It's been nearly six months since former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, but Trump's delusional claim that victory was "stolen" from him by Democrats through widespread election fraud continues to waste resources and promote conspiracy theories.
For instance, Republican state Senators in Arizona have forced an audit of the ballots in bellwether Maricopa County, a massive target of Trump's election conspiracy theories.
The Maricopa County ballots have been recounted numerous times only for Biden to repeatedly emerge as the winner, but Arizona Republicans seem determined to find fraud. They hired Cyber Ninjas—a Florida-based firm with no elections experience and whose owner has expressed support for Trump's election fantasies—to conduct the audit.
Cyber Ninjas failed at its efforts in court to keep their process a secret, but concerns linger as to the integrity of the audit. Public scrutiny has already found one of the Capitol rioters handling the ballots, and now a new viral video of one audit official indicates just how much credence the process is giving to deranged conspiracy theories.
Watch below.
John Brakey, an official helping oversee the audit of the 2020 Arizona election, says auditors are looking for bamb… https://t.co/XaBHAZs7Fe— Dennis Welch (@Dennis Welch) 1620240267.0
Self-described election transparency activist John Brakey said:
"There's accusation that 40,000 ballots were flown in to Arizona and it was stuffed into the box and it came from the south-east part of the world, Asia, and what they're doing is to find out whether there's bamboo in the paper."
Brakey, who emphasized that his efforts are "not about the right or the left," said audit officials were using a 5K camera to examine ballots for bamboo fibers.
People were amazed.
QAnon might end up being the moderate wing of the Republican Party https://t.co/SLl2nmB1fB— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1620243151.0
This is bananas. https://t.co/sRiYi7olJ5— Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) (@Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR)) 1620255299.0
it’s the detachment from reality which scares me. https://t.co/gyHYzZRKou— Captain Jordy (@Captain Jordy) 1620262409.0
LMAOOOOO WHAT The latest conspiracy theory being chased by the sketchy "audit" of Arizona's 2020 election is that… https://t.co/uZxHnfK0VD— Nick Martin (@Nick Martin) 1620240492.0
sometimes I wonder how this conspiracy theory could get dumber, and then stuff like this happens https://t.co/hk7crFsBF7— Catherine Rampell (@Catherine Rampell) 1620256171.0
Sidney Powell: no reasonable person would be believe the lies I was telling. AZ Auditors: Hold my beer & UV light. https://t.co/bRsFxlLmfV— Matthew Masterson (@Matthew Masterson) 1620303790.0
They couldn't help but mock the continued absurdity of the audit.
Just bamboo? Shouldn't they be testing for water chestnuts? And those little tiny corn cobs, too? https://t.co/Xuf03sQCcV— S.V. Dáte (@S.V. Dáte) 1620244967.0
As the nation struggles to recover from the pandemic so that people are healthy and kids can go to school, Arizona’… https://t.co/8vUeIaExQv— Julian Zelizer (@Julian Zelizer) 1620563580.0
Just hand the ballots to a panda bear and see if it eats them. https://t.co/tV0QqltyDa— Frank Luntz (@Frank Luntz) 1620245769.0
The Department of Justice is currently mulling whether Arizona's audit is in violation of federal law.