Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has endorsed the dubious Arizona ballot audit and hid its many issues from readers, so it's no surprise that WND's "news" operation is following along. Bob Unruh wrote in a July 15 WND article:
The state Senate audit of the Maricopa County, Arizona, 2020 presidential election results has taken, so far, months, and the first stunning numbers were released on Thursday.
It was during a Senate hearing to listen to the auditors, from Cyber Ninjas, the company hired for the review, which revealed that, according to election records, more mail-in ballots were counted than were mailed out.
A lot more. In fact, 74,243 ballots were counted for which there is no corresponding record that they were mailed out.
[...]
Officials from Cyber Ninjas also said there were 3,981 people who voted who were registered to vote after an Oct. 15 deadline, there were 11,326 people who voted who were not on the rolls on Nov. 7, but were on Dec. 4, and some 18,000 voted, but were removed from the rolls after the election.[...]
Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan explained, "Based on the data we’re seeing, I highly recommend we do the canvassing because it’s the one way to know for sure whether the data we’re seeing are real problems."
Meanwhile, a fact-checker found that there are questions about where its numbers came from, and that Logan would not explain:
A spokesman for Logan would not explain how he reached his 74,000 figure. But the number appears to have come from a lack of understanding of the data contained in early voting reports that state law requires counties to provide to political parties. Counties must provide two reports: EV32 reports, which show daily early ballots requests from voters, and EV33 reports, which show early ballot returns by day.
State law only requires counties to provide EV32 reports through the deadline for requesting early ballots by mail, while they must provide EV33 reports through Election Day. Some counties continue providing reports on early ballot requests after the deadline, but Maricopa County cut them off at the Oct. 23 deadline, said Sam Almy, a strategist with the Democratic campaign consulting firm Saguaro Strategies.
The EV33 reports would show the returns for all early ballots cast in-person at early voting centers through Election Day, but in Maricopa County there were no corresponding reports showing which voters requested early ballots at those centers after Oct. 23, Almy said.
Unruh went on to complain that "While Democrats up and down the ladder of government influence have tried to close down the audit, the media has not been on the sidelines. The Associated Press has characterized the Arizona state Senate's audit of 2020 presidential election ballots in Maricopa County as an effort prompted by the 'fraud fantasies' of Republicans." He didn't tell readers that a hosts and reporters for the right-wing One America News channel have been raising money to pay for the audit, which places right-wing media directly on the playing field in a much more active way than Unruh accuses the Associated Press of being.
Unruh has not corrected his article, nor is there an update on the audit correcting the misinformation anywhere at WND.
