‘Uncertify the election’? The embarrassment of Senate President Karen Fann is now complete

Senate President Karen Fann continues the exercise in embarrassment that has become her legacy.

The Prescott Republican recently told a reporter for The Undercurrent, a progressive political website, that Attorney General Mark Brnovich will have to go to court to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election if he concludes the audit was correct.

Say what?

This is, no doubt, news to her ninja auditors, who despite months of looking found no evidence of fraud in the election. 

It’s likely news to Brnovich who recently issued an interim report that that found “serious vulnerabilities” in Arizona’s election system but no actual fraud.

Beyond the nine cases – out of 3.4 million votes – that he already was prosecuting, that is.

‘The election is uncertifiable,’ Fann said

Yet there was Fann at a recent “election integrity” conference, embracing the crazy and fanning the flames of an imagined conspiracy.

“I believe that as long as he (Brnovich) verifies our information it has to go to court because it’s not now just about was it fraudulent or not,” she told The Undercurrent’s Lauren Windsor. “It’s the fact that he now verified that all of our information we gave him is correct and therefore the election is uncertifiable because we don’t know who won and we need to have a new election.”

We don’t know who won, Sen. Fann? 

The ninjas’ own hand count of paper ballots found that Biden won the election – a point that, once upon a time, Fann acknowledged.

But that was long, long ago, when the president of the Arizona Senate dealt in facts, not phony conspiracy theories.

Manipulated by Trump? Or one of them all along?

It’s bad enough that this once-respected conservative shredded her reputation by hiring an inexperienced Trump groupie to conduct what she had the nerve to call an “unbiased” audit of Maricopa County’s election. (If you want to know what a leader looks like, see her House counterpart, Speaker Rusty Bowers, who just said no to Trump and his conspiracy crew.)

Bad enough that Fann doesn’t seem to know that there is no legal mechanism to undo an election that already has been duly certified according to the laws of the land.

Bad enough that she doesn’t even seem to realize her own audit found no evidence of fraud.

Now I’ve got to wonder if she’s just being manipulated by Trump and the Senate’s conspiracy crew or if she was one of them all along.

This is one of the state’s highest ranking Republican leaders, a seasoned politician who has repeatedly insisted that the purpose of her election audit was not to overturn Trump’s loss but to find weaknesses in Arizona’s election system and fix them to “restore” voter confidence.

Fann long claimed this was about restoring trust

Here is Fann in February 2021, after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled her subpoena was valid, forcing the county to turn over 2.1 million ballots and elections equipment to her ninja auditors.

“It was never about overturning the election, it was about the integrity of the Arizona election system,” she told then-Arizona Republic reporter Jen Fifield. “If people have questions, they deserve answers.”

Here is Fann in May, writing to a constituent who had concerns about the audit:

“This absolutely has nothing to do with Trump,” she wrote. “The election cannot be overturned. This audit is ONLY about election integrity, answering their questions, and hopefully proving there was nothing wrong with the election.”

Here is Fann in July, during a meeting to get an update on the audit:

“The important thing that we wanted to make sure that everybody knew, which we told you, as well, at the beginning, is this is not about Trump,” she said. “This is not about overturning the election. This has never been about anything other than election integrity.”

Now, suddenly it’s about Trump and overturning the election?

Will a judge haul her into court to explain?

It’s one thing to mislead the citizens of Arizona, but it would appear Fann also misled a judge.

After viewing Fann’s comments to The Undercurrent, VoteBeatUSA’s Jenn Fifield pointed out that Fann in February 2021 assured a judge that her subpoena for all election records was issued for a “valid legislative purpose.”

Studying the results of an election in order to formulate legislation to shore up any weakenesses in election law? Valid legislative purpose.

Demanding that the county turn over our ballots, voters’ personal information and all of the county’s tabulation machinery because certain Republican senators don’t like the results of the election? Possibly not so valid.

If I was Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Thomason, I would not be amused. In fact, I’d haul Fann into court for an explanation about why he was misled about the purpose of her subpoena.

Who knows. Maybe she can claim temporary insanity.

I’d certainly believe it.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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