Hard to believe but recriminations about the 2020 US Presidential Election continue in Arizona, with Donald Trump allies in Pennsylvania and Florida hoping to launch similar audits of the vote counting.
President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday issued legal guidance aimed at curbing voting rights abuses in US states, with the aim squarely aimed at Arizona. President Biden won the state by a mere 10,457 votes over Trump, a 0.3 per cent margin, in the November 2020 Presidential election.
In the guidance, the US Justice Department raises concerns about the “unusual second round of examinations” into 2020 election results cropping up in various states even though prior state recounts had “produced evidence of either wrongdoing or mistakes that casts any doubt on the outcome of the national election results.”
Trump has falsely said the election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud, and his Republican allies are still trying to undo his losses.
Numerous Republican-controlled states have passed new voting legislation in the aftermath of the 2020 Election result.
The Justice Department also issued guidance laying out the federal voting rights laws governing elections in a direct response to states, such as Georgia, that have limited early voting and voting by mail.
The department last month sued Georgia, accusing the state of unlawfully violating the rights of Black voters with its changes to voting.
In May, Arizona halted plans by Arizona Senate subcontractor Cyber Ninjas, which is conducting the partisan ballot review, to knock on voters’ doors as part of the audit after the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division warned that canvassing could break federal laws banning voter intimidation.
The audit is months behind schedule, though additional avenues of inquiry are expanding.
