Draft Report on Arizona Election Recount Shows Biden Won, But Highlights Voter 'Anomalies'

Earlier in the day, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office announced a full forensic audit of the 2020 election, not long after a call for such was voiced by former President Donald Trump. According to him, Texans have "big questions" about the election results.

An extensive GOP-led hand recount of votes in Arizona's Maricopa County appeared to show that Joe Biden won the Grand Canyon State in the 2020 presidential race, according to a draft copy of a report on the ballot audit.

Apparently, the recount also found even more votes for Biden, with the draft report saying Trump lost to Biden by 45,469 votes - in comparison to the county's official results that said the difference was 45,109 votes.

However, the report has not been completed and the final version of it is expected to arrive later on Friday. After it is released, the Arizona State Senate is expected to examine it with the contractors led by the cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas that were hired by the GOP to conduct the audit.

"This means the tabulation equipment counted the ballots as they were designed to do, and the results reflect the will of the voters. That should be the end of the story. Everything else is just noise", Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Jack Sellers said, commenting on the draft.

While confirming Biden's victory, the draft report described the results as "both encouraging and alarming". It outlined several voter irregularities, such as missing ballots, votes from people who "had moved prior to the election", logs "intentionally rolled over", and other things.

"There are sufficient discrepancies among the different systems that, in conjunction with some of our findings, suggest that the delta between the Presidential candidates is very close to the potential margin‐of‐error for the election", the draft report read.

According to the former candidate for Arizona State Senate, Sergio Arellano, "serious problems" with the 2020 election "should have been addressed prior to election day".

"Maricopa county failed to address those issues and as a result, they created incredible distrust in the system. It’s very unfortunate. I believe that we’re going to learn many important things from this audit that can be used to build voter trust, the trust that was broken, due to sloppiness and hyper-partisanship", he said.

Despite the fact that the final report is yet to come, many observers and officials have already flocked to social media to share their reactions, with some of them jubilant, and others still outraged over voter irregularities and saying that the results should never have been certified in the first place.

Among those making such calls is Trump's former adviser, Boris Epshteyn, with his sentiment echoed by State Senator Wendy Rogers, along with others.

To all those trying to spin the Arizona Audit, spin this:

The number of illegal ballots found in Maricopa County alone is over 4 times the current amount separating President Trump and Joe Biden in Arizona as a whole.

Should have never been certified.#Decertify pic.twitter.com/EUPtZpiQKE

— Boris Epshteyn (@BorisEP) September 24, 2021

Remember when @BretBaier called Arizona for Biden before 1 million votes were even counted? The #FakeNews didn't even wait for the votes, which means they were all IN ON IT. #MockingbirdMedia pic.twitter.com/9jm5ui4yJq

— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) September 24, 2021

Can someone tell the “Biden Won" crowd that no amounts of gaslighting is gonna put the genie back in the bottle

Here are preliminary shocking results of the Arizona audit. Over 60k fraudulent votes found far surpassing Biden’s supposedly Arizona “win” by 11k #DecertifyNOW pic.twitter.com/sd21GFsS5M

— Melissa Tate (@TheRightMelissa) September 24, 2021

However, many expressed their satisfaction with the reported outcome of the audit, sarcastically congratulating Biden on something that had already been certified back in January.

Congratulations to Joe Biden for winning Arizona for the 11,789th time.

— Radical Liberal 🇺🇸 (@pavancharvaka) September 24, 2021

BREAKING: The Arizona sham audit found that Trump lost by MORE votes than initially tallied. President Biden actually gained 99 votes in the new count.

Please see below for our official response:

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Hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahaha

— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) September 24, 2021

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is a Democrat and running for the position of Arizona governor, also weighed in to comment on the draft, saying that the Republican audit was "never legitimate".

"What's sad is that the conspiracy theorists running our state have wasted our time and money, rather than solving real problems. It's time for new leadership in Arizona", Hobbs tweeted.

The Cyber Ninjas' so-called audit was never legitimate. Nothing they write or say will change that.

What's sad is that the conspiracy theorists running our state have wasted our time and money, rather than solving real problems.

It's time for new leadership in Arizona. #fraudit

— Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) September 24, 2021

She also called for those who had allowed the audit to be "held accountable" in 2022, referring to the forthcoming midterm elections.

The hand recount is just one part of a process launched by the Trump team in their rejection of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election. Insisting that a massive "voter fraud" took place during the November presidential race, Trump and his supporters filed several federal lawsuits and initiated recounts.

Among the recent audits that Trump called for is a recount in Texas that was officially announced by the Lone Star State Secretary of State's Office earlier on Thursday. The announcement came shortly after Trump urged Governor Greg Abbott to conduct an audit that, according to the former president, is desired by many of Abbott's fellow Texans, despite Trump's "big win".