Department of Justice Warns States Against Violating Federal Law With Audits

Department of Justice officials alerted states on July 28 that they're closely tracking the 2020 election audit taking place in Arizona and proposed audits in several other states.

The new guidance document summarizes the Biden administration's position on federal law concerning audits, deeming the round of reviews that are either complete, in progress, or being proposed to be "Unusual" and "Exceedingly rare," while highlighting that federal law imposes constraints under which counties and states must comply.

"The reason we're issuing this as guidance is to tell jurisdictions, generally, that we are concerned that if they're going to conduct these audits, so-called audits of the past election, they have to comply with federal law, and warning them that they can't conduct these audits in a way that is going to intimidate voters," a DOJ official told reporters in a call about the guidance.

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, who ordered the audit, told The Epoch Times at the time, "Democrats have been trying every avenue they can to stop or discredit this audit." Fann wrote in a July 28 email that the DOJ guidance could serve as one of those avenues.

Republican Mark Brnovich, Arizona's attorney general, warned Garland in June that his office would "Not tolerate" any attempt to thwart the audit, which is widely opposed by Democrats, including Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

Maricopa County agreed to lease new machines from Dominion Voting Systems after Hobbs said the audit may have left them compromised, and Pennsylvania's top elections official decertified machines from Dominion in Fulton County after an elections assessment was done.

Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, recently initiated a review of the 2020 election in three counties after visiting the Maricopa County audit, though two of the counties have signaled that they won't cooperate.

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