The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors plans to conduct another audit of the county’s elections, though the board’s new chairman promises this one will be different from a deeply-flawed review of the county’s 2020 election results held nearly four years ago.
Former Rep. Debbie Lesko — one of three newly elected Republicans on the board —announced she wants a new audit of Maricopa County’s election systems shortly after she was sworn in Monday morning.
“I just want to make sure that I'm comfortable with what’s happening now, so that when I talk to the constituents of Maricopa Country I can say listen, I reviewed this, we looked at this,” Lesko said.
Republican Thomas Galvin, unanimously elected board chairman on Monday by his fellow supervisors, urged reporters not to compare this new audit to a hand recount of the county’s 2020 election ballots.
Conducted by the cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas under orders from Republicans in the Arizona State Senate, the 2021 election review came amid widespread — and false — claims of election fraud in a year when President Joe Biden won the popular vote over then President Donald Trump in Maricopa County.
The newest audit would in no way rehash the results of the 2024 election, Galvin said.
“If we get away from the word ‘audit,’ or we get away from thinking we’re going to be examining the results of elections, but if we look at it from the business customer service standpoint on examining ways that we can do better, I think no one can argue with that,” he added.
Galvin said now is the right time to audit county elections “the right way.”
As for Lesko, the former congresswoman dodged questions about her views on past elections while running for supervisor. Four years ago, she was among 147 Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Asked Monday if the 2020 election results were accurate, Lesko did not directly answer. Instead, she cited a court-ordered extension of a voter registration deadline amid the pandemic as reason for her vote against certifying the 2020 election.
“I think that there were liberal groups that used COVID and the system to do things,” she told reporters. “There was a liberal group that at the very last minute five days before the voter registration deadline went in front of a judge and got them to extend the voter registration deadline.”
A court later ruled that extending the voter registration deadline because of the pandemic was unconstitutional.
Galvin said he and the three other Republican supervisors, the majority of the board, are all in favor of a new examination of the county elections system.
The board's lone Democrat, Steve Gallardo, did not comment on the plan.
