How the ballot recount at the Coliseum will affect the 2022 elections

On election night in 2020, Fox News made the first formal projection suggesting that Joe Biden could win the presidency by saying Biden had won Arizona.

Almost immediately, that projection set off a firestorm in the White House, capped by then-President Donald Trump suggesting that the election was stolen. The backlash in Arizona came swiftly.

Protesters gathered at the state Capitol, claiming a stolen election even as the votes were still being counted. Maricopa County became the national epicenter of the so-called “big lie” that widespread fraud allowed Biden to claim victory.

By the end of 2020, the Arizona Republican Party assembled “alternate electors” to justify setting aside election results in Washington, D.C. 

About the same time, Arizona state Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, set her chamber on a fateful path as well. She launched an unprecedented review of Maricopa County’s ballots in search of the fraud so many had claimed in Arizona.

This week on The Gaggle, a podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, host Ron Hansen is joined by Arizona Republic reporters Mary Jo Pitzl and Robert Anglen, who helped cover the ballot review and the fallout since then.

They discuss the year since the ballot review concluded, what it accomplished, and how it will affect the 2022 elections come November.

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