A review of the ballot papers in the American state of Arizona did not produce the result Donald Trump had hoped for.

In the report presented on Friday, the implementing company came to the conclusion that the result determined by the electoral authorities last November was correct.

In Maricopa County, Arizona's most populous district, election winner Joe Biden received 45,469 more votes than Donald Trump - his majority grew by 360 votes compared to the official result.

These votes were a decisive factor in Biden's victory in the state with 0.4 percentage points ahead of Trump.

Oliver Kühn

Editor in politics.

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One of the most important hopes of the former President Trump, who still does not acknowledge his defeat, has not been fulfilled: the evidence of massive electoral fraud that would lead to a delegitimization of the presidential election in November last year.

The report said: "The ballot papers are the best evidence of what voters want, and there is no solid evidence that they have been tampered with."

Election fraud in the subjunctive 

In the report and in the presentation on Friday, however, the authors made various points that, in their view, could enable electoral fraud - but all in the subjunctive. The Maricopa County electoral authorities, as well as the major New York Times and Washington Post newspapers, have disproved these points. From the point of view of the electoral authorities, the statements made by the authors show that they did not understand how elections are organized and held. For example, the authors of the report criticized the fact that thousands voted even though they had changed their place of residence before the election. The electoral authority then pointed out on Twitter that this was perfectly legal under the electoral law.

The review was commissioned by the state's Republican-dominated Senate after Donald Trump and his allies exerted massive pressure. The local party leadership had always resisted a review because it was convinced that the election had been correct. Cyber ​​Ninjas, whose boss Doug Logan said after the election, that Trump had been betrayed, was commissioned with the investigation in February.

During the review, observers documented massive violations of the company's own rules and criticized the overall approach.

The ballot papers were viewed with UV light.

The company said it wanted to make sure that no ballot papers were smuggled in from China because they had traces of bamboo.

The procedure was financed primarily through private donations from Trump supporters.

The cost is said to have been nearly six million dollars.

Checks in other states too

Although the review found no evidence of election fraud, Donald Trump celebrated the report in a statement on Friday.

This shows that there has been so much electoral fraud that the election results have to be changed.

In doing so, it relied primarily on the criticism of the report, which had been rejected by experts.

Despite massive criticism of the actions of the Republican-dominated Senate and the Cyber ​​Ninjas company, Republicans in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have launched such reviews.

And just on Thursday, the Texas Home Secretary announced an "in-depth forensic review" of the election results of four of the state's largest counties.

Criticism came not only from Democrats.

A month ago, the Republican election officer of Maricopa County published a 38-page letter in which he cracks down on his party in court.

In it, he accuses Republican politicians of doing anything to stay in power.

"Right now, many elected Republicans are holding their fingers to the wind thinking that it is necessary to agree or at least remain silent about the election fraud thesis in order to be re-elected," wrote Stephen Richter.

"That's gross," he added.