“The Republican-dominated Maricopa County board of supervisors Monday denounced an ongoing audit of the 2020 vote as a ‘sham’ and a ‘con,’ calling on the GOP-led state Senate to end the controversial recount that has been championed by former president Donald Trump. In a fiery public meeting and subsequent letter to state Senate president Karen Fann, the board members said the audit has been inept, promoted falsehoods and defamed the public servants who ran the fall election. Calling the process a ‘spectacle that is harming all of us,’ the five members of board – including four Republicans – asked the state Senate to recognize that it is essential to call off the audit, which officials have said is only about one quarter complete. ‘It is time to make a choice to defend the Constitution and the Republic,’ they wrote, adding: ‘We stand united together to defend the Constitution and the Republic in our opposition to the Big Lie. We ask everyone to join us in standing for the truth.’ In a calculated show of unity, they were joined by the Maricopa’s other elected officials: the sheriff, a Democrat, and the Republican county recorder, who leads the elections office. ‘Our state has become a laughingstock,’ the county officials wrote. ‘Worse, this ‘audit’ is encouraging our citizens to distrust elections, which weakens our democratic republic.'”

“The pushback by Maricopa County officials amounts to their most vehement protest yet of the recount, which began in late April and is being conducted in Phoenix by a private Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas, whose chief executive has previously echoed Trump’s false allegations that fraud tainted the 2020 election. Jointly, the county officials agreed that they would refuse to attend a meeting that had been called Tuesday by Fann to discuss what she had termed ‘serious issues’ with the vote that Cyber Ninjas claims to have identified. ‘I will not be responding to any more requests from this sham process. Finish your audit and be ready to defend what you’re finding in a court of law,’ said Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers (R), at the public meeting” – Washington Post.