'Arizona must decertify!': GOP Senate candidate makes wild demands even after a Trump-backed recount fizzles

After spending months conducting an audit of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County, Arizona, the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas not only found that now-President Joe Biden won the state — they also found a higher vote count in Biden's favor than the original vote count and subsequent government recounts. Regardless, one of the MAGA Republicans who championed that audit, former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, is still calling for Arizona to decertify its 2020 election results.

Greitens is seeking the GOP nomination in Missouri's 2022 U.S. Senate race, and by promoting former President Donald Trump's false and debunked claim that widespread voter fraud occurred in the 2020 election, he is trying to show that he is more MAGA than the other Republican candidates.

The Kansas City Star's Jonathan Shorman reports, "Greitens and other Missouri Republican candidates are courting hard-right primary voters and have all played some role in either perpetuating baseless claims of voter fraud or indulging those who believe Trump won the election. But Greitens has been the most aggressive, traveling to Arizona and securing the endorsement of a far-right Arizona state senator close to the review. Ahead of the anticipated release of the final review Friday afternoon, Greitens was setting the groundwork among his followers to dismiss reporting and reaction to its conclusions."

In an official statement, Greitens sounded very Trumpian when he said, "Don't listen to the mainstream media, liberals, and RINOs' spin of the Arizona Audit. Arizona must decertify!"

The Cyber Ninjas Maricopa County vote "audit" was not an official government recount. Based in Florida, Cyber Ninjas is a private company run by Trump supporter Doug Logan — a far-right conspiracy theorist and QAnon supporter.

Shorman notes, "The outcome of the review never had any official bearing on Arizona's election results. But Trump diehards, conspiracy theorists and hard-right Republicans gravitated to it as a potential route to raise public doubt about the legitimacy of Biden's victory. For Greitens, the review offered a way to signal his continuing commitment to Trump and closeness to the Make America Great Again movement. He went as far as skipping a signature statewide Missouri Republican gathering in June for a trip to the Arizona review, which largely took place inside a cavernous coliseum."