2021 Maricopa County presidential ballot audit

The 2021 Maricopa County presidential ballot audit, commonly referred to as the Arizona audit, was an examination of ballots cast in Maricopa County during the 2020 United States presidential election in Arizona initiated by Republicans in the Arizona State Senate and executed by private firms. Begun in April 2021, the audit stirred controversy due to extensive previous efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the election and due to assertions of rule violations and irregularities in the conduct of the recount,^[1] leading to claims that the audit was essentially a disinformation campaign.^[2][3][4] In June 2021, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times and Charles Cooke of National Review reported Trump had told associates that based on the results of the audit, he would be reinstated as president in August 2021.^[5]

From the beginning of the audit, several concerns surfaced, including how the audit was being conducted, its legality, the conduct of auditors, and security issues at the site.^[6] The audit spawned interest in pursuing similar efforts in other states, causing the United States Department of Justice to warn Republican legislatures of potential violations of federal law.^[7][8] Conspiracy theory issues also arose as many commentators across the political spectrum, including Republicans, characterized the effort as a sham or "fraudit" that was an element of the big lie that the presidential election had been stolen from Trump.

The auditors released a report in September 2021, finding no proof of fraud and that their ballot recount increased Biden's margin of victory by 360 votes.^[9][10][11] County election officials released a final report in January 2022 finding that nearly all of the auditors' allegations of irregularities were false or misleading.