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Despite results of Arizona audit, Trump, loyalists pursue claims
By Carl P. Leubsdorf
Published: October 4, 2021, 6:01am
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The Texas secretary of state’s announcement of a four-county audit of the 2020 vote is the latest sign of the continuing effort by former President Donald Trump’s supporters to cast doubt on the last election with an eye toward influencing the next one.
And they don’t seem in the least deterred by the fact that the lengthy, highly publicized search for voter fraud in Arizona came up empty.
The most publicized aspect of the effort inspired by Trump’s unproven claims the 2020 election was rigged has been the enactment by Republican legislatures and governors of new laws revising voting procedures. But the new restrictions of practices like absentee balloting, early voting and drive-by balloting may prove less significant than other less-publicized changes that could affect the outcome of future elections
In several key states, Republicans have instituted procedural changes —or are considering them — that, if in effect last year, would have made it easier for Trump’s supporters to challenge and perhaps overturn the results.
They are also pressing reviews of the 2020 tally, designed to determine retroactively if, as Trump has contended, there were widespread improprieties that could have changed the outcome, despite the lack of any firm evidence.
That effort suffered a significant setback in Arizona when a private group hired by the Republican-controlled state Senate to “audit” the state’s largest county, Maricopa (Phoenix), found “no substantial differences” with last year’s official count. It concluded the ballots it examined “very accurately correlate” with the original totals.
But that hasn’t deterred Trump and his allies. The former president claimed inaccurately the audit proved substantial fraud. One of his allies called for extending the review to another Arizona county.
And the Texas secretary of state’s office announced, without explanation or elaboration, that a “full and comprehensive forensic audit” was underway in four large counties, just hours after Trump urged a probe of the entire Texas vote. Though he carried Texas, Trump lost three of the four counties that will be audited: Dallas, Harris and Tarrant.
Such investigations can’t change the 2020 outcome, even if they find significant fraud. But these reviews could strengthen the widespread belief among Republicans in Trump’s allegations the nation’s voting system is riddled with irregularities, though dozens of state and federal judges rejected his allegations, including some of his appointees.
Significantly, these reviews and proposed procedural changes are centered in the states that determined the 2020 outcome and may do so again in 2024 — Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, and in those crucial for GOP victories, Texas and Florida.
In several states, 2022 elections for the legislature, governorships and secretary of state will ultimately determine if Republicans have enough political clout to make additional changes before 2024.
They reflect the view of some Republicans, including Trump, that the Constitution allows state legislatures to disregard the popular vote in choosing electors. The Constitution authorizes legislatures to choose electors, but the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the long-standing practice of making their selection dependent on the state’s popular vote.
Perhaps the most significant procedural revision is in Georgia’s new law, passed by Republican lawmakers after the failure of Trump’s unprecedented efforts to persuade GOP officials to reverse Biden’s 11,779-vote victory.
The law removed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who resisted Trump’s entreaties, from the state board supervising elections and authorized the revised board to replace any county officials found to mismanage elections. The board is now reviewing the 2020 decisions of authorities in heavily Democratic Fulton County (Atlanta) in what critics fear is preliminary to replacing them with GOP appointees.
Meanwhile, Trump and his allies are recruiting candidates to run for secretary of state — the key in managing state elections — in states where the incumbents resisted his efforts to overturn the popular vote, including Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia.
The Arizona audit’s conclusion was a blow to those challenging the 2020 results. But the new move in Texas shows it will hardly end the effort spurred by Trump’s continuing charges of fraud.
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