A contractor working for Cyber Ninjas, hired by Senate Republicans in Arizona, gestures in May during a recount of ballots from the 2020 general election at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.
COURTNEY PEDROZA/GETTY IMAGES
Sept 24 (Reuters) - Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden in Arizona's most populous county, a review of results by allies of Trump in the Republican Party has reaffirmed, according to a draft report of the findings seen by Reuters on Friday.
The report, prompted by Trump's false claims of widespread electoral fraud, found that Biden, a Democrat, won Maricopa County despite Trump's claims otherwise. The analysis recorded 99 additional votes for Biden and 261 fewer votes for Trump.
The conclusion, if confirmed in an official announcement later on Friday, will disappoint Trump supporters who had pushed for the review, many in the expectation that it would prove his claims he was robbed of victory due to widespread fraud.
"This was Donald Trump's best chance to prove his cases of elections being rigged and fraudulent and they failed," Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Republican election lawyer, said on a media call organized by the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan policy group. "It's a huge defeat for Donald Trump."