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The Texas Republican Party was held in Austin, Texas on Thursday, December 10, 2015. (RODOLFO GONZALEZ / AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
The Republican Party of Texas sent an email earlier this week focusing on Arizona's allegations of election fraud in an attempt to attract donations for the upcoming congressional campaign.
This claim stems from a recent audit of the November elections in Maricopa County, which includes Arizona’s largest city, Phoenix, ordered by the Arizona Republican Senate. The Senate held a hearing on the ongoing audit on July 15. They announced the preliminary results at the meeting, which showed that 74,243 mailed ballots were counted and "there is no clear record of sending."
This number caught the attention of the Texas Republican Party. On July 20, the party chairman Matt Rinaldi locked it in an email request for donations.
"Seventy-four thousand...this is the number of unclear mailed ballots discovered recently in Arizona," the first line of the mail sent out on Tuesday read. "This is why we have worked so hard for the integrity of the Texas election."
"For months, the left has called us conspiracy theorists, lunatics, and even non-Americans because we dared to raise reasonable concerns about the 2020 presidential election," it said.
The preliminary audit results also attracted the attention of former President Donald Trump, who issued a statement reiterating the same findings: “It seems that 74,243 mailed ballots were counted as'no clear delivery records'.”
PolitiFact previously rated this statement as wrong, as did many other fact-checking teams. Politico alleges that 74,000 mailed ballots claimed to have incorrect descriptions. CNN called this claim unfounded. The Associated Press called it a false statement. During the Arizona Senate hearing, Maricopa County election officials tweeted a tweet saying that the audit results were "not based on facts."
In a statement sent to PolitiFact Texas, a spokesperson for the Texas Republican Party accused the Democrats of "trying to overturn national electoral regulations."
"If the media and the Democrats don't like the fact that the 74,000 votes have major clerical errors or potential fraud backgrounds, they should ask the Arizona Auditor General for more information," spokesman Luke Tombray said. "The Republican Party of Texas has always been committed to election integrity and complete transparency. Only the Democrats have tried to overthrow the electoral code across the country and muddled in the waters of the election. This has caused red flags in many states."
The Auditor General of Arizona is Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, a cyber security company hired by Republicans in the Arizona Senate. CyberNinjas did not have any election audit experience before being hired, and Logan is an advocate of the "stop stealing" conspiracy theory.
At the Arizona Senate hearing, Logan stated that a clerical error could explain the 74,243 number.
"We have 74,243 mailed ballots, but there is no clear delivery record.... This may be the cause of improper processing of documents-there is a clerical problem, there is nothing appropriate there-but I think when we have 74,000 It's worth it, you know, knock on the door and verify some of the information," he said, noting that he recommended door-to-door visits to voters as part of the audit.
At the hearing, Logan said that he came up with a figure of 74,000 based on two types of early voting reports issued by Maricopa County. But his understanding of the meaning of the two documents contradicted Maricopa County officials.
Logan said that the EV32 file records when the mailed ballot was sent, and the EV33 file records the time when the county received the mailed ballot. The difference between the two files resulted in Logan's number of 74,243.
However, Maricopa County election officials stated on Twitter that the EV33 and EV32 documents "are not the correct documents to refer to," and it is impossible to complete statistics on the sending and receiving of all mailed ballots.
According to the Associated Press, a former Maricopa County election official stated that the two documents were created for political parties to help them fight for voting rights during the early voting period. According to Arizona law, the county must provide these data to political parties.
In addition, the county records both mail-in ballots and advance in-person ballots as advance ballots, and both are included in the total EV32 and EV33.
Finally, these two files capture votes submitted in different time periods. According to the Associated Press, although the EV32 file includes all early ballot requests made by voters 11 days before the election day, the EV33 file includes the early ballots returned on Monday before the election day.
County officials stated that auditors “lack electoral knowledge and a lot of political prejudice”.
According to the Associated Press, an audit conducted by election officials earlier this month found that out of the more than 3 million votes cast in the presidential election last year, there were 182 obvious cases of voter fraud. Each of the 182 cases was forwarded to investigators, and so far, four cases have been prosecuted.
President Joe Biden won the state with approximately 10,000 votes during the general election.
In a political fundraising email, the Texas Republican Party continued an allegation of voting fraud based on an Arizona party election audit, stating that it had recently found 74,000 mailed ballots in Arizona, but had no record of sending it.
Past and current Maricopa County election officials have severely refuted this statement repeated by Trump and others. For this reason, we comment on this statement that the pants are on fire.
Fundraising mail sent via email, Texas Republican Party, July 20, 2021
PolitiFact, Trump’s email voting on Arizona is based on a misunderstanding of early voting, July 19, 2021
Politico, collating Trump's comments on the Arizona audit, July 18, 2021
CNN, Fact Check: The Auditor General of Arizona Baselessly Suspects 74,000 Ballots, July 18, 2021
Associated Press, FACT FOCUS: False statement of 74K extra votes in Arizona on July 16, 2021
Tweet, @maricopacounty, July 16, 2021
Email to Luke Twombly, Spokesperson of the Republican Party of Texas, July 21, 2021
Associated Press, Arizona county officials report that there are few suspicious votes, weakening Trump’s claims, July 16, 2021
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