'Trump is getting what he wants': Conservative warns 'absurd' Arizona audit is a roadmap for more election chaos

In a biting column for the conservative Bulwark, former Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speechwriter Amanda Carpenter claimed the Trump-inspired Arizona audit of 2020 presidential ballots in Maricopa County likely won't show any evidence of voter fraud -- but that was never the point in conducting it in the first place.

As Carpenter noted, the decision to hand over the audit to Cyber Ninjas -- who lowballed the cost -- was never actually voted on by Arizona's Republican-controlled state senate which demonstrated to conservatives in other states how to work the system in order to disrupt future elections.

Calling the audit, "... an unprecedented model for bitter partisans to challenge elections after the fact," Carpenter explained, "What Trump supporters have discovered is that elected officials in state legislatures have the power, through subpoenas, to seize ballots, machines, and associated equipment, to run their election investigations. That's the real lesson of the Arizona audit: not that the election results were flawed, but that other jurisdictions can emulate this model to undermine our most essential mechanism of our democracy."

She added that it was "really quite incredible how absurd the process has been in Arizona."

But Carpenter went on to say that, no matter what the delayed report from Cyber Ninjas says, "Trump is getting what he wants," as more possible audits loom on the horizon.

Case in point, she noted, over the weekend the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) admitted he was invited to travel with former president Donald Trump to his Saturday night Alabama rally to discuss efforts to investigate his state's 2020 presidential election results.

In Pennsylvania, Carpenter wrote, there are increasing efforts to launch a similar inquiry.

"On Monday, the president pro tempore of Pennsylvania's state senate, Republican Jake Corman, promised that the chamber would 'conduct a thorough forensic audit of recent elections—including using our subpoena powers,'" she wrote while pointing out that Corman appointed "Cris Dush, a fellow Republican state senator, to lead the audit," with the columnist noting, "Dush, last year, introduced a resolution to invalidate Pennsylvania's presidential election results and replace the state's electors with a new slate elected by the GOP legislature."

Addressing the prospect of a possible Pennsylvania audit, Carpenter dryly suggested, "Assume the forthcoming audit's conclusion foregone."

She then predicted, "Whether it's in Arizona, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania, these audits are being run by partisans, for partisans, for strictly partisan purposes," before bluntly concluding, "They are, to borrow one of Trump's favorite labels, completely 'rigged.'"

You can read her whole piece here.