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11.13.2020 0

Growing support for election audit

“There is no future for limited government if we do not stand in this moment.” Rick Manning

By Catherine Mortensen

As cases of election fraud continue to surface across the country, President Donald Trump and a growing number of Republican lawmakers are calling for a national election audit to protect the integrity of the vote.

Trump tweeted this week, “From 200,000 votes to less than 10,000 votes,” Trump tweeted, referencing an article from Arizona Central Politics that shows Biden’s lead in the state shrinking. “If we can audit the total votes cast, we will easily win Arizona also!”

Under a risk-limiting audit  a statistically meaningful sample of ballots are examined by hand to see whether the declared winner truly won. The audit is mathematically designed to catch anomalies that would arise from misconfigured machines, procedural errors or intentional attack. The Constitution makes clear that state legislators, not governors or state courts, have the constitutional authority for administering elections and ensuring election integrity.

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, explained it to Fox News this way, “There’s a difference between a recount and an audit. Every state legislature seeing these irregularities should demand an audit and they should not be willing to certify electors to the electoral college until those audits have been completed.”

Georgia begins a presidential vote audit today. The Secretary of State said the audit would be done with a full hand tally of ballots because the margin is so tight. State law requires an audit but leaves it up to the top elections official to choose the race. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a news conference that the presidential race makes the most sense. The audit must be completed by Nov. 20, which is the state certification deadline.

In Arizona, the state Senate President Karen Fann is seeking an independent analysis of the testing of Arizona voting machines.  In a letter to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Fann said she is not claiming there was fraud in the just-completed election.

“But many others are making that claim,’’ Fann said. And she contends that the outside review will put the “current controversy’’ to rest.

Arizona House Member-elect Jake Hoffman voiced support for an audit in a Townhall guest column “[T]here are countless violations of state election law, statistical anomalies and election irregularities in more than a half dozen states that stand to decide the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. For the sake of free and fair elections, the process of fully investigating and resolving these issues must be allowed to play out unabated by partisan interests.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) threw his support behind President Trump’s legal challenges saying Trump is “100 percent within his right” to pursue recounts and litigation.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) tweeted his support for a fair, honest election saying, “Every legal vote must be counted. Every recount must be completed. Every legal challenge must be heard.”

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said this week, “Every legal vote that was cast should be counted. Votes that were illegally cast should not be counted.”

Also, this week, Jim Jordan tweeted “audit the vote” and linked to an interview he did on Newsmax TV.

Americans for Limited Government is coordinating a nationwide effort to encourage voters to write their state lawmakers to demand an election audit. They are directing voters to the website electionauditnow.org

“It’s important to recognize that President Trump is not just fighting for his political fortune,” said Manning. “He is fighting for all of us. If we allow dead people to vote, people who have moved out of their state, and allow illegal ballots to be counted without the transparency the law requires, conservative candidates will never win another election again. That is what is at stake. There is no future for limited government if we do not stand in this moment.”

Catherine Mortensen is Vice President of Communications at Americans for Limited Government.

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