In a text message, audit spokesman Ken Bennett said workers will largely complete the hand recount of the county’s nearly 2.1 million ballots on Monday. Workers will continue inspecting the paper on which ballots were printed for the rest of the month. The inspection is an ill-explained process that has at times included shining UV light at ballots. Bennett said no results or conclusions from the audit will be released until a final report comes out later this summer.
Despite those official pledges, Trump allies have been aggressively trading rumors on social media and elsewhere that the recount has identified hundreds of thousands of fewer ballots than were originally reported by the county in November. Bennett called the notion that large numbers of ballots are missing “crazy.”
Also Monday, Arizona Attorney Gen. Mark Brnovich (R) sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland defending the Maricopa ballot review. His letter came after a speech from Garland Friday in which the attorney general alluded to jurisdictions that “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.”
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