Arizona official refutes criticism that counted 282 dead voters

PHOENIX (AP) – Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Monday that his investigators found only one dead voter after a thorough review of findings from a partisan review of the 2020 election that found 282 ballots cast in the name of someone who had died.

The finding of the Republican attorney general, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s primary, further obsolescence the review done last year. The review was conducted by an inexperienced company, Cyber ​​Ninjas, and was carried out largely by supporters of Donald Trump who falsely believe that his election was stolen.

“Our agents investigated all of the individuals Cyber ​​Ninja reported as dead and many were surprised to learn that they had reportedly died,” Brnovich wrote in a letter to Senate President Karen Phan, who used the subpoena power. to obtain ballots, ballots and election data and hired Cyber ​​Ninja for what it called a “forensic audit”.

For the one documented incident, “the facts of the case did not support a prosecution,” said Ryan Anderson, Brnovich’s spokesman. He said the deceased’s ballot was not counted. None of the three criminal cases filed by the attorney general for dead voters are connected to the Cyber ​​Ninja investigation, he said.

Brnovich did not say whether charges had been filed in connection with the one documented incident, and his spokesman, Ryan Anderson, did not return a phone call and text message. All other people listed by Cyber ​​Ninjas as dead “were found to be current voters,” Brnovich wrote.

Combined with other reports of dead voters, Brnovich’s Election Integrity Unit investigated a total of 409 names and produced “only a few possible cases.”

Brnovich pledged the legitimacy of the election immediately after President Joe Biden’s victory but later published his research about the Cyber ​​Ninja allegations as he sought Trump’s endorsement of his Senate campaign. Trump eventually issued a scathing statement saying Brnovich did not do enough to advance his allegations of fraud and endorsed entrepreneur Blake Masters.

Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president’s claims of fraud have also been roundly rejected by courts, including judges appointed by Trump.

The Cyber ​​Ninja review looked at data, machines and ballots from Maricopa County, the state’s largest. The made a report which experts described as full of errors, bias and flawed methodology. However, even that partisan review came up with a vote count that would not have changed the result, finding that Biden won by 360 more votes than the official results.