Arizona Senate president who spearheaded sham ‘audit’ won’t seek reelection

By Kyung Lah and Paul LeBlanc, CNN

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, who was instrumental in arranging the state’s sham election “audit,” announced Monday evening that she won’t seek reelection and will retire from the state legislature in January 2023.

“It has been a privilege to advocate on behalf of Arizona citizens in my twelve years at the State Legislature and the honor of a lifetime to serve as Senate President,” Fann said in a statement. “I look forward to a successful session in 2022 advancing policies that benefit all Arizonans, and then enjoying the life my husband and I have built for ourselves in retirement with our family.”

Fann had spearheaded the partisan review of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County failed to prove fraud in the Arizona 2020 election. The review was conducted by the Florida-based company Cyber Ninjas, which had no experience auditing election results and is led by a man who has repeated wild conspiracy theories about election fraud.

The company and its volunteers and subcontractors did not follow standard auditing procedures, and observers from Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ office repeatedly noted instances in which those conducting the review broke their own rules.

Despite this, Fann repeatedly defended the audit, telling CNN in May, “I don’t know what’s legit, what isn’t legit. But why wouldn’t we want to answer those questions?”

While the review reaffirmed President Joe Biden’s victory, former President Donald Trump and the Arizona GOP officials who backed it ignored that conclusion and the highly problematic nature of the review itself — instead touting other issues raised in the report, even though they were quickly rebutted by election experts and county officials.

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CNN’s Eric Bradner and Anna-Maja Rappard contributed to this report.