Fri 14 May 2021 03.00 EDT
Last modified on Fri 14 May 2021 03.01 EDT
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One of the first things you see when you step outside Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the ageing arena in Phoenix, is the Crazy Times Carnival, a temporary spectacle set up in the parking lot. In the evenings, just as the sun is setting, lights from the ferris wheel, the jingle of the carousel and shrieks of joy fill the massive desert sky.
Inside the coliseum â nicknamed the Madhouse on McDowell â there is another carnival of sorts happening. The arena floor is where the Arizona senate, controlled by Republicans, is performing its own audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa county, home of Phoenix and most of the stateâs registered voters. The effort, which comes after multiple audits affirming the results of the November election in the county in favor or Joe Biden, includes an examination of voting equipment, an authentication of ballot pap
Arizona’s audit of the ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election could have a “QAnon problem”, according to watchdog organisaton Media Matters.
The state’s Republican-controlled Senate ordered the review of Maricopa County’s roughly 2.1 million ballots in April, following months of unfounded claims of voter fraud made by former President Donald Trump, his supporters and fringe groups that they say cost him the election.
Joe Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona since 1996, winning with a margin of about 10,000 votes out of the 3.3 million cast, contributing to Biden’s Electoral College victory.
The ballots and computer hard drives containing data regarding the vote counts were seized and given to Cyber Ninjas, the company chosen to oversee the audit by the Arizona Senate.