By Phill Kline

The Arizona legislature’s audit of the 2020 election has suddenly “woke” media to the importance of transparency in elections. Leftist agent provocateurs, a.k.a. mainstream media, are falling all over themselves complaining about what they are seeing in the audit. But at least they can see!

Leftist and local officials bent over backward in Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Maricopa County to ensure Republican poll watchers could not catch a meaningful glimpse of the handling of ballots. This unlawful lack of transparency occurred in consolidated urban counting centers of critical swing states, all of which received millions of dollars from Big Tech billionaire for Biden, Mark Zuckerberg, and guidance from a cabal of leftist non-profits — the shadow government that ran the election and did so to benefit Mr. Biden. And as they did, they knew that America could not be allowed to see in the counting room.

Boarded up windows, overbearing local officials, Zuckerberg-paid election judges, and media acolytes teamed up to create the least transparent election in United States history.

Now these sycophants are manufacturing criticisms of the Arizona audit based on what they have been invited to see only months after they conspired to prevent America from watching the actual count of the ballots.

Arizona’s Democrat Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs, even published a list of observations from her hand-picked observers in an effort to discredit the process (and, presumably, grab some headlines as she begins her campaign for governor).

Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting observers to keep an eye on something as sensitive as a presidential election. All Americans should want maximum transparency surrounding the process of counting our votes.

And maximum transparency seems to be exactly what we’re getting during the Maricopa County audit. Observers on the audit floor have been able to see computer screens well enough to notice whether the machines were locked, scrutinize the number of ballots in each “batch” of votes reviewed by auditors, and even closely monitor the way data are entered into spreadsheets.

That is all good, and any irregularities that those observers claim to have witnessed should be taken seriously.

But again, what is happening right now in Maricopa County is a far cry from what took place in November 2020. Then, observers in numerous states were penned up far from where the ballots were being counted, duped into leaving the counting centers before counting was completed, and in some cases locked out of consolidated counting centers.

I am concerned, however, that the left’s sudden interest in “transparency” is not aimed at getting to the truth, but rather at discrediting any challenge to its narrative that there are no legitimate reasons to raise any questions about the management of the 2020 election.

United States Attorney General and Biden appointee Merrick Garland recently criticized the Arizona legislative audit, and all such efforts, as being premised on theories and claims that have been rejected by all investigators and all courts. His statement is either deceptive or willfully ignorant.

A review by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger revealed more than 17,000 missing ballots in Fulton County, Georgia — a figure corroborated by a court-ordered audit — and independent investigations show a breach in the chain of custody of an equal number of ballots. A state court reprimanded Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for ordering local officials to assume signatures on absentee ballots match signatures on file. The secretary of state of Pennsylvania and Ms. Benson both gave leftist organizations front-end access to poll books in those states, and leftist nonprofits ousted the Green Bay election clerk and privately managed the counting center. And I do not even have space to explain how Mark Zuckerberg’s $450 million was wrongfully used to make urban counting rooms into partisan campaign centers.

Yet, rather than join those concerned in the effort to understand the 2020 election, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States threatens those who are asking questions with the curious claim that questioning the performance of government in a democratic republic undermines democracy.

Election transparency is not something that can be disregarded one moment and demanded the next, according to political expediency. It must be a consistent, bipartisan priority so that the American people can have unwavering confidence in the legitimacy of the democratic process.

It seems the only transparent conduct in the 2020 election is the left’s effort at dissimulation.

Phill Kline is the former Kansas attorney general. He currently serves as Pulpit Pastor of Amherst Baptist Church, a law school professor, and director of the Amistad Project of The Thomas More Society.