”
Bennett, a former Republican secretary of state for Arizona, has been involved with the audit since it began on April 23. His comments on Tuesday signal the end to the visible hand recount that has required dozens of volunteers on the coliseum floor to count ballots for nearly six weeks.
Contractors still have to complete a “paper evaluation,” which was described by Bennett as a process of reviewing ballot paper for irregular folds. Teams will also look for whether voting machines filled out ballots correctly and examine for differences between ballots sent by mail and those filled out in-person at a voting center.
“All kinds of characteristics about the ballot that confirm or question their authenticity,” Bennett said, though members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors have vehemently denied there were any irregularities during the election, citing two previous audits led by county officials that found no anomalies in the 2020 presidential race.
Former President Trump has praised the efforts in Arizona and also called on other states to conduct similar audits.
“Great patriots led by State Senator Doug Mastriano, Senator Cris Dush, and State Representative Rob Kauffman went to Maricopa County, Arizona, to learn the best practices for conducting a full Forensic Audit of the 2020 General Election. Now the Pennsylvania Senate needs to act,” Trump wrote. “Senate President Jake Corman needs to fulfill his promise to his constituents to conduct a full Forensic Audit. Senator Dave Argall, Chairman of the State Government Committee, has to authorize the subpoenas, if necessary. The people of Pennsylvania and America deserve to know the truth. If the Pennsylvania Senate leadership doesn’t act, there is no way they will ever get re-elected!”
