Arizona Official Says 2020 Election Audit Found Just 1 Dead Voter, Not 282
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Bob Christie/AP/Shutterstock Mark Brnovich
Despite former President Donald Trump's insistence that the 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud in Arizona, no evidence has been found to support that theory. In fact, months after the controversial Cyber Ninjas election audit group said it believed nearly 300 dead people may have "voted" in the election, the state's own attorney general — a Republican — says it appears all but one of those allegedly dead voters were indeed alive.
"After spending hundreds of hours reviewing these allegations, our investigators were able to determine that only one of the 282 individuals on the list was deceased at the time of the election. All other persons listed as deceased were found to be current voters," Arizona AG Mark Brnovich said in a letter this week.
Cyber Ninjas was hired by the state's Senate to conduct an audit of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County after the historically red state of Arizona flipped and voted for Joe Biden.
But its resulting audit report was hugely controversial. While Cyber Ninjas indeed confirmed that Biden had won the election in Arizona, the group also claimed that many unregistered and even dead voters had participated in the election.
Arizona's state Senate president Karen Fann authorized a review of the Cyber Ninjas audit and ordered the firm to hand over all its records back in Sept. 2021. Facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines, the firm shut down shortly after being ordered to turn over all its records.
But the review of the audit continued — ultimately determining that many of the Cyber Ninjas claims were false or unsubstantiated by evidence.
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"Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased," Brnovich said in his letter, which was addressed to Fann.
Brnovich continued elsewhere in the letter: "We supported the Arizona Senate's ability to conduct an audit of Maricopa County's elections and understand the importance of reviewing the results. However, allegations of widespread deceased voters from the Senate Audit and other complaints received by the [Election Integrity Unit] are insufficient and not corroborated."
Brnovich is seeking the GOP nomination to represent Arizona in U.S. Senate, but currently trails the Trump-endorsed Blake Masters, who has parroted the former president's false claims about the 2020 race.
In June, current Arizona Sec. of State Rusty Bowers testified before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, detailing how he fielded phone calls from Trump, attorney Rudy Giuliani and others who pressured him to overturn the results of Arizona's presidential election by replacing state electors with those who were loyal to Trump.
In the wake of his loss, Trump and his allies filed at least 60 post-election lawsuits — none of them altered the outcome of the election, which the former president continues to claim he actually won.
