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JUDY WOODRUFF: The widely discredited 
election review in Arizona is over.

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But more than 10 months after 
the 2020 election, there is 
growing alarm about other efforts

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launched with no credible 
justification to sow doubt about 
elections past, present and future.

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William Brangham explains.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Judy.

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It was Republicans in the 
Arizona state Senate who

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commissioned this review of ballots in 
Maricopa County, even though election

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officials in the state said there was no 
large-scale fraud in the 2020 election.

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But a partisan group called 
Cyber Ninjas undertook a 
controversial review of the vote,

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and they affirmed that Joe Biden in 
fact won Maricopa County and Arizona.

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And here with us to look at the 
larger context is Nate Persily,

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a scholar of election law at 
Stanford University Law School.

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Nate, great to see you 
back on the "NewsHour."

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I hesitate to call this an actual audit, 
what this organization did in Arizona.

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But they affirmed what we already knew, 
that Joe Biden won Maricopa County and

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he won Arizona. But what do you make 
of this when you look at this process?

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NATE PERSILY, Stanford Law 
School: Well, you're right to 
hesitate in calling it an audit.

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Audits are good things. We know 
how to do election audits. Every 
state should audit its elections.

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But that is not what this was. This 
really was part of a coordinated 
disinformation campaign to

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try to undermine the legitimacy 
of the election. And we should 
not put too fine a point on it,

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that the whole goal here after the 
fact, many months after the fact,

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now almost a year after the 
election, was to cast doubt on the 
basic machinery of this election.

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And, as we have seen, even in the sort 
of public reception of this draft report,

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the fact that Cyber Ninjas did 
not find that it affected the 
outcome hasn't sort of decreased

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speculation or this lack of 
confidence that the whole 
audit process has generated.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And for people 
who haven't been following this

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rather circuitous process they took, I 
mean, this was a very bizarre process,

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the way they went about this. These 
people had no experience in election law.

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They spent a period of time searching 
for bamboo fibers, allegedly 
looking for counterfeit Chinese

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ballots. I mean, the whole 
process seems -- bizarre is the 
official term, I think, for this.

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NATE PERSILY: Well, one of the problems is 
that we don't really know what the basic

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allegation was as to why there 
might have been fraud, whether 
in Arizona or elsewhere.

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Throughout the last 10, 12 months, 
what we have seen are allegations, 
again, of Chinese ballots,

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as you were saying, in Arizona, 
of Italian satellites as having 
manipulated voting machines,

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or of Dominion voting machines 
not being secure, of dead 
people voting and the like.

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There's this very heterogeneous 
set of complaints. And so what 
Cyber Ninjas was doing was going on

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a fishing expedition to find out if there 
was anything that implicated the outcome.

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Now, they didn't find that the results 
would have been different. In fact,

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they had -- from their results, 
they suggest that Joe Biden 
actually increased his vote totals

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through their audit than what 
was found on Election Day.

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But the fact that it may have sort 
of confirmed the result should not

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be any solace to those of 
us who worry about the lack 
of confidence that this type

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of process has engendered 
among the mass public.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, as you 
say, if this were just Arizona, 
that might be one thing.

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We might be able to put this 
behind us, but this is going on 
in multiple other states now.

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NATE PERSILY: That's right.

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This is now a playbook for other 
states. If you are a sort of 
disgruntled politician or one trying

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to make a name for yourself, then, 
whether it's in Pennsylvania or 
Wisconsin or some other states,

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Georgia, now that this is a 
pathway that they have chosen.

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Now, again, recounts and audits 
are part of our process. We want

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to encourage that in the month or so 
after an election, because we want to

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know that the election machinery 
is working as intended. But 
a year after an election,

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right, all this is trying to do is to 
undermine confidence in the result.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And it sounds 
like, on some level, that 
perpetual argument that is made is

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having an effect, there was a Monmouth 
University poll out a month or two ago

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that showed that a third of Americans 
believe that President Biden was elected

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only because of fraud and 
that Donald Trump should have 
properly won the election.

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I mean, from an election 
administrator standpoint,

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if a third of the country thinks that 
you're engaged in a widespread fraud,

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what does that do to their ability 
to run elections safely and soundly?

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NATE PERSILY: Well, this is a very

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dangerous period, I think, for our 
democracy, that we have not seen this

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erosion of confidence in the 
basic infrastructure America, of 
the elections, in our history.

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We see lots of retirements 
among these veteran election 
officials. We see that many of them

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feel that they're taking their 
lives in their own hands because 
of death threats and the like.

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And so these are challenges we have not 
faced before, and they're a direct result

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of the concerted disinformation 
campaign that's trying to undermine 
the legitimacy the outcome.

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But these folks are heroes.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Nate Persily of 
Stanford University Law School,

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thanks so much for being here.

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NATE PERSILY: Thank you.