(FiveNation.com)- In a June 6 tweet Arizona congressional candidate Josh Barnett claimed that the ballot counting in Maricopa County’s audit will be completed by June 14th.
In addition to being Flag Day, June 14th is also Donald Trump’s 74th birthday.
As of Sunday, the audit was 60 percent complete.
And according to Randy Pullen, co-liaison for the Arizona Senate Republicans, after reorganizing everything and resetting the floor, counting was able to speed up significantly over the last week. Pullen told KTAR News last Friday that the audit is a “much, much smoother operation.” He added that this streamlined procedure has not diminished the accuracy of the process; “we’re just doing it quicker.”
Now that they are in the waning days of the audit, they have shifted more people onto working on the paper examination.
The ballot counting and inspection of voting equipment and systems began at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix on April 23. The audit covers just the Phoenix area and is focused exclusively on the Presidential and Senate Races – both of which were won by the Democrat candidates by narrow margins.
Initially, officials were confident that the Maricopa County audit would be completed by May 14 – the end date on the initial lease agreement with the Coliseum.
However, with only about a third of the ballots counted, the audit was put on hiatus on May 14 in order to clear the Coliseum for a series of high school graduation ceremonies scheduled for the venue.
The audit resumed on May 24 and the new lease agreement runs through the end of June.
Contrary to Josh Barnett’s prediction however, Pullen told KTAR News there’s definitely “no question” the auditors will be done and out of the Coliseum “by the end of the month.”
However, given the faster pace, there is a good possibility that counting could possibly finish up two weeks early, which would put it around June 14th.
