YEAH, BUT THAT WAS JUST AN AUDIT; WAIT FOR THE AUDIT!:

"This is a huge win for the 3 November movement to get to the bottom of the 2020 election," said Boris Epshteyn, former special assistant to Trump who has been tracking efforts in Arizona. He said "the next step is a full audit and canvass of all Arizona counties and including a full canvass in Maricopa County."

The Arizona state GOP held a watch party for the unveiling of the report, and multiple candidates for governor questioned the validity of the state's 2020 election results throughout the day. The same thoughts and statements have spread to other states, too, driven by Trump's lies and unsubstantiated claims about the election.

For months, Trump has been fixated on reports about the 2020 election results, and has been particularly interested in the Republican efforts in Arizona. During media appearances and at event speeches, Trump made questioning the 2020 election results a major rallying cry, even calling it the "crime of the century." Behind the scenes, Trump got regular updates from aides and allies about the minutiae of the Arizona auditors' findings and closely followed the right-wing media's coverage.

Months of work and millions of dollars poured into producing a report that election experts -- including Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisan officials -- have urged people to reject out of hand because of the improvised processes of the review, the inexperience of those running it and their promotion of conspiracy theories about the election. They said the fact that the final vote tally from the report closely tracks the actual official results does not change the fact that it should be dismissed.

"The takeaway is that this was a colossal waste of time," said Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who is now running for governor, in a brief interview on Friday. "And anyone who is considering replicating it in their state, or taking further action based on this report, should not be considered a serious leader."

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