The Justice Department Is Forcing The Arizona GOP To Abandon The Next Step Of Their Election ‘Audit’

Republicans in the Arizona Senate have decided to abandon the next phase of their “audit” of the 2020 election in the Grand Canyon State, and it appears they did so as a result of actions taken by the Department of Justice.

AZCentral reports:

“The Arizona Senate is dropping, for now, a controversial plan to go door-to-door to ask local residents about their voting history as part of its audit of Maricopa County’s election.

“The decision, which Senate President Karen Fann included in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday, comes after federal officials raised concerns that the canvassing could violate civil rights laws aimed to prevent voter intimidation.”

This is an encouraging sign, because it suggests that the DOJ will be actively involved in fighting against states that attempt to intimidate voters or restrict the rights of people to cast a ballot.

Specifically, the Justice Department wrote Fann and let her know that asking people how they voted is almost an intimidation tactic used to target minority communities.

In the letter, Pamela S. Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote:

“Such investigative efforts can have a significant intimidating effect on qualified voters that can deter them from seeking to vote in the future.”

Arizona Republicans have also suggested that the 2020 election was rigged in their state by using ballots flown in from Asia. John Brakey, a Tucson activist involved in the audit, remarked:

“There’s accusations that 40,000 ballots were flown in and stuffed into the box and it came from the Southeast part of the world, Asia. And what they’re doing is to find out if there’s bamboo in the paper.”

The DOJ under Attorney General Merrick Garland is keeping their pledge to preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution,