Arizona

Arizona: Why the Election Audit Circus Just Won’t End | Ed Kilgore/New York Magazine

Former President Donald Trump railed against the news media earlier this month for dismissing the “massive number of voter irregularities and fraud” that ostensibly took place during the 2020 election in Arizona. He was responding to an AP report that found fewer than 200 cases of potential voter fraud out of 3 million ballots cast in the state. As the outlet notes, this “align[s] with previous studies showing voter fraud is rare.” But Trump and his allies in Arizona have not been dissuaded by such independent findings, or their own failure to turn up any convincing evidence that Joe Biden only won the state through nefarious means. Since April, private parties answering to a faction of Republicans in the state Senate have been conducting an “audit” of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results. The effort has been derided as incompetent and unwarranted by outside experts, the Justice Department, and even other local Republicans — yet the audit chugs on in self-induced darkness. While the tabulation of votes is supposedly complete, this week top Republicans in the Arizona Senate issued subpoenas demanding even more election materials from the county.

  Full Article: Why the Arizona Election Audit Circus Just Won’t End

Arizona: Trump supporters raise $5.7M for election audit | Jonathan J. Cooper/Associated Press

Groups connected to prominent supporters of former President Donald Trump’s movement to cast doubt on the 2020 election results have raised $5.7 million for Arizona Republicans’ election audit. Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the little-known firm hired to lead the audit, ended months of silence about who was paying for it and how much it cost Wednesday night. The money from pro-Trump groups dwarfs the $150,000 contributed by the Arizona Senate, which commissioned the audit and hired Cyber Ninjas. Among those leading the fundraising groups are Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor; Sydney Powell, his attorney who filed a number of baseless lawsuits challenging election results; Patrick Byrne, a former chief executive of Overstock.com; and correspondents from the pro-Trump One America News Network. The confirmation that the audit is being overwhelmingly funded by groups promoting false narratives about the election will raise further questions about the validity of the final report. The audit has already been widely discredited by election experts who say Cyber Ninjas and other contractors are biased and using unusual procedures that won’t produce reliable results. “When the sources of the money, and the activity that’s being paid for, and the people being paid are all putting forth falsehoods ... it’s incredibly troubling and problematic,” said Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund and a former Maricopa County elections official.

  Full Article: Trump supporters raise $5.7M for Arizona election audit

GOP liaison to Arizona audit says he is resigning, won’t be ‘rubber stamp’ on final report | Allan Smith and Jane C. Timm/NBC

The Republican serving as liaison between the Arizona state Senate and the private company conducting a partisan ballot review said Wednesday he intends to resign, citing his inability to back the final product. Ken Bennett, a former Arizona secretary of state, said he made the decision after it became clear he would not regain access to the Phoenix fairgrounds where the private company, Cyber Ninjas, continues its examination of millions of ballots cast last November in Maricopa County. "Right now I’m the liaison in name only," he told conservative radio host James Harris Wednesday. "I don’t know if that makes me a LINO or what." Bennett, who has been the public face of the review, was first barred from entering the audit site Friday after he shared some results with outside election experts, according to The Arizona Republic. Those experts told the paper that what they reviewed indicated the auditors' vote tally was in line with the results reported by the county. "I’ve always tried to act as a man of integrity and honesty and I’m sure I don’t accomplish that all the time, but I cannot put a rubber stamp on a product I am being locked out of its development," he said Wednesday. "I’m going to step down today. I’ll issue a statement later for the press later this morning." Arizona state Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, said in a statement to NBC News on Wednesday that a liaison is no longer needed on-site because the tabulation of votes is complete and ballots will be returned to Maricopa County on Thursday.

  Full Article: GOP liaison to Arizona audit says he is resigning, won't be 'rubber stamp' on final report

Arizona GOP Audit Director Barred From Recount After Sharing Data Supporting Trump Loss | Jason Lemon/Newsweek

The Republican overseeing the controversial GOP-backed election audit in Arizona has reportedly been banned from entering the building where the recount process is ongoing, after he shared some data with experts that showed the results match the officially certified numbers in Maricopa County. The Arizona Republic reported on Friday evening that Ken Bennett, Arizona's former Secretary of State who has been described as the audit's "director," was barred from entering the building on the state fairgrounds where the audit is moving forward. The newspaper reported that Bennett had shared some of the audit data with outside experts showing that the ballot recount was tracking "very closely" with Maricopa County's certified results. Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based company conducting the audit on behalf of the state's Senate Republicans, told the publication that state Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, made the decision to block Bennett from the building. Newsweek reached out to Fann for further comment but did not immediately receive a response. Ryan Randazzo, a reporter for the Arizona Republic, summed up the situation in a Friday evening tweet: "The liaison for the Arizona election audit gave some data to outside experts who want to check the Cyber Ninjas' work, and then he was locked out of the audit. Also it looks like the ninjas miscounted and the roof on the budget building is leaking." Full Article: Arizona GOP Audit Director Barred From Recount After Sharing Data Supporting Trump Loss

Arizona: Maricopa County weighs subpoena response, unlikely to turn over routers | Kevin Stone/KTAR

Maricopa County officials are weighing their response to a new subpoena from Arizona Senate Republican leaders over items related to the 2020 election, but it appears they will resist handing over network routers. “We just received this late yesterday,” Supervisor Bill Gates, one of four Republicans on the five-member board that governs the county, told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News in his first of two Tuesday morning interviews with the station. “So we’ll convene as a body, will meet with our attorneys, go over this. If there are reasonable requests in here, of course we will turn those over.” The supervisors will meet with legal advisers Wednesday behind closed doors in an executive session that starts at 9 a.m. Monday’s Senate subpoena gave the county one week to produce certain items the Cyber Ninjas and other contractors hired to review the Phoenix-area general election say are needed to complete their final audit report.   Full Article: Maricopa County weighs subpoena response, unlikely to turn over routers - KTAR.com

Arizona Senate issues new subpoena for 2020 election audit | Jonathan J. Cooper/Associated Press

Two top Republicans in the Arizona Senate issued two new subpoenas late Monday for materials from the 2020 election as they look to continue their unprecedented review of former President Donald Trump’s loss in Maricopa County. The subpoenas issued by Senate President Karen Fann and Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen set up a new confrontation with the Republican leaders of Maricopa County, who have vowed to stop producing materials for the Senate’s review. They say the review is being run by incompetent grifters, and they’ve already provided everything needed to review the 2020 vote count. Fann and Petersen also, for the first time, sent a subpoena to Dominion Voting Systems Inc., which manufactured Maricopa County’s voting machines and has been the target of false conspiracy theories suggesting its machines were tainted by foreign interference. The new demands come days after Trump spoke to thousands of supporters in downtown Phoenix, using the Senate’s review to make a number of debunked claims to bolster his false narrative that President Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate. Fann first issued a subpoena late last year as Trump and his allies were looking for materials to support their false claims of election irregularities before President Joe Biden’s victory was formally certified on Jan. 6. The subpoena was reissued early this year, and after a judge ruled it was valid, Maricopa County turned over 2.1 million ballots, hundreds of counting machines and terabytes worth of data. The materials were given to contractors hired by Fann for a sweeping audit of the election, which Trump narrowly lost. Fann says her goal is not to overturn the 2020 election but to see whether changes to state law are needed going forward. But the audit is being led by an inexperienced firm, Cyber Ninjas, led by a Trump supporter who has promoted conspiracy theories about the election. It’s become an obsession for many Trump supporters who hope it will turn up evidence supporting claims of fraud.

  Full Article: Arizona Senate issues new subpoena for 2020 election audit

Arizona’s vote ‘audit’ is based on ignorance and dishonesty | The Washington Post

Last week, the contractors conducting the Republican Arizona Senate’s 2020 presidential vote “audit” teased their preliminary findings. The discrepancies they described sounded damning. Former president Donald Trump and his acolytes embraced them as proof of major voting problems in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous. In fact, they illustrate that the Arizona Senate and its contractors have premised their audit on ignorance, dishonesty or, most likely, some toxic combination of the two. In that, they match Republicans throughout the country who are undermining faith in the nation’s system of government for partisan gain. “We have 74,243 mail-in ballots where there is no clear record of them being sent,” declared Doug Logan, the pro-Trump conspiracy theorist who heads Cyber Ninjas, the Florida firm with no apparent expertise in election auditing whom the Arizona Senate Republican majority hired to examine Maricopa’s ballots. Election experts immediately pointed out that this number represents the in-person early ballots that voters cast, which Maricopa County counts in its submitted ballot tally. Similarly, Mr. Logan’s claim that 11,326 people suddenly showed up on the voting rolls after Election Day reflects provisional voters, whose ballots only counted if they demonstrate after Election Day that they were eligible. Instead of publicly revealing any of these alleged discrepancies, Mr. Logan should have consulted someone with a rudimentary knowledge of election procedures. Nevertheless, Mr. Logan said that he might need to send inquisitors door-to-door asking people about their ballots, without explaining how households would be picked, a move the Justice Department previously warned might amount to voter intimidation. Full Article: Opinion | Arizona’s vote ‘audit’ is based on ignorance and dishonesty - The Washington Post

Arizona: Election officials call audit ‘bombshell’ a dud | Howard Fischer/Tucson Sentinel

Claims made about the election audit in Maricopa County that some have labeled a “bombshell” are really a dud, Maricopa County officials say. County officials have issued what they said is a point-by-point knockdown of the most serious charges leveled by Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the firm hired by Senate President Karen Fann, and Ben Cotton founder of CyFir which bills itself as a digital forensics investigative company. But the county was not allowed to provide a response at Thursday’s hearing at the state Senate as they were not invited and public testimony was not allowed. All of this means that the issue is unlikely to be resolved in the near future. In fact, Jack Sellers, who chairs the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said he is prepared for a future legal fight. “Finish your audit, release the report, and be prepared to defend it in court,” he said in a prepared statement. On Thursday, Logan and Cotton presented their findings to date to Fann and Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, who chairs the Judiciary Committee. Democrats on the panel were not allowed to participate or ask questions. The two contractors said they are likely months away from a final report. Logan said it could even mean a door-to-door canvass to find certain voters. And they also claim they have not been provided with all the materials the Senate had subpoenaed, a claim that Sellers disputed. “Stop accusing us of not cooperating when we have given you everything qualified auditors would need to do this job,” Sellers said, taking a slap at the firms the Senate has retained.

Full Article: Election officials call Arizona audit 'bombshell' a dud | Arizona and Regional News | tucson.com

Arizona audit muddles on with no clear end in sight | Tal Axelrod/The Hill

Arizona’s partisan election audit is muddling along with no end on the horizon as Republicans in the state Senate and Democratic outside groups battle over the process. The glacial pace of the audit — which state Senate Republicans kicked off in December — was put into sharp relief this week with each side complaining that the other had not provided needed documents related to the count. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp shot down a motion from the GOP to dismiss a lawsuit from liberal watchdog group American Oversight seeking documents related to the state Senate’s audit. Attorneys for the Republicans had argued that the information, which is currently in the possession of the private contracting firm Cyber Ninjas, is not obtainable under public disclosure rules. But Kemp rejected that argument Wednesday. "Nothing in the statute absolves Senate defendants' responsibilities to keep and maintain records for authorities supported by public monies by merely retaining a third-party contractor who in turn hires subvendors," the judge wrote. Kemp’s ruling also dismissed a GOP effort to combine the lawsuit from American Oversight with one also seeking public records brought by The Arizona Republic. American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers hailed the ruling, saying it was a key step in providing more transparency to Arizonans over the audit. "Starting now, the Arizona Senate is going to have to face real, public accountability," Evers said.

Full Article: Arizona audit muddles on with no clear end in sight | TheHill

Arizona: Maricopa County to spend $2.8M to replace voting machines | Lacey Latch Mary Jo Pitzl/Arizona Republic

Maricopa County will spend nearly $3 million to replace voting equipment that officials say was permanently tainted by the Arizona Senate's election review. The county will spend millions to purchase and then destroy the old equipment that was subpoenaed for the audit as well as for new systems before the upcoming elections. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously for the funding after the county announced June 28 it would not reuse most of the voting equipment that was in the possession of contractors for the audit. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs had previously warned the county that her office would move to decertify the machines if officials tried to use them in another election, citing concerns about the chain of custody after the Senate took possession of them. Hobbs said she consulted with experts and officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and concluded there was no way to determine whether the machines were tampered with. As a result, the Board of Supervisors agreed to purchase all of the subpoenaed equipment from Dominion Voting Systems for disposal. The board intends to replace the equipment with new voting systems before the next election. “The frustrating thing is, those were perfectly good machines which passed all of our accuracy tests from the time we first got them in 2019. The taxpayer paid good money for them, but now this equipment will have to be decommissioned because the Senate didn’t take our warnings about chain-of-custody seriously,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers in a released statement after the meeting. “When Senate leadership chose novices to conduct their audit rather than reputable, certified companies, they wasted an expensive investment that had served Maricopa County voters well in 2019 and 2020.”

Full Article: Arizona audit: Maricopa County to spend $2.8M to replace voting machines

Arizona: House committee launches investigation of GOP-comissioned election review | Eugene Scott/The Washington Post

The House Oversight and Reform Committee is launching an investigation into Arizona’s GOP-commissioned review of the 2020 presidential election and the private contractor leading the effort, whose chief executive has echoed former president Donald Trump’s false claims. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the committee, and Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) sent a letter Wednesday to Douglas Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, seeking correspondences, documents and other information about his Florida-based company’s review of nearly 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County. “The committee is seeking to determine whether the privately funded audit conducted by your company in Arizona protects the right to vote or is instead an effort to promote baseless conspiracy theories, undermine confidence in America’s elections, and reverse the result of a free and fair election for partisan gain,” Maloney and Raskin, who heads the subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties, wrote to Logan. A contact for Cyber Ninjas did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment. Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win Arizona in nearly 25 years — earning the state’s 11 electoral college votes, mostly because of the growth and diversification of Maricopa County, home to the fifth-largest city in the United States.

Full Article: House committee launches investigation of GOP-comissioned election review in Arizona - The Washington Post

Arizona secretary of state asks for investigation into possible election interference by Trump, Giuliani | Melissa Quinn/CBS

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on Wednesday called for the state's attorney general to investigate possible efforts by former President Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others to pressure Maricopa County election officials during vote-counting in November. Citing a report in the Arizona Republic, Hobbs said in a letter to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich that the alleged conduct by Mr. Trump, Giuliani, conservative lawyer Sidney Powell and Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward may have violated a state law that prohibits interfering with election officials. "Arizona law protects election officials from those who would seek to interfere with their sacred duties to ascertain and certify the will of the voters," Hobbs said. "At the polling place, this law protects the right to vote. At the counting center, it protects the accuracy of results, free from political interference. But what protection exists for officials who fulfill their duties despite threats of political retribution if the person empowered to enforce the law is unwilling to do the same?"

Full Article: Arizona secretary of state asks for investigation into possible election interference by Trump, Giuliani - CBS News

Arizona: ‘Isn’t the public entitled to know?’ judge questions secrecy of Cyber Ninjas’ audit records | Ryan Randazzo/Arizona Republic

An Arizona judge on Wednesday asked an attorney for the state Senate why the public should not have access to records involving Cyber Ninjas, the tech firm reviewing the 2020 Maricopa County presidential election. "Isn't the public entitled to know who is paying for this, what (Senate) President (Karen) Fann referred to as a constitutional and legislative function, this important constitutional duty?" Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp asked the lawyer for the Senate. The question came during a hearing in a lawsuit filed by a nonprofit group called American Oversight. The suit was filed after the Senate declined to turn over records requested through the Arizona Public Records Law. An attorney for the Senate responded that the documents are not covered under that law. The lawsuit names Sen. Fann, R-Prescott, Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, and the Senate at large as defendants.

Full Article: Arizona election audit: Judge questions secrecy of Cyber Ninja records

Arizona: Election consultants: Results of ballot recount will be inaccurate at worst, incomplete at best | Jen Fifield/Arizona Republic

When Maricopa County election workers loaded 1,691 boxes of ballots onto semitrucks in April and drove them to Veterans Memorial Coliseum, they didn’t send instructions with them. The Arizona Senate’s contractors cracked open the first box without a way of knowing how many ballots should be in each box, without a complete understanding of the complicated way the county tallies votes and stores ballots, without much to compare their results to and without a background doing this type of work. For the next seven weeks, six days a week, early in the morning and late into the night, a mostly volunteer crew of dozens of workers recounted the votes cast in the 2020 presidential and U.S. Senate race on nearly 2.1 million ballots. Four national election consultants called it an error-prone and ever-changing process. The contractors who designed the process, led by Florida-based cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas, lacked the information they needed from the county as well as the knowledge of elections to do the recount correctly, according to the consultants, who have been watching the process closely since it began. The final report on the hand count, they say, will be incomplete at best and inaccurate at worst.

Full Article: Experts question results from hand count in Arizona Senate audit

Arizona’s Maricopa County will replace voting equipment, fearful that GOP-backed election review has compromised security | Rosalind S. Helderman/The Washington Post

Arizona’s Maricopa County announced Monday that it will replace voting equipment that was turned over to a private contractor for a Republican-commissioned review of the 2020 presidential election, concerned that the process compromised the security of the machines. Officials from Maricopa, the state’s largest county and home to Phoenix, provided no estimates of the costs involved but have previously said that the machines cost millions to acquire. “The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured, the County will never use equipment that could pose a risk to free and fair elections,” the county said in a statement. “As a result, the County will not use the subpoenaed equipment in any future elections.” The announcement probably reflects an added cost to taxpayers for a controversial review that has been embraced by supporters of former president Donald Trump, who has falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged in Arizona and other battlegrounds that he lost.

Full Article: Arizona’s Maricopa County will replace voting equipment, fearful that GOP-backed election review has compromised security - The Washington Post

Editorial: What sham audit information are the Cyber Ninjas and the Arizona Senate trying to hide? | EJ Montini/Arizona Republic

When Republican Arizona Senate President Karen Fann gave the go ahead for the sham audit of Maricopa County votes, she said the process would be conducted professionally and transparently. She’s 0 for 2. Professionally? HA! That went out the window with the hiring of the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas to conduct the audit. Not only had the company not done such a thing before, but the CEO, Doug Logan, is a confirmed conspiracy kook who spread unproven election fraud claims and has appeared in a film claiming the CIA or former members of the intelligence agency are involved in some nutty “disinformation” campaign concerning election fraud. Then, there is the transparent part. The audits already conducted by the Maricopa County Recorder’s office, and the two certified firms who also were hired to check the election process, were open to the public and transparent. They found no fraud. This audit, too, was to be that way. Supposedly. Logan said of his audit, “The big question should not be, ‘Am I biased,’ but ‘Will this audit be transparent, truthful and accurate?’ The answer to the latter question is a resounding ‘Yes.’ ” Except, it’s not. If it was, The Arizona Republic would not be going to court and asking a judge to have the Senate and Cyber Ninjas turn over records the public has every right to see.

Full Article: What are Cyber Ninjas and the Arizona Senate trying to hide?

Arizona: Trump Is Said to Have Called Official After Election Loss | Michael Wines and Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

President Donald J. Trump twice sought to talk on the phone with the Republican leader of Arizona’s most populous county last winter as the Trump campaign and its allies tried unsuccessfully to reverse Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow victory in the state’s presidential contest, according to the Republican official and records obtained by The Arizona Republic, a Phoenix newspaper. But the leader, Clint Hickman, then the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said in an interview on Friday that he let the calls — made in late December and early January — go to voice mail and did not return them. “I told people, ‘Please don’t have the president call me,’” he said. At the time, Mr. Hickman was being pressed by the state Republican Party chairwoman and Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to investigate claims of fraud in the county’s election, which Mr. Biden had won by about 45,000 votes. Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement that “it’s no surprise Maricopa County election officials had no desire to look into significant irregularities during the election,” though there is no evidence of widespread problems with Arizona’s election. She did not directly address the calls reportedly made by Mr. Trump. Two former campaign aides said they knew nothing about the outreach to the Maricopa County official.

Full Article: Trump Is Said to Have Called Arizona Official After Election Loss - The New York Times

Election security could be set back by the partisan audit in Arizona | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Election security experts are waiting with a mixture of resignation and dread for the results of a hyperpartisan audit that’s wrapping up in Maricopa County, Ariz. The counting phase of that audit ended Friday after weeks of serious security flubs including workers failing to track ballots from one location to another, using unvetted equipment and leaving laptops and other technology unattended. The audit is being conducted by a Florida firm called Cyber Ninjas with no history or expertise in the area and whose CEO Doug Logan has endorsed wild conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen from former president Donald Trump. Auditors have chased unhinged and unfounded claims about secret watermarks on ballots and traces of bamboo in ballots that were secretly flown in from Asia.  Cyber Ninjas’s final report is expected in the next few weeks. But election security analysts are already warning the results will be untrustworthy and could further undermine public faith in what intelligence and law enforcement leaders have called the most secure election in history.  “This endeavor has been a flawed and really failed effort from the very beginning,” Liz Howard, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at New York University’s Brennan Center and an official observer of the Maricopa audit, told me. “I assume whatever they put out will be riddled with errors, incomplete and will not provide an accurate assessment of the election.”

Full Article: The Cybersecurity 202: Election security could be set back by the partisan audit in Arizona - The Washington Post

Arizona: Maricopa County will obtain new voting machines after 2020 audit concludes | Jane C. Timm/NBC

Arizona's most populous county is scrapping its voting machines and procuring new ones in the wake of the conspiracy-soaked Republican audit of last year's ballots. In December, Arizona Senate Republicans subpoenaed nearly 400 of Maricopa County's machines, along with ballots cast by voters, for an unusual audit of the 2020 election results. The GOP hired private firms, led by the Florida-based cybersecurity company Cyber Ninjas, to do the work, delivering the election machines and ballots to them this year. But as the audit — and its procedures, which have alarmed and confused election experts — continued this spring and summer, concerns about the machines grew. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, told the county Board of Supervisors last month that she believed the security of the county’s election machines had been compromised by Cyber Ninjas' work and would consider decertifying the machines if Maricopa sought to reuse them. In Arizona, the secretary of state can decertify machinery in consultation with the state's election equipment certification committee, a three-person panel appointed by Hobbs.

Full Article: Maricopa County will obtain new voting machines after 2020 audit concludes

Arizona Republic takes state Senate, Cyber Ninjas to court for election audit records | Ryan Randazzo/Arizona Republic

The Arizona Republic has gone to court to demand records from the state Senate and one of its contractors to shed light on the audit of 2020 election results, much of which has been kept from the public despite the importance of the ballot recount. The news organization on Wednesday filed a special action in Maricopa County Superior Court seeking financial records and communications about the audit from the Senate and Cyber Ninjas, the contractor it hired to lead the work. But for the most part, the state has kept information on how the audit is being conducted, the businesses doing the work, where the money is coming from and what officials are saying to each other about it away from the public. ... The Republic is seeking the records to provide the public with a better understanding of the unprecedented audit of the election, which involved the Senate issuing subpoenas to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and moving election equipment and about 2.1 million ballots to the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum for inspection by private contractors. The audit has taken weeks and has yet to conclude. "Arizona law entitles the public to know how this audit is being conducted and funded," attorney David Bodney, who represents The Republic, said Wednesday after the action was filed in court. "And the Arizona public records law does not permit the Senate to play 'hide the ball' by delegating core responsibilities to a third party like Cyber Ninjas and concealing records of government activities and public expenditures in Cyber Ninjas’ files."

Full Article: AZ Republic takes Senate, Cyber Ninjas to court for ballot audit info

Arizona’s Maricopa County will replace voting equipment, fearful that GOP-backed election review has compromised security | Rosalind S. Helderman/The Washington Post

Arizona’s Maricopa County announced Monday that it will replace voting equipment that was turned over to a private contractor for a Republican-commissioned review of the 2020 presidential election, concerned that the process compromised the security of the machines. Officials from Maricopa, the state’s largest county and home to Phoenix, provided no estimates of the costs involved but have previously said that the machines cost millions to acquire. “The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured, the County will never use equipment that could pose a risk to free and fair elections,” the county said in a statement. “As a result, the County will not use the subpoenaed equipment in any future elections.” The announcement probably reflects an added cost to taxpayers for a controversial review that has been embraced by supporters of former president Donald Trump, who has falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged in Arizona and other battlegrounds that he lost. The review was ordered by the Republican-led state Senate, which seized voting equipment, including nine tabulating machines used at a central counting facility and 385 precinct-based tabulators, as well as nearly 2.1 million ballots from Maricopa County, with a legislative subpoena in late April. The review is being led by a Florida company called Cyber Ninjas, whose chief executive has echoed Trump’s false claims. Audit organizers have said that they have completed a hand recount but that they will not release results from their review until August. Spokesmen for the audit and for Senate President Karen Fann (R), who ordered the review, did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Maricopa’s announcement.

Full Article: Arizona’s Maricopa County will replace voting equipment, fearful that GOP-backed election review has compromised security - The Washington Post

Arizona: Maricopa County won’t reuse voting equipment that was with Cyber Ninjas for audit | Jen Fifield/Arizona Republic

Maricopa County will not reuse most of its voting equipment after it has been with Arizona Senate contractors for its audit of November election results, the county announced Monday. The potential cost to taxpayers is so far unknown. The county is about half way through a $6.1 million lease with Dominion Voting Systems for the equipment, but it's unclear whether it will have to pay the rest of the money owed under that lease, and whether the county or Senate will be on the hook. The county's Board of Supervisors wrote in a June 28 letter to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs that they share her concerns about whether the hundreds of vote-counting machines that they had to give the Senate's contractors are safe to use, in part considering the contractors are not certified to handle election equipment in the United States. The Senate got the voting machines, as well as nearly 2.1 million ballots and voter information from the Nov. 3 election in April after issuing subpoenas and after a judge ruled the subpoenas were valid. The Senate handed the machines over to contractors in an attempt to tell whether they had been hacked or manipulated during the election, even though a previous independent audit commissioned by the county found that was not the case and the machines counted votes properly. Hobbs had written in a May 20 letter to the county's Board of Supervisors, recorder and Elections Department director that if the county tries to use the machines again, even if it performs a full analysis in an attempt to determine whether the machines were still safe to use, her office would "consider decertification proceedings." In Arizona, voting systems must be certified to be used in elections.

Full Article: Maricopa County will get new voting machines after Senate's election audit

In Arizona, G.O.P. Lawmakers Strip Power From a Democrat | Michael Wines/The New York Times

The Republican-controlled State Legislature in Arizona voted Thursday to revoke the Democratic secretary of state’s legal authority in election-related lawsuits, handing that power instead to the Republican attorney general. The move added more discord to the politics of a state already roiled by the widely derided move by Senate Republicans to commission a private firm to recount the vote six months after the November election. And it was the latest in a long series of moves in recent years by Republicans to strip elected Democrats of money and power in states under G.O.P. control. The measure was part of a grab bag of proposals inserted into major budget legislation, including several actions that appeared to address conspiracy theories alleging manipulated elections that some Republican lawmakers have promoted. One of the items allotted $500,000 for a study of whether social media sites tried to interfere in state elections by promoting Democrats or censoring Republicans. The State House approved the legislation late Thursday. It now goes to Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, who has the power to accept or reject individual parts of the measure. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Mark Brnovich have sparred before over election lawsuits, with Mr. Brnovich arguing that Ms. Hobbs would not adequately defend the state against suits, some of them filed by Democrats, that seek to broaden access to the ballot. Ms. Hobbs has denied the charge. The bill approved on Thursday gives Mr. Brnovich’s office exclusive control of such lawsuits, but only through Jan. 2, 2023 — when the winners of the next elections for both offices would be about to take power. The aim is to ensure that the authority given to Mr. Brnovich would not transfer to any Democrat who won the next race for attorney general.

Full Article: In Arizona, G.O.P. Lawmakers Strip Power From a Democrat - The New York Times

Arizona audit leader Doug Logan appears in conspiracy theorist election film | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

The CEO of a Florida-based firm chosen to conduct the review of Maricopa County’s election results appeared in a conspiracy theorist film riddled with falsehoods about the 2020 election and directed by a man whose previous work claimed aliens were behind 9/11. Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan had previously been speculated to be the voice behind “Anon,” in the film “The Deep Rig,” which was confirmed at the Saturday premiere of the film when he was revealed to be the voice of the anonymous person mid-way through the movie. “The Deep Rig” seeks to prove that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Donald Trump, a claim that the former president and many of his supporters have echoed despite a total lack of evidence. Former Overstock.com CEO and Trump ally Patrick Byrne is the main star of the film, which is based on a book Byrne wrote. Byrne is the founder of a Florida-based 501(c)(4) that is aiming to raise $2.8 million to fund the Arizona audit. Former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, whom Senate President Karen Fann appointed as a liaison for the self-styled audit she ordered of the county’s election results, previously told Arizona Mirror that he didn’t know if any other members of the audit participated in the film other than himself.

Full Article: Audit leader Doug Logan appears in conspiracy theorist election film

Arizona ‘audit’ security practices revealed in fresh records | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

Documents released by the Arizona Senate shed new light on agreements between the legislative chamber and the groups providing private security services to the audit of Maricopa County's 2020 election results. Among the documents is a contract requiring the Senate to make a $20,000 "contribution" to the Arizona Rangers, a nonprofit law enforcement support agency. Mike Droll, the State Commander for the Arizona Rangers, said he wasn't sure if the Senate had paid the money and said it was the only agreement between the Rangers and the Senate he was aware of. The documents were obtained under Arizona public records law and published by American Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog organization. The Phoenix New Times reported that the Senate has only made one payment in relation to the audit, and it is not to the Arizona Rangers. "We are out there to donate our services and time to the community," Droll said to the Arizona Mirror, adding that the agreement "wasn't contingent on how many hours of service" the organization's members provided. The agreement between the Rangers and the Senate is signed by Droll and Senate President Karen Fann, and strikes out the word "compensation" and replaces it with the hand-written word "contribution.

Full Article: Arizona 'audit' security practices revealed in fresh records

Arizona election audit could lead to executions, if OAN gets its way | Laurie Roberts/Arizona Republic

We now approach the end game of Arizona’s election audit which – in some minds, at least – is not just about exposing the (supposed) conspiracy to overthrow Donald Trump. Next up: Mass executions. The Daily Beast reports a One America News Network host is calling for the execution of potentially thousands of Americans who he claims were involved in stealing the election in Arizona and elsewhere. OAN is the far-right media outlet that is working as the official broadcast sponsor of the Arizona Senate’s audit. It’s bad enough that Senate President Karen Fann’s “unbiased, independent” auditors have teamed up with a fringe media outlet that has led the charge in peddling conspiracy theories, one whose reporter, Christina Bobb, is a former Trump administration official who is now raising money to help fund the audit. Now Arizona’s audit partner is telling us that “radical Democrats left fingerprints all over the country, providing a trail of evidence that the 2020 election was not only tampered with, but was actually overthrown.” The host goes on to suggest potentially thousands of people should be executed once the evidence of their “coup” is unearthed in Arizona and in other audits that will follow. Gee, and here I thought Fann told us the audit was simply about determining if Arizona’s election laws need to be tightened.

Full Article: Arizona election audit could lead to executions, if OAN gets its way

Arizona ‘Auditors’ promised to screen workers, but QAnon promoters and Capitol rioters were hired | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

The Arizona election 'audit' has employed a failed candidate who has espoused QAnon beliefs and a man who was at the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot of Donald Trump supporters who tried, but failed, to overturn the election. The Arizona Mirror was able to identify the audit workers through their social media postings, media coverage of the audit and through interviews with people who know them. How they were hired is unclear, and their work on the audit — where they both counted ballots and worked as “observers” tasked with monitoring the proceedings — flies in the face of the pledge that audit leaders made to ensure conspiracy theorists and those who spread falsehoods about election fraud in 2020 wouldn’t be allowed near the 2.1 million ballots being recounted. Auditors insisted in April that all volunteers would face a background check, including an examination of their social media postings. “Everybody went through a full background check. (We) made sure there was nothing on their social media to make sure they had no wrong opinions one way or the other,” Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan said at an April 22 press conference the day before the audit began. It isn’t clear whether those background checks actually happened or if they have been imposed consistently throughout the months-long audit, which has run weeks behind schedule and faced staffing shortages. Audit spokespeople professed not to know or didn’t answer the Arizona Mirror’s questions about who was hired.

Full Article: 'Auditors' promised to screen workers, but QAnon promoters and Capitol rioters were hired

Arizona: Beyond bamboo and watermarks: The unconventional ways election auditors are searching for fraud | Jen Fifeld/Arizona Republic

Workers are wrapping up the recount of nearly 2.1 million ballots in the ongoing audit of the Maricopa County general election and have moved on to physically inspecting each ballot. Contractors hired by Arizona Senate Republicans, who commissioned the audit, are taking a high-resolution image of each ballot with a DSLR camera and then using a microscope camera to take up-close photos of specific areas of the ballot. This, they say, will tell them whether the ballot is authentic. No voter fraud was uncovered in previous audits by Maricopa County, though, and a lawsuit claiming there were fraudulent ballots was dismissed. The unconventional and largely unexplained inspection work began back in April when the recount began. It has ramped up significantly in an attempt to finish by June 30, when the Senate’s lease at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum expires. Ballot inspectors are studying the oval voters filled in on the presidential race to see whether it was filled in by a person or a machine, and looking at a bullseye mark on the ballot to see how it is aligned — even though the county says that mark is purely for printing purposes and does not impact tabulation, Randy Pullen, a former state GOP chairman who is serving as an audit spokesperson, recently explained to The Arizona Republic. While audit officials initially said ballot inspectors were looking for watermarks and bamboo, workers stopped looking for watermarks shortly after the audit began and it's unclear if the search for bamboo was ever truly part of the review.

Full Article: How Arizona election auditors are inspecting Maricopa County's ballots

Arizona: ‘The audit is The Great Awakening’: How QAnon lives on in Maricopa County election audit | Richard Ruellas and Jen Fifield/Arizona Republic

It’s not as if Q is spinning ballots around on turntables or waving them under ultraviolet lights. But Q is definitely at work on the floor of Veterans Memorial Coliseum where all 2.1 million general election ballots cast in Arizona’s most populous county are being audited. Q’s influence is not obvious, perhaps as cryptic as Q's postings that claimed the looming takedown of a global cabal, words that spawned the wide-ranging QAnon conspiracy theory. Q is in the thoughts of those standing in 100-plus-degree heat outside the Phoenix arena where the audit is taking place, cheering on the work inside. Q is the reason ultraviolet lights were briefly employed as part of the audit. Q has provided a sustaining energy atypical for supporters of a losing candidate. Q has been in the background in the aftermath of Election Day, when devotees joined the crowd who rallied outside Maricopa County’s election headquarters, aiming to stop the stealing of the election they were certain was happening inside. Q followers barraged elected officials with pleas for this audit. And when Republican leaders in the state Senate ordered the audit, they hired a company whose CEO had shared QAnon-related messaging on social media. Since 2017, Q had guided followers to expect former President Donald Trump to save the world from a secretive cabal of sex trafficking and pedophile government officials before he left office.

Full Article: QAnon movement clings to Arizona election audit as next hope

Arizona audit: Election experts offer challenge to Cyber Ninjas: We can count ballots without opening boxes | Ryan Randazzo/Arizona Republic

Election experts — including the founder of a national auditing company and a prominent Pima County Republican — have a proposal to dispel conspiracy theories about fraud in the 2020 election in Maricopa County. They also have a message for Cyber Ninjas, the company running the Arizona recount effort: "Put up or shut up." The experts made a formal offer to Senate President Karen Fann on Tuesday to prove the election was sound. The proposal is getting attention from those working at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Here's the offer: The experts say that if the Senate selects a box of unopened ballots (any box), the team could within minutes provide an accurate count of each race on all 1,000 or so ballots inside — without ever opening it. They would do this, they said, using public data they obtained from Maricopa County, that includes spreadsheets on batches of ballots as they were tabulated in November. The proposal sounds like a card trick where a magician asks an audience member to think of a card and then pulls it from the deck. But there's no sleight of hand involved, they say.

Full Article: Arizona audit: Election experts challenge Fann, Cyber Ninjas on count