Now in its seventh week, the pointless review of two million ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous outpost, has not only emerged as a dishonest, partisan circus, it’s also a blueprint for how right-wing conspiracists want to treat future GOP election losses. Along the way, they’re deliberately destroying faith in the democratic process.

As the “fraudits” spread to other states, and as it becomes clear that hard-core Republican fanatics will stop at nothing in their pursuit of overturning the 2020 election, it’s imperative the press undertake a course correction and stop calling these partisan sham events “audits.” They’re not going away and the press needs a better, more exact way to describe them. By adopting GOP “audit” language, journalists are doing the right wing’s bidding and undermining confidence in U.S. elections. 

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