Another 'attack on democracy': Houston paper torches Arizona's 'partisan' 2020 election audit

The Houston Chronicle editorial board did not mince words in its assessment of the Senate's audit underway in Maricopa County, Arizona, noting it has become a model for other states hoping to conduct similar audits as a way of appeasing Trump loyalists and keeping the Republican base intact.

While Republican leaders in the state are convinced that the audit will support former President Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 presidential election, the editorial board argues that the audit, described as an "incompetent review," will produce any accurate results.

While the result in Maricopa County, which was confirmed not once but twice, was relatively narrow with just an 11,000-vote margin, the Houston Chronicle explains how "resounding" Trump's defeat was across the board.

Per the Houston Chronicle:

"It is impossible to believe that this incompetent review could produce a true count, such as those delivered by two previous audits in Maricopa — the state's largest county and the source of President Biden's twice-confirmed margin of victory. That margin, which accounts for 11 electoral votes, was narrow — roughly 11,000 votes — but his defeat of Trump across the country was resounding. He won 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232, and more than 7 million more Americans voted for him than for Trump."

The publication also highlighted the words of David Becker, a former senior trial attorney in the voting section of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, who noted that the 2020 election was "more auditable and verifiable — and also audited, verified and scrutinized" than any other presidential election in United States history.

"We had 95 percent of all Americans casting their ballots on auditable paper. Every ballot cast in every battleground state was on auditable paper," he said. "To then conduct audits, seven months-plus after an election that has been confirmed, audited and verified as many times as it is, does nothing to shed light on the matter."

The editorial board also warned against partisan audits like the one taking place in Arizona, noting lawmakers could "risk sending American elections down a perilous path, leaving us in a perpetual state where half the country questions the legitimacy of elected officials ad nauseam, impacting their capacity to govern."