Arizona’s Maricopa County is refusing to hand over voting machine equipment and ballots from the November general election as Arizona lawmakers try to investigate the county’s results.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which announced its own audit on Jan. 27, missed a deadline this week to comply with a state Senate subpoena and hand over voting equipment for inspection, according to Fox 10.
The chairman of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, Warren Peterson, warned the county would face “serious legal consequences” if it continued to refuse to comply. Shortly after, Peterson announced the Senate would draft a contempt resolution against the board.
Here’s the contempt resolution, introduced by @FannKfann with the entire @AZSenateGOP caucus cosponsoring. Caucus discussion starts shortly. pic.twitter.com/oznlM9RjEh
— Julia Shumway (@JMShumway) February 3, 2021
The Arizona state Senate launched an audit of Maricopa’s election equipment and materials, arguing it did not trust the county to perform the “deep forensic audit” necessary.
However, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors argued the state government does not have the authority to conduct a recount or force the county to turn over its 2.1 million ballots without an issued court order.
“The Board will not violate people’s trust by handing over the ballots that are under seal,” Maricopa County Board spokesman Fields Moseley said in a statement, adding that the board would continue its own audit to “restore voter confidence in our elections process.”
After breaking solidly for Donald Trump in 2016, Maricopa County flipped blue in 2020 following the last-minute emergence of caches of uncounted mail-in ballots.
Nonetheless, Maricopa officials dug in to the official gaslighting narrative, insisting amid the uncertainty, while denying hundreds of witness affidavits otherwise, that the election had gone off without a hitch in Biden’s favor.
