By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You need to pay careful attention to what I intend to say here, which is that an invaluable amount of time and money is being spent in Arizona to determine whether a free and fair election was conducted, well … freely and fairly.

Spoiler alert: It was conducted fairly and was relatively corruption-free.

That, however, is not dissuading Arizona Republican Party officials from conducting an “audit” of more than 2 million ballots cast in the state’s largest county, Maricopa, which — I hasten to add — voted for Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president in 2020.

Now, to be fair, the Biden margin of victory over Donald J. Trump wasn’t huge. It was only a little more than 45,000 votes out of the total cast in the sprawling county. Will the election audit produce the kind of swing that GOP loons want to occur? Hah! I wouldn’t bet your sturdiest pair of jeans on that happening.

And what do you suppose it would do to the overall Electoral College outcome if by some miracle that hell freezes over and they overturn the election result in Arizona? Not a damn thing. Joe Biden still would be elected president and Donald Trump still would be banished to his posh south Florida resort.

The Arizona Republic reported:

Former President Donald Trump on Friday praised GOP senators in Arizona for their “tireless efforts” to recount millions of Maricopa County ballots, predicting the massive review would produce startling findings.

Despite prior audits — and a host of election lawsuits — failing to turn up evidence of Joe Biden “stealing” the presidency, Trump thanked the lawmakers for “the incredible job they are doing in exposing the large scale voter fraud” in the 2020 election.

Startling findings? Hah! There he goes again, fomenting the Big Lie about phony vote fraud.

Arizona election audit updates: Pause in recount appears off as Democrats won’t post bond (msn.com)

I am going to say this for as long as I can string a cogent thought or two together: There was no rampant vote fraud in the 2020 election.

Think for just a moment about this fact: If you are an election official anywhere in the United States and you know about the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, you are going to work double- and triple-overtime to ensure that the process is squeaky clean.

Does anyone with a half a noodle in their skull believe there was anything approaching the hanky-panky that Trump and his cabal of goons suggest occurred?

Donald Trump talked about the media being the “enemy of the people.” He has it all wrong. The 45th president of the United States is the enemy we all should fear.