May 6, 2021 09:25 PM
(This post was last modified: May 6, 2021 09:52 PM by Magical Realist.)
https://www.vox.com/22417310/arizona-aud...9xWLDg4AeE
"...Perhaps the biggest mystery surrounding this whole circus is why, exactly, people in the audit are shining UV lights on individual ballots.
"At a press conference last week, a reporter asked Ken Bennett, a Republican former secretary of state who is the Arizona Senate’s liaison to the auditing process, what the UV lights are being used for. His answer was far from edifying.
“The UV lights are looking at the paper. And is part of several teams that are involved in the paper evaluation,” Bennett initially told reporters. When he was asked to explain what purpose this process serves, he responded, “I personally don’t know.”
One possibility is that the UV lights may be tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory. According to the Arizona Republic’s Jen Fifield, QAnon supporters “claimed that former President Donald Trump and others secretly watermarked mail-in ballots to prove fraud” shortly after the November elections — so the UV lights may be intended to look for these secret watermarks, which do not actually exist.
Another theory is that the UV lights might be used to scan for fingerprints — some conspiracy theorists claim that, if fake machine-printed ballots were cast in 2020, those ballots would not have fingerprints like a ballot that was handled by an actual voter.
A third theory, also floated by Fifield, is that the UV light may be used to scan for signs that a ballot was folded.
In any event, the whole thing is bizarre. It’s unlikely that Republicans are exposing these ballots to UV light for no reason at all. But no one has, at least as of yet, been able to get a clear answer as to why they are doing so...."
"...Perhaps the biggest mystery surrounding this whole circus is why, exactly, people in the audit are shining UV lights on individual ballots.
"At a press conference last week, a reporter asked Ken Bennett, a Republican former secretary of state who is the Arizona Senate’s liaison to the auditing process, what the UV lights are being used for. His answer was far from edifying.
“The UV lights are looking at the paper. And is part of several teams that are involved in the paper evaluation,” Bennett initially told reporters. When he was asked to explain what purpose this process serves, he responded, “I personally don’t know.”
One possibility is that the UV lights may be tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory. According to the Arizona Republic’s Jen Fifield, QAnon supporters “claimed that former President Donald Trump and others secretly watermarked mail-in ballots to prove fraud” shortly after the November elections — so the UV lights may be intended to look for these secret watermarks, which do not actually exist.
Another theory is that the UV lights might be used to scan for fingerprints — some conspiracy theorists claim that, if fake machine-printed ballots were cast in 2020, those ballots would not have fingerprints like a ballot that was handled by an actual voter.
A third theory, also floated by Fifield, is that the UV light may be used to scan for signs that a ballot was folded.
In any event, the whole thing is bizarre. It’s unlikely that Republicans are exposing these ballots to UV light for no reason at all. But no one has, at least as of yet, been able to get a clear answer as to why they are doing so...."
