The full report on the forensic audit into the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, Arizona, has again been delayed — this time due to three members of the team testing positive for Covid-19.
Arizona Senate president Karen Fann said in a statement that she expects the full report to be complete by Monday.
“The team expected to have the full draft ready for the Senate today, but unfortunately Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and two other members of the five-person audit team have tested positive for COVID-19 and are quite sick,” the Senate president said. “The Senate legal team will meet Wednesday to start reviewing the draft report.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Statement from Senate President @FannKfann #AZSenate #Audit pic.twitter.com/H7xDHdRiK3
— AZSenateRepublicans (@AZSenateGOP) August 23, 2021
After the draft report is fully submitted, Fann said the Senate team will meet again, according to CBS News. “Once that process is complete, the final report will be presented to the Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee and the findings will be made public.”
The audit has taken months to conduct. In June, an estimated 2.1 million ballots from the county had been counted and photographed. The audit then took on a new phase of the review, which included an evaluation of data from election servers and voting machines.
Notably, back in May, the Biden DOJ intervened in the election auditing efforts by the county Republicans, sending a letter to the president of the Arizona state Senate suggesting the recount is illegal.
The Washington Post reported at the time that the DOJ letter raises “the possibility of a clash between state and federal authorities over the audit.”
A month later, Biden-nominated U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland made it clear that the Justice Department will be reviewing any election audits for alleged voter violations. The AG also pointedly knocked “abnormal” review methods, without expressly citing the Arizona audit, during his comments in mid-June.
“Some jurisdictions, based on disinformation, have utilized abnormal post-election audit methodologies that may put the integrity of the voting process at risk and undermine public confidence in our democracy,” Garland said, as reported by 12 News.
The news station noted that the AG said he would double the staff of the Civil Rights Division’s enforcement “within the next thirty days, in order to deal with challenges to voting rights nationwide.”
“We must rededicate the resources of the Department of Justice to a critical part of its original mission: enforcing federal law to protect the franchise for all voters,” Garland said.
Election audits will be reviewed “to ensure they abide by federal statutory requirements to protect election records and avoid the intimidation of voters,” he added, and the DOJ will “publish guidance explaining the civil and criminal statutes that apply to post-election audits.”
Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward fired back, writing via Twitter, “Seems Merrick either wants to ignore or forgot all about the US Constitution…#DOJHasNoSay #StatesRights.”
Fann has repeatedly emphasized that the audit is not being conducted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, but to identify weaknesses in relation to election integrity and promote confidence in forthcoming elections.
Related: Forensic Voting Audit For 2020 Election Moves Forward In Pennsylvania