‌What To Read Before The Arizona ‘Audit’ Report Drops

? Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to receive The Franchise in your inbox every Monday evening.

?? Hello readers! 

 

The “audit” of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 election results is expected to transmit a report on its “findings” to the state’s Senate any day now. Ahead of that momentous event, we’ve laid out some recommended reading below.

 

Got a voting rights story you think our readers should hear? Respond to this email and tell me about it. You can also call, text or Signal message me at 646-397-4678.

 

Alright, let’s dig in.

The Latest In Audit Mania

Cyber Ninjas, the lead ARIZONA “audit” contractor, is expected to send its findings to the state Senate this week, and they could become public soon after — though, as we learned Monday, things have been delayed by several auditors becoming “quite sick” with COVID.

As we’ve reported for weeks, the audit is a mess — run by Trump-supporting conspiracy theorists with no experience in elections, bankrolled by fringe Trump allies, and hyped as the first domino to fall ahead of Trump’s eventual re-coronation. 
 

But you want to go deeper? Check out two “prebuttal” documents published in recent days, one each from Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Maricopa’s Republican Recorder Stephen Richer. Here’s Hobbs’ topline conclusion:

 

• “There are numerous examples of failures that all but guarantee inaccurate results, which would also be impossible to replicate. Any one of these issues would deem an audit completely unreliable, but the combination of these failures renders this review meritless.”

 

For more, check out this independent report from former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson and political scientist Barry C. Burden that rips into what we know about the process so far, explaining that it “does not meet the standards of a proper election recount or audit.”

 

The trouble doesn’t stop there: The House Oversight Committee is quite annoyed that Cyber Ninjas hasn’t responded to its request for documents, and threatened in a new letter to “consider other steps to obtain compliance.”

 

Elsewhere in audit mania news… PENNSYLVANIA State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) sought to emulate Arizona with his own investigation of three counties’ 2020 results. But the senator said last week that “our cause is weakened and diminished.” Mastriano had threatened to subpoena the counties for election materials, but so far, he hasn’t delivered. Apparently, he doesn’t have enough votes from his fellow Republican state senators to force the counties’ cooperation.

 

And in COLORADO, Trumpy Mesa County clerk Tina Peters now faces a potential criminal investigation (the FBI is involved) and has been temporarily replaced as clerk by two others (that’s a whole ‘nother story.) You may recall that Peters allegedly helped an infamous QAnon grifter gain access to leaked footage of the county’s election machines. Here’s the latest: Colorado’s secretary of state said last week that Peters personally joined the unauthorized videographer, who was allegedly granted access to the county machines “outside of normal work hours.” The ousted clerk has seemingly gone into hiding.

 

Finally, ALABAMA Sen. Mo Brooks (R) made the mistake of telling a crowd at Saturday’s Trump rally in his state to get over the 2020 election: “Put that behind you,” he said. He was booed into oblivion. Brooks promptly retreated to the party line, assuring Trump supporters that, yes, they were the real victims:

The New and Improved John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act

It’s bigger and better than ever — and facing the same Senate roadblock.

 

Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) unveiled the newest version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act last week, which has been carefully crafted to address a series of Supreme Court decisions that hacked away at the Voting Rights Act and other means of protecting voting rights.

 

It would bring back preclearance with a vengeance, and require all 50 states — not just those with histories of racially discriminatory voting practices — to submit certain election practices for federal approval. Those include restrictive laws in areas that are seeing high growth in minority populations.

 

It would also bar courts from considering whether the law is supposedly useful in fighting fraud in VRA cases — generally the primary cover Republicans cite for restrictive legislation.

 

The proposal, ultimately a much more robust version of the original bill, would roll back the significant damage the conservative-majority Supreme Court has done to voting rights. Democrats have been collecting data about discriminatory voting practices to shore up the act in the likelihood that it’ll be litigated in court. But there is no guarantee that it’ll even get that far: to become law, the bill will have to get by the filibuster in the Senate, meaning it would have to attract at least 10 Republican votes — a prospect that seems next to impossible. Unless Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) agree to at least reform the Senate rule, the bill will be dead on arrival in the upper chamber.

Around The States

TEXAS Republicans now have the quorum they need to pursue new voting restrictions, after a handful of Democrats who’d fled the state to gum up the proceedings returned. The restrictive voting measures are now expected to advance quickly.

 

In PENNSYLVANIA, where Gov. Tom Wolf (D) already vetoed one Republican voting package, a Republican and Democrat are working together on some agreed-upon issues, like letting election officials count mail-in ballots a few days early.

 

VIRGINIA’s new redistricting commission, like its counterparts in several states, is pondering a tricky timetable for the map-drawing process. Meanwhile, a Republican state senator has sued to count incarcerated people according to the prisons where they are being detained — largely in conservative districts — rather than their home addresses.

 

GEORGIA is moving forward with the effort to, eventually, replace election officials in Fulton County, the largest county in the state and home to Atlanta. The state election board has appointed a panel to evaluate the county’s performance.

 

In MICHIGAN, a new bill would make it a misdemeanor to harass election workers.  

 

And in FLORIDA, locals are bracing for the impact of the voting restrictions bill that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed as part of an exclusive Fox News television event.

WCVB: DOJ tells secretaries of state that, since the 2020 election, there have been “a greater number of election related threats than this country has ever seen before.”

 

Just Security: Timeline: Rep. Jim Jordan, a Systematic Disinformation Campaign, and January 6

 

The Fulcrum: Report finds mail voting increased in 2020, but ballot rejections did not

? One more thing. Do you know someone who might enjoy The Franchise? By forwarding this email you can help us spread the word about TPM. Thank you for reading!

? Franchise subscriber but not yet a TPM member? New members can now get a 7-day all-access pass to try TPM Prime for FREE! Sign up here.

? Was this email forwarded to you? If you liked what you read, you can sign up here to get The Franchise in your inbox every Monday evening.