Arizona audit’s lengthy delay is allowing wild new conspiracies to take root: report

Donald Trump's supporters are growing restless as the report on the Arizona election "audit" misses its deadline by more than four months, but the true believers remain hopeful the findings will overturn his election loss.

The report was initially due in May, but a number of issues -- including a COVID-19 outbreak that hit the head of "Cyber Ninjas" and two of his employees conducting the "audit" -- have delayed the findings for so long that ballot counters even held a two-month reunion this week after their work concluded, but it's backers continue to promise eye-popping results, reported The Daily Beast.

"YOU WILL LOVE THE ARIZONA SENATE SOON EVEN THOUGH SOME ARE MAD AT US NOW," posted state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) on Telegram.

Rogers, who disputes criticism that the process is "fake" and "not real," claims the final report will finally be delivered to the Arizona state Senate next week, but the lengthy delay has allowed new, even more outlandish conspiracy theories to fester in Trump supporters' imaginations.

Right-wing activist Liz Harris issued "grassroots canvass report" last week that claims she has proof that 173,000 ballots weren't actually counted in Maricopa County, while another 96,389 "ghost votes" were created using vacant lots as home addresses, but county officials and voting experts say the report is filled with errors, and she's already had to change the front-page photo to cover one mistake.

That didn't stop QAnon conspiracist and state Rep. Mark Finchem (R-Oro Valley), who Trump has endorsed in his race for Arizona secretary of state, from citing the Harris report in a recent appearance on the right-wing One America News.

"It's pointed to more than election-systems fraud," Finchem claimed. "It's pointed to voter roll fraud."

Harris also aired her claims on Steve Bannon's podcast, claiming that her photos of vacant lots proved voter fraud, although what little data she has released has been easily debunked.

"I could write a book about many problems there are here," said Garrett Archer, a data analyst for KNXV-TV who previously worked as an elections analyst for Arizona's secretary of state. "They made a mistake on their cover sheet, so there's a chance that there's mistakes in the actual data."