Kelli Ward rejects request for Arizona GOP race audit

Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward rejected requests for an audit of the party’s elections last week, including for her own race for party chair.

During a radio interview on “The Conservative Circus w/ James T. Harris” on Friday, Ward brushed off criticism of the way the party handled its elections on Jan. 23.

“There’s no procedure, process, rule that allows for it to be done,” Ward said. “And you certainly don’t allow a challenger who lost an election to demand something that they don’t have the right to, and we don’t have the responsibility for providing.”

Ward was the subject of scrutiny this week over allegations of fraud in her election for party chair.

Sergio Arellano, who Ward narrowly beat for the position by 42 votes, requested an audit of all party elections after Sandra Dowling was improperly declared the winner of a member-at-large position for Congressional District 8.

Ward confirmed that the error was made, but also said that Dowling was immediately contacted about the mistake, and that the proper winner was announced. She said the only people asking for the audit are people that worked for Arellano’s campaign.

“The only people who have asked for an audit— which doesn’t exist in our process our procedures, our bylaws, in statute or in Robert’s Rules — are Sergio and the people that are working for his campaign,” Ward said.

“We don’t have the structure to be able to do an audit, but we welcome their input to make our elections bigger,” she said.

Ward also accused the media covering the story of trying to “gin up something that just doesn’t exist.”

Ward garnered attention in the past few months after she repeated former President Trump’s unsupported claims that the election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud.

President Biden narrowly won Arizona by roughly 10,500 votes over Trump, making Biden the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1996.