The unresolvable dishonesty at the heart of the Arizona election review

Over and over, those close to the Arizona effort have used the same descriptor for its eventual outcome: no-win. If the audit simply shuts down, like Trump’s fraud commission, there’s no reason for Trump supporters or the firm running the audit not to hype the idea that it found significant irregularities. If it releases findings that throw more than 10,000 ballots into some sort of “unverified” category — as seems almost certain — the forces of reality will be forced to note all of the asterisks and bad decisions that undergird those findings as the findings themselves are hailed as bulletproof by Fann and Trump. If the results of the review mirror the confirmed result in the county (which, incidentally, had already passed a state review), there will be a lot of pressure from Trump’s base of support on Fann and Trump to reject them. In no scenario is the result one that everyone will be motivated to accept.