Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer on Monday said he had no choice but to get vocal about his opposition to the audit of the 2.1 million ballots cast in his county during the November presidential election.
Arizona's GOP-led state Senate used subpoenas to get the ballots, voting machines, and personal information on voters, and hired a Florida-based cybersecurity firm called the Cyber Ninjas to run the audit. There is no "legitimate reason that would have prompted this audit," Richer, a Republican, told ABC News Live's The Breakdown. "It's happening, not because the evidence merits it. All the tests came back clean. The parties themselves oversaw the hand count auditing of 47,000 plus votes."
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Richer told The Breakdown he planned on remaining silent during the audit, but when an anonymous Twitter account falsely accused Maricopa County of deleting voter files — a claim that Trump was quick to amplify — it "crossed the line. I wanted to stay out of this, but when the good workers of Maricopa County — who are my friends, my teammates, my staff — are accused of unlawfully destroying evidence under my watch, then I had to say something." Maricopa County, he added, is now determining whether it can pursue charges of defamation.
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