AZ AG: ‘Biden will win Arizona,’ claims of fraud aren’t ‘reality’

While other Republican officials in the state have hesitated to declare a winner in the presidential race, Attorney General Mark Brnovich said President-elect Joe Biden is the likely winner of Arizona’s 11 electoral votes.

During an interview Wednesday with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business, Brnovich noted that there are fewer than 50,000 ballots left to count statewide and that President Donald Trump would have to win about 65% of those votes in order to take the lead in Arizona, which he deemed highly unlikely. Biden currently leads by nearly 13,000 votes.

“It does appear that Joe Biden will win Arizona,” Brnovich said.

Brnovich also rejected baseless claims of election fraud by Democrats in Arizona. He pointed out that, aside from Trump and U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, Republicans fared well in down-ballot races. The GOP maintained control of both chambers of the legislature, despite predictions of a Democratic takeover. Even Democratic Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, whose office jointly oversees the vote counting in the state’s largest county, is on the verge of defeat.

“If indeed there was some great conspiracy, it apparently didn’t work, since the county election official who’s a Democrat lost and other Republicans won,” Brnovich said.

Brnovich attributed the results to voters who split their tickets, voting for Biden over Trump and Democrat Mark Kelly over McSally, while voting for Republicans further down the ballot.

“That’s the reality. Just because that happened doesn’t mean it’s fraud,” he said.

Brnovich said his office received more than 1,000 complaints after the election from voters who worried that the Sharpie pens that election workers instructed them to use may have invalidated their ballots because the ink bled through the paper. Election officials said the pens wouldn’t cause ballots to be rejected, and Brnovich said the Attorney General’s Office concluded the same. 

Other Republican officials, including Gov. Doug Ducey, haven’t shared Brnovich’s sentiments in recent days. Ducey has repeatedly insisted that races in Arizona shouldn’t be called until election officials finish counting the votes. And though he said Arizona will respect the results of the election, he hasn’t refuted the various election fraud claims that are circulating throughout the state, and his office has refused to comment on the matter.