Arizona Senate Intends to Hand-Count 2.1M Maricopa County 2020 Ballots; Not Clear How

[essentialsaltes]

Republicans who control the Arizona Senate announced Thursday they now intend to do a complete recount of 2.1 million ballots in the state's most populous county to ensure that President Joe Biden's November win was legitimate.

Senate President Karen Fann had been pushing for a "full forensic audit" of Maricopa County's election result and won a court order on Feb. 26 granting the Senate access to the ballots and tabulation machines. But she had never acknowledged until this week that she wanted a full recount, something state law doesn't allow [except] in narrow circumstances.

Fann's announcement said she now intends to do a full-hand recount of the ballots in addition to testing the tabulation machines and rescanning all the ballots. She said she hopes to do the work at county buildings to ensure ballot security.

But county spokesman Fields Moseley said the county hasn't had any recent discussions about allowing the Senate to use its facilities for its new audit. Early this month, Board Chair Jack Sellers sent a letter to Fann and other GOP senators asking where she wanted the ballots delivered. The Senate said it had no room for them and hoped to use county facilities.

A full hand-recount will be challenging because it will require scores of people and observers if Fann is to end up with a trusted product.

 

[iluvatar5150]

If each ballot takes 5 seconds to audit, then doing it one at a time would take 2917 hours, or 8 hr/day 5 days/wk for about a year-and-a-half.

 

[DaisyDay]

That sounds both expensive and tedious to the extreme. This is the sort of thing that is best done by machine as it is surprisingly difficult to keep your mind on it past the first several hours.

 

[rambot]

And it doesn't matter because it won't satiate the hunger.

 

[mnorian]

It's. Too. Late.

 

[wing2000]

"Arizona has strict laws governing when a recount is triggered in an election.
Recounts in statewide candidate races are required when:
A. The margin of victory is within one-tenth of 1% of the number of votes cast for both candidates.
B. The margin of victory is within 200 votes, if more than 25,000 votes were cast in the race, or within 50 when there are fewer than 25,000 votes.
C. Any time Donald Trump loses, apparently."

-Local columnists Laurie Roberts
Arizona Senate wants a full recount. What's next, a revote?

 

[GreatLakes4Ever]

"Arizona has strict laws governing when a recount is triggered in an election.
Recounts in statewide candidate races are required when:
A. The margin of victory is within one-tenth of 1% of the number of votes cast for both candidates.
B. The margin of victory is within 200 votes, if more than 25,000 votes were cast in the race, or within 50 when there are fewer than 25,000 votes.
C. Any time Donald Trump loses, apparently."

-Local columnists Laurie Roberts
Arizona Senate wants a full recount. What's next, a revote?

Why anyone would expect the Party of “Law and Order” to follow the law is beyond me.

 

[iluvatar5150]

That sounds both expensive and tedious to the extreme.

Yeah, I noticed that the article didn't say who would pay for this. It's a minimum of 2900 man-hours if only one person is required to examine each ballot. It's anywhere from 6000-9000 if they require multiple people, assuming my 5 seconds/ballot estimate is remotely reasonable (I doubt it is). This will easily cost $1 million.

 

[Basil the Great]

I am not sure what the purpose of this venture is, since it will not impact the end result.

 

[wing2000]

Yeah, I noticed that the article didn't say who would pay for this. It's a minimum of 2900 man-hours if only one person is required to examine each ballot. It's anywhere from 6000-9000 if they require multiple people, assuming my 5 seconds/ballot estimate is remotely reasonable (I doubt it is). This will easily cost $1 million.

The Arizona Republican Party should pay up IMO....(my guess is the "re-count" won't happen as it's not legal -- this is all for show...)

btw....the AZ Republican party was recently ordered to cover court cost for an election lawsuit:

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah on Monday ordered the state Republican Party and its attorneys to pay more than $18,000 to cover the state's legal fees in one of the GOP’s unsuccessful lawsuits challenging the results of the November election.

In his order, Hannah roasted the party for resorting to “flimsy excuses” and "bad faith" in filing a lawsuit demanding a sample hand count of votes cast in precincts rather than the already completed audit in voting centers. He noted that party’s own attorneys admitted in court filings that the lawsuit was motivated by public mistrust rather than any facts that suggested the election was tainted.

“The plaintiff is effectively admitting that the suit was brought primarily for an improper purpose,” Hannah wrote, in his 10-page ruling. “It is conceding that the method of sampling ballots for the hand count audit is a minor procedural requirement, not a necessary step toward a fair election. It is saying that it filed this lawsuit for political reasons.

“’Public trust’ is a political issue, not a legal or factual basis for litigation.”

Arizona GOP should pay far more than $18k for what it has cost us

 

[Strathos]

I am not sure what the purpose of this venture is, since it will not impact the end result.

I think their end goal is to keep demanding recount after recount until they can finally get one where the oversight is inadequate and they can get away with fudging the results.

 

[GreatLakes4Ever]

I think their end goal is to keep demanding recount after recount until they can finally get one where the oversight is inadequate and they can get away with fudging the results.

I’m not sure their goals are that noble. I think this is a repeat of Benghazi where they just churn up investigation after investigation with no hope of getting anywhere, the only point is to keep it in the public eye and hope the possibility of impropriety, no matter how small, swings a few voters their way.

 

[LockeeDeck]

That sounds both expensive and tedious to the extreme. This is the sort of thing that is best done by machine as it is surprisingly difficult to keep your mind on it past the first several hours.

This is where basic stats comes in, with proper random sampling you can find major anomalies with just 5% percent or so.

Which is what was done the first time around most likely.

 

[Fantine]

I think actions like this underscore the need for HR1 to pass, a federal election law which would halt all the anti-democracy practices being used and proposed by legislators terrified of losing their power.
253 voter suppression laws have been introduced and the legislators pull recount stunts like this to try to show they're necessary.
If a party's power is threatened by changing demographics, the appropriate step us to learn how better to represent the people of your state and follow through.
Not stopping people from voting or gerrymandering.
Not inventing fake election fraud dramas.
Go HR1.

 

[DaisyDay]

I am not sure what the purpose of this venture is, since it will not impact the end result.

Political theater. The point is to put on a show of doing something about "it", getting your name in front of voters without having to pay cash for the privilege.

 

[Hank77]

Political theater. The point is to put on a show of doing something about "it", getting your name in front of voters without having to pay cash for the privilege.

Ah, the Donald Trump philosophy that any publicity is better than no publicity at all.

 

[Ringo84]

Why are we still doing this, Arizona? The election ended four months ago. Time to get with the times...
Ringo

 

[Vylo]

In one election, Biden has managed to win it more times than all other presidents combined .

 

[Speedwell]

I’m not sure their goals are that noble. I think this is a repeat of Benghazi where they just churn up investigation after investigation with no hope of getting anywhere, the only point is to keep it in the public eye and hope the possibility of impropriety, no matter how small, swings a few voters their way.

Their goals may not be noble, but they are desperate. They see the loss of Trump as an existential threat to their religion. I wouldn't be surprised if someone didn't eventually try to make a First Amendment case out of it.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I provide this more for humor value than information.

Radical right-wing activist Josh Bernstein reports that he's part of the effort to audit the election results in Arizona, which he's hoping will create a "constitutional crisis" that'll allow them to issue a "writ of quo warranto" to remove Biden from office.