Arizona Republicans bill taxpayers $128,000 for hosting Trump-backed 'audit' on state fairgrounds: report

Arizona taxpayers are on the hook for $128,000 after Republicans in the state senate used the Arizona State Fairgrounds as the staging area for their partisan "audit" of 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County.

That's according to KNPX TV's Brahm Resnik, who managed to obtain a copy of the fairground's invoice to the state senators.

After months of secretive proceedings, the audit, conducted by the pro-Trump Florida cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas, is finally at an end — although the results have been delayed, reportedly because CEO Doug Logan and multiple other company executives are sick with COVID-19.

The audit -- ordered in response to conspiracy theories spread by former President Donald Trump and his supporters that the election was somehow stolen from him -- has triggered controversy from the start, with auditors pursuing bizarre ideas like hunting for bamboo in ballots to prove they were faked in Asia. Auditors have also sought access to election routers, which law enforcement have warned would compromise sensitive information

Even some conservatives who initially supported the audit have subsequently turned against it, like Phoenix right-wing talk radio host Mike Broomhead, who has decried the whole process as a "clown show."