Arizona state Senate Republicans launched their sham audit of votes in Maricopa County as red meat for the Trump base, but it may not work out as planned. Oh, the Republican voters who already believe Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen are eating it up, but Arizona is not a deep red state anymore, and a new poll finds 49% of Arizona voters opposed to the fraudit, with 46% in favor. Critically, though, independent voters oppose the fraudit by an 18-point margin, strong opposition is higher than strong support, and voters overall say they’re nine points less likely to support a politician who backed it.

That poll, from Bendixen & Amandi International, got results similar to those in a May poll from High Ground Inc., while a recent national poll from Monmouth University found that 57% of people viewed such audits as “partisan efforts to undermine valid election results.”

The Republicans behind the fraudit have insisted they were just responding to voter concerns and questions about the integrity of the 2020 elections, but it seems that many voters see through that. That doesn’t mean there’s no damage, though. Republicans are pushing similar efforts around the country, actively undermining faith in the integrity of U.S. elections.

In Arizona, the toxic mixture of incompetence and partisan embrace of conspiracy theories has led to false claims of deleted files, death threats to Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and arrest threats against Republican officials who reject the fraudit. But that’s not all.

Maricopa County has announced that it will replace the voting machines seized for the fraudit after Hobbs warned that the integrity of the equipment had been compromised: “The lack of physical security and transparency means we cannot be certain who accessed the voting equipment and what might have been done to them.” With the county just halfway through a $6.1 million lease of the elections equipment from Dominion Voting Systems, this means the fraudit has potentially cost Maricopa County millions of dollars in addition to the nonmonetary damage to faith in the integrity of its elections.

“It’s a failure. It’s a joke,” one top Arizona Republican operative told Politico, calling on Republicans in other states to “avoid it. The election is long over, time to look forward.”

But in Donald Trump’s Republican Party/cult of personality, looking forward is an unforgivable act of disloyalty.