Arizona's vote audit: “We found a ballot shortage, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the votes,

In Maricopa County, are missing ballots the smoking guns?

I’ve stayed away from writing about the election audit in Arizona’s Maricopa County because I felt that, until the audit was completed, there wasn’t much point in trying to offering commentary about its progress. The big outlines were known: The audit was being carried out meticulously and both Democrats and NeverTrumpers objected vociferously. On Monday, though, a conservative reporter with a good reputation revealed some really stunning facts: Several hundred thousand ballots are missing and boxes that purported to hold ballots for counting contained only blanks.

Here’s Patrick Howley’s report (emphasis mine):

Several hundred thousand votes that were counted in Maricopa County, Arizona are associated with missing ballots, according to an audit organizer who is speaking regularly with people on the audit floor.

“We found a ballot shortage, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the votes,” Josh Barnett, an audit organizer who led the affidavit drive to make the audit happen, tells NATIONAL FILE. “It looks like a couple hundred thousand ballots are unaccounted for. The ballots are missing.”

“I also know that there were boxes filled with blank ballots in those pallets. There were blanks in there,” Barnett said, citing a person who is frequently at the audit site as part of the audit process. “They (election officials) were doing it for appearance, to try to hide the fact that ballots are missing by saying, ‘It’s okay, they’re all right here.’ But the ballots are blank.”