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Arizona Senate President Karen Fann said the number of 2020 general election ballots tallied during the ongoing audit she authorized doesn’t match the total documented by Maricopa County, according to local Arizona News Stations. Fann did not say how far off the counts were. Fann said roughly 2.1 million ballots are being recounted by “independent machines.”
“They haven’t released a number yet, if you will, however we do know that those numbers do not match with Maricopa County at this point,” Fann told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show. Fann responded to the size of the discrepancy stating, “I do not know. They have not told me the number.”
“The vendor is finishing up what we call the aggregation: double-checking the spreadsheets against the blue tally sheets, against the scans they did on the ballots. Because before we turn those ballots back to Maricopa County, they want to make sure that every one of those check-and-balances match before they start doing the analysis of all the data they received. That’s when we said let’s get a couple of our own independent machines in, not Dominion’s, separate ones, and do our own independent — and all we’re doing is just counting the number of ballots,” she said. “It’s a paper-counting machine is all it does.
“That will help us give like a third check-and-balance to see if those numbers are closer to the vendors’ numbers or Maricopa County’s or they all three could be right on target.” More from KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show:
The new tally was expected to start Tuesday at the Arizona State Fairgrounds’ Wesley Bolin Building. Audit operations moved there from Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the beginning of July, more than two months after the process started… State Senate spokesman Randy Pullen told pool reporters Monday that the new machine count would go into next week.
Work on a hand recount of the votes cast for president and U.S. Senate, two narrow Democratic victories, has been completed. Officials have said the final audit report is expected to be released in late July or early August…The audit has been the subject of much scrutiny since it started April 23.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which consists of four Republicans and one Democrat, previously authorized two audits by independent contractors who are certified by the National Institute for Standards and Technology and the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission… Those audits found no problems, but state Senate Republicans subpoenaed the county for access to the election materials at the urging of supporters of Donald Trump who refused to accept President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in Arizona’s largest county and statewide.
NEXT STORY: ‘This Is A Mistake’: George W. Bush Criticizes Biden, Says Withdrawal of U.S. Troops Will Have ‘Unbelievably Bad’ Consequences
Former President George W. Bush ripped Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan, according to Fox News. Bush added that the consequences will be “unbelievably bad.”
“This is a mistake,” Bush said during an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. “They’re just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people, and it breaks my heart.” Bush believes Afghan women and girls would “suffer unspeakable harm.” Biden, on the other hand, told reporters, “In this context, speed is safety.” Biden also stated, “The United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan – to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Usama bin Laden. We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build.”
More from Fox News:
During an exclusive interview with Fox News in May, Bush said he did not think withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan was “necessary,” telling Fox News that he is “deeply concerned” that a “vacuum” will be created without a U.S. presence in the region.
“I’ve always warned that no U.S. presence in Afghanistan will create a vacuum, and into that vacuum is likely to come people who treat women as second class citizens,” Bush, who was president during the 9/11 attacks, told Fox News.
“I’m also deeply concerned about the sacrifices of our soldiers, and our intelligence community, will be forgotten,” Bush told Fox News.
“And you know, was it necessary? I don’t think so,” he continued. “But the decision has been made, and we now need to pray and hope that it is the right decision.”
NEXT STORY: Shameful: A Look Back At Bernie Sanders’ Long History Of Praising Cuba’s Regime Over Decades Of Communist Rule
Senator Bernie Sanders has a long history of praising Cuba’s regime, according to Fox News. The Cuban regime is recently currently cracking down on protesters. The protesters are demanding freedom after decades of communist rule. Now Sanders is up against serious criticism for “initially remaining silent on the protests,” Fox reports. Bernie later issued a statement late Monday night, which suggested the government should not use violence.
In the past, Sanders defended his praise for deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. During a “60 Minutes” interview, Sanders said, “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but, you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?”
More from Fox News:
Video footage unearthed last year showed Sanders recalling his excitement for the communist revolution during a speech in the 1980s… “I remember, for some reason or another, being very excited when [former Cuban dictator] Fidel Castro made the revolution in Cuba,” he said, while speaking at the University of Vermont in 1986. “I was a kid … and it just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people.”
During that speech, Sanders said he almost had to “puke” when he saw former President John F. Kennedy push his opponent at the time, former President Richard Nixon, to be tougher on Cuba. “For the first time in my adult life, what I was seeing is the Democrats and Republicans … clearly that there really wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the two,” he said.
