Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022
Were 740,000 ballots cast in Arizona without a proper chain of custody during the 2020 election?
While there is debate about the number of ballots transported without proper documentation in Maricopa County during the 2020 election, no elections authority has placed the number as high as 740,000.
The Arizona Attorney General's Office estimated that far fewer ballots — "between 100,000 and 200,000" — lacked a proper chain of custody.
The Maricopa County Elections Department called this assessment dishonest, clarifying that there was an error rate of less than 1% among 1,900 early voting ballot transportation statements. It added that although a small number of forms may have lacked documentation of dates or times of departure, these omissions did not compromise the integrity of the ballots, which were sealed and placed in sealed boxes.
In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich confirmed that none of his office's investigations found any evidence of widespread voter fraud in Arizona during the 2020 election.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- Arizona Attorney General's Office Interim report - Maricopa County November 3, 2020 General Election
- Maricopa County Elections Department Response to Attorney General Mark Brnovich
- CBS News Two Arizona Republicans on their fight for election facts
About fact briefs
Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting is the state’s only independent, nonpartisan and collaborative nonprofit newsroom dedicated to statewide, data-driven investigative reporting. AZCIR's mission is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable by exposing injustice and systemic inequities through investigative journalism.
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