Bogus GOP Arizona audit confirms the obvious: Biden won

[mister_coffee]

...
i clicked on davids last phrase when i noticed that it was a link.
self guided autonomous weapons!
and presented in a very ironic way!
...

What is scary to me is that most of what is shown in that video is doable today with off-the-shelf technology. Mostly at considerably higher cost but still doable by determined amateurs.

What a weaponized Skydio X2 with a thermal camera could do is frightening.

[pasayten]

With how completely out of control and reason you Trump (and any support by regular people) haters are, there is no reasonable conversation that can be had IMO, so I will be refraining from that bait on that trap. We shall see what the future holds.

Ha... Bait? I thought it was a simple question... I will take that as an afimative... Wasn't sure how much of the kool-aid you had drank...

[mister_coffee]

With how completely out of control and reason you Trump (and any support by regular people) haters are, there is no reasonable conversation that can be had IMO, so I will be refraining from that bait on that trap. We shall see what the future holds.

Ironically I agree with you, there is no reasonable conversation to be had with the TrumpTards and Trumpanzees.

From a personal standpoint, I find arguing with someone who insists that the sky is bright neon green and that 2+2=blowfish to be exhausting and not exactly productive. Have a nice life and hopefully when the inevitable Civil War comes the Trumpists will be so weakened and debilitated by diseases they deny the existence of they will be easy meat for the forces of righteousness.

Oh, and I expect that war to be of unprecedented savagery and fought in new and unexpected ways.

[dorankj]

With how completely out of control and reason you Trump (and any support by regular people) haters are, there is no reasonable conversation that can be had IMO, so I will be refraining from that bait on that trap. We shall see what the future holds.

[pasayten]

So, I’m confused. Will you be voting Trump 2024? MAGA!

Ha ha... Hoping the Trumplican Party dumps the narcissistic man-child and returns to be the true Republican Party by then...

You never answered a previous post... Do you actually think that Trump "won" the 2020 election?

[dorankj]

So, I’m confused. Will you be voting Trump 2024? MAGA!

[pasayten]

Intelligencer
Arizona Audit Aftermath Shows Trump Conspiracy Theories Will Go On Forever
Ed Kilgore 12 hrs ago

After more than five months and around $6 million (most of it privately raised among Trump supporters), the legendarily ludicrous Arizona audit of the 2020 election results from Maricopa County (home of Phoenix) ended with the filing of an official report late last week. The headlines in most of the mainstream media focused on the most conspicuous finding by Cyber Ninjas, the outfit conducting the audit on behalf of Republican state senators: A hand recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa (which accounted for about two-thirds of the state’s vote) confirmed, and even slightly increased, Joe Biden’s margin of victory there.

But MAGA folk have concluded the rest of the audit and the rest of the report have revealed yet-to-be-resolved anomalies in mail ballots; Trump himself is even claiming it “proved” he won Arizona, which is as mendacious as anything else he’s said about the 2020 elections, but is nonetheless holy writ among his core followers. And the suspicions Cyber Ninjas raised will be used to justify similar “audit” efforts in other states, most notably Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas.

The alleged smoking toy gun can be found in a chart contained in the report’s executive summary that neatly lays out the findings ranked by the “severity” of the impact on the 2020 results from Maricopa. Two at the top are deemed “critical”: “Mail-in Ballots Voted From Prior Address” and “Potential Voters That Voted in Multiple Counties.” Actual election experts, who have been following the Arizona audit like firefighters watching arsonists in action, had this to say about such findings and their dubious factual basis, as reported by the Washington Post:

[T]he report claimed that more than 23,000 mail ballots were submitted by voters who moved before the election — a group Trump described Friday as “phantom voters.”

But the report itself included important caveats about the finding, noting that there are “potential ways” that the ballots were cast that “would not violate the law.” And it found that a third of those ballots were cast by registered Republicans. What’s more, Cyber Ninjas acknowledged that the ballots were identified by comparing voter registration rolls to information maintained by a commercially available address validation tool, adding that “some error is expected.”

The same documentation problems apply to the “multiple counties” allegation, and the idea that such apparent anomalies illustrate partisan shenanigans is undercut by the evidence that Republican ballots were proportionately present in the “suspicious” numbers. And there are entirely innocent explanations for these “anomalies” that the auditors either ignored or were too oblivious to understand, as the Associated Press noted. With respect to the “phantom voters,” for example:

While the review suggests something improper, election officials note that voters such as college students, those who own vacation homes and military members, can move to temporary locations while still legally voting at the address where they are registered.

“A competent reviewer of an election would not make a claim like that,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky.

It’s typical of the MAGA mind-set: In a review of the audit findings, Margot Cleveland of the Federalist suggested that the absence of reliable information on actual voter identity was attributable to Maricopa County’s refusal to turn over its entire voter database to Cyber Ninjas. Where there is no smoke you assert a fire and then everything smells funny.

Similarly, a claim in the report (cited as representing a “high” level of severity in compromising the results) that some voters may have returned multiple ballots misses the fact that under Arizona law voters were allowed to “cure” minor defects in mail ballots, which would have been recorded as “multiple” submissions without actually indicating anything illegal or out of the ordinary.

The bottom line is, aside from Trump’s characteristically unsupported claims that the audit proved he won Arizona, the issues that the auditors raised but could not competently address will be used to justify additional “investigations,” some by Republican pols seeking the favor of the former president and his followers. For example, Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, who is facing a highly competitive Republican primary for a 2022 U.S. Senate nomination, has announced he “will take all necessary actions that are supported by the evidence and where I have legal authority” in response to the audit “findings.” And just last week Texas governor Greg Abbott, who is running for reelection and then possibly for president, quickly knuckled under when Trump demanded an audit in his state:

Eight and a half hours after former President Donald J. Trump made a public demand for Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to back legislation to create a “forensic audit of the 2020 election,” the Texas secretary of state’s office announced a “comprehensive forensic audit” of the results from four of the state’s largest counties.

That this has nothing to do with legitimate questions about the 2020 results should be made plain by the fact that no one disputes Trump’s 2020 win in Texas. This is “auditing” for the sake of auditing. There is no reason to think it will ever end until Trump has undermined faith in our electoral system enough to suit his purposes.

[pasayten]

Donald Trump could be charged with multiple crimes over his attempts to overturn his loss in the state of Georgia, report says

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-c ... ort-2021-9

[pasayten]

Trump Loses Arizona—Again...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-tru ... _headlines

[Fun CH]

I’m going to go ahead and say it because I think plenty of people see it when they read you two. I think your both pretty much crazy! You guys are obsessed with the last guy (and anyone who dares to support anything he did) and are completely incapable (or willfully ignoring) what the current guy, his administration and sycophantic media are constantly peddling while painfully obviously failing incredibly! You’re nutz!

I don't see how Ray is nutz because he is posting articles about an ongoing threat. A recent pole showed that 78% of Replubicans still think Trump won the election. Doesn't this Republican authorized audit in Arizona confirm that there is no Merit in that claim?

What I don't understand is why Americans with a healthy distrust in Government, which I share btw, think Trump was, or is, still the solution?

Didn't he throw the Jan 6th Capitol rioters under the bus to try and save his own skin? He could have pardoned them before he left office.

After all the rioters did every thing he asked them to do including going after Pence right after Trump threw Pence under the bus.

I thought conservatism valued our founding principles and those institutions including the duty of a vice president to confirm the electoral vote.

[pasayten]

Jeesh KJ... Just pointing out what lies Trump keeps peddling... His biggest accomplishment has always been lies and division... And Trump is still trying to do it... Are you defending his lies? Do you actually think that Trump "won" the election? That would be the crazy one who is "nutz"!

BTW, you are free to post topics about the current guy if you choose to do so. Mistakes being made there also.

[dorankj]

I’m going to go ahead and say it because I think plenty of people see it when they read you two. I think your both pretty much crazy! You guys are obsessed with the last guy (and anyone who dares to support anything he did) and are completely incapable (or willfully ignoring) what the current guy, his administration and sycophantic media are constantly peddling while painfully obviously failing incredibly! You’re nutz!

[pasayten]

Bogus GOP Arizona audit confirms the obvious: Biden won... (CNN)

Donald Trump's effort to destroy confidence in America's elections suffered a serious setback late Thursday after a draft of the sham review ordered by Arizona Republicans confirmed that he had lost to President Joe Biden in the state's critical Maricopa County. But the ex-President's relentless campaign of lies took on new life as he prompted Texas to review its own vote counts -- even though he easily won the state.


The end result of the partisan probe in Arizona may disappoint Trump, though local officials said it also contained many faulty conclusions that could fulfill its ultimate aim -- sowing distrust in the US election system and giving the ex-President material to cherry pick to raise new doubts among his supporters about the result.

Arizona's example has inspired Republicans in a list of other battleground states to try to hold their own sham "audits" -- all targeting elections that were free and fair and which courts ruled were not tainted by fraud. The push, in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that were crucial to Biden's win, will not only deepen the pool of mistrust among Trump supporters who want to believe his lie that he actually won. It could offer further impetus to the rewriting of state voting laws by Republicans that suppress Democratic and minority votes and make it easier for partisan officials to interfere in the certification of elections in future. And it will fuel the false narrative that Trump was unfairly forced out of the Oval Office on which he is building a possible 2024 campaign and is using to continue to exert control over the GOP even when out of power.

The former President's ability to force elements of his Republican Party to reject democratic values was earlier in evidence yet again.

Hours after Trump published a public letter to Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott demanding an election audit, the office of Texas' secretary of state announced Thursday that the process had already begun in the two largest Democratic-leaning counties and the two biggest Republican counties, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin. Trump wrote in his letter that "Texans know voting fraud occurred in some of their counties. Let's get to the bottom of the 2020 presidential election scam!"

The audit will take place even though there is no evidence that the election in the Lone Star State was compromised or saw any significant voter fraud. And Trump won the state easily. The Texas Tribune reported in May that an official in the secretary of state's office had earlier reported to state lawmakers that 2020 voting in Texas was "smooth and secure."

In the case of Texas, the audit appears to be another sign of how Trump is able to force state officials -- especially those, like Abbott, who may be hoping to mount future presidential runs and need to stay in good standing with the ex-President's base -- to carry out his undemocratic will. The process will also raise questions about whether a partisan state administration can be trusted to report fairly on how the election was conducted in Democratic counties.

By persuading the Texas authorities to look into the election, Trump gets the veneer of authority for his false claims. And it creates yet another precedent of interference in vote counting and election certification, which was previously seen as walled off from politicization, that threatens to taint elections in 2022, 2024 and for years to come.

Details of the partisan report in Arizona emerged hours before GOP members of the state Senate were due to present the findings of an their "audit" carried out by Cyber Ninjas, a firm that had no experience in elections, had links to Trump's orbit and conducted a bizarre process carried out in secrecy.

But the chairman of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors -- which ran the election and rejected Trump's claims -- said the vote counts in the report proved the election results were sound.

"You don't have to dig deep into the draft copy of the Arizona Senate/Cyber Ninja audit report to confirm what I already knew -- the candidates certified by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General -- did, in fact, win," Chairman Jack Sellers, a Republican, said.

Maricopa County officials confirmed that the review established Biden's victory over Trump, but they warned that the draft report was "also littered with errors & faulty conclusions about how Maricopa County conducted the 2020 General Election." That material is likely to be seized upon by Trump die-hards seeking to bolster his false claims that he was cheated out of remaining in the White House.

Trump's multiple threats to democracy
All of these ongoing threats to faith in American democracy arise out of Trump's election night claim, "Frankly, we did win this election." The path that the ex-President took led to a cascade of consequences that underscore that while he left the White House on January 20, the threat he poses to American democracy is still growing.

For instance:

New evidence emerged this week that Trump was working off a step-by-step plan for a coup as Congress certified Biden's election win on January 6, drawn up by conservative lawyer John Eastman.
The Senate select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection issued four subpoenas on Thursday striking at the heart of Trump's orbit as it seeks to find out what was going on around the ex-President on that fateful day. The panel, in its first round of letters, targeted former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, former adviser Steve Bannon and Kash Patel, a former chief of staff to then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.
Multiple Republican-run states have passed laws designed to suppress Democratic and minority votes -- all justified by Trump's false claims of fraud.
Some 78% of Republicans, according to a recent CNN/SSRS poll, now believe -- after months of Trump's propaganda -- that Biden didn't win the election.
Trump's lie is infecting the next US election, as he wields his valuable endorsement to make acceptance of his debunked voter fraud claims the price of entry for Republican candidates. Many of these endorsements appear designed to insert his allies into power in offices like state secretary of state and attorney general, where they may be able to influence future elections.
Taken together, these steps, plus the Texas and Arizona audits, reveal a broad effort by Trump and his acolytes to fog the truth about the 2020 election. But they are also meant to provide a rationale and power base for a possible new Trump tilt at the White House in 2024 and to potentially establish a mechanism to steal power.

Trump still fuming over Arizona
Arizona is an especially sore point for the ex-President, who was furious when Fox News, which he regarded as an extension of his team, called the state for Biden on election night, well ahead of other news organizations.

The state was also one of several, including swing states like Georgia and Pennsylvania, where elected officials from both parties and professional election staff stood firm against extraordinary pressure from Trump to change the results. The former President quickly turned against a former favorite, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who presided over the certification of the election results after saying he was sworn to uphold the law.

The ex-President was still fuming over Ducey's role on Thursday, calling him a "lousy governor" and a "true RINO" (Republican in name only) in an interview with John Fredericks on Real America's Voice, a conservative network. And the ex-President showed that he has high expectations for the Arizona sham audit. "I think the report is going to be very good. I hope they don't soften it," Trump said in an interview that he also used to make a delusional claim that he had won not just Arizona, but also Minnesota in 2020, where he lost to Biden by 7 points.

Arizona was much closer. Biden won the state and its 11 electoral votes by just over 10,400 votes after prevailing in Maricopa -- the most populous county -- following a cliffhanger count that dragged on for days, by 45,000 votes.

Given the lack of a genuine need for the investigation, it has long been clear that the process had two aims. First, to discredit Biden's victory in the key county, Maricopa, that helped him become the first Democrat to win the Grand Canyon State since 1996 on the way to the White House. The second and even more important goal was to appease Trump and curry favor with his core supporters, whose devotion is the driving force within the GOP today.

Just the fact of a fake audit being conducted by a party whose candidate lost an election certified as free and fair marks a political aberration. But the willingness of so many people to buy into a demonstrably false "Big Lie" to keep or win power that mushroomed from the then-President's egotistical refusal on election night to admit that he lost to Biden is extraordinary.

The process is also a symbol of the shameless misinformation and assault on truth now perpetrated by large sections of the Republican Party and a conspiracy-theory-driven conservative media. And it's one of the more extreme expressions of the culture of the confidence trick at the center of Trumpism.