On Friday, Arizona State Sen. Karen Fann announced that information discovered by the Senate’s auditors of the 2020 Maricopa County general election would be turned over to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for review and possible prosecution. Fann’s announcement was made during the opening comment portion of the hearing held on Friday in which the auditors presented their preliminary findings.
Despite some disturbing revelations, Fann, her co-chair Sen. Warren Petersen, and Senate Liaison to the audit, former Arizona Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, rejected calls for the election to be decertified and acknowledged that there was no concrete evidence that the gross mismanagement of the election by Maricopa County would have altered the outcome of the election.
“Our number one goal is to make sure those laws have been followed. Our number one goal is to make sure we have election integrity here – that when you go to the polls you know that your ballot was counted, and it was counted fairly and it was counted accurately, and other people that shouldn’t be voting were not voting. That’s what this is all about,” said Fann of the audit.
“I’m very disappointed to see that Maricopa County refused to cooperate with us,” said Fann. “I went to them right off the bat. I asked them, please, let’s pick an auditor jointly together. Let’s do this together as a team. Let’s do it at your facilities. Don’t move the ballots. Don’t move the machines. Let’s do it right there under your jurisdiction. They originally said ‘yes, we would do that.’ Then after going into executive session, came out and said, ‘nope. We are not going to do that.’ So not only did they not cooperate with us. They even went so far as to sue us. To sue the Senate. Because they said we had no right in auditing — auditing. Well, they’re wrong. We do have that right. And we have that right to speak up for our constituents and our people and our voters, and that’s what we are doing.”
“Our number one goal is to make sure those laws have been followed. Our number one goal is to make sure we have election integrity here – that when you go to the polls you know that your ballot was counted, and it was counted fairly and it was counted accurately, and other people that shouldn’t be voting were not voting. That’s what this is all about,” said Fann of the audit.
In Fann’s letter to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, she called on him to open a criminal probe over “several items in the reports that merit the attention of your office” regarding the Maricopa County Election Audit.
Senator Fann listed in the letter the “most urgent issues” to date which were found during the extensive forensic audit.
Because the County has refused to cooperate with the Senate, the auditors were careful to craft their statements in such a way as to allow for further or alternative explanations for the County’s actions should more information become available. Auditors were also careful to avoid drawing affirmative conclusions due to gaps in the information provided by the County.
The County’s refusal to cooperate has resulted in the assignation of a Special Master by the Court to ensure that withheld information is eventually provided to auditors.
Dear Attorney General Brnovich,
I have attached the reports delivered earlier today to the Arizona State Senate concerning the Maricopa County forensic election audit. In the history of democracies from ancient Athens to today, ours was the most detailed, demanding, and uncompromising election audit that has ever been conducted. The auditors spent more than 100,000 hours and millions of dollars for viewing the ballots, voting machines, and data patterns. Arizona voters had serious concerns about their election, and they were entitled the most careful and accurate answers possible.
Several of the auditors’ findings are concerning because they suggest less-than-perfect adherence to the Arizona standards and best pet practices. In my view the most urgent issues include the following:
1)The Signature verification process for absentee ballots is in perfect requires improvement and additional testing. Signatures on mail in ballot should not be accepted unless they closely match the voter’s authenticated signatures that are on file.
2) Voter rolls require constant, unrelenting maintenance. This process should identify and correct voter registration information for individuals, who move, are deceased, or registered more than once. Relatedly, records of voter turnout, ballots issued, ballots counted, and vote totals should facially reconcile with one another.
3) Election technology and machinery is too complicated and important to be overseen by amateurs. The audit found that Maricopa County failed to take basic cyber security precautions for securing election systems. Best practices and guidelines are published by the US Department Of Homeland Security Cyber Security And Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is available to counties at no cost. In light of these failures, our state should have specialist (or team of specialists) to ensure that strict cyber security protocols are always followed. That is not an unreasonable expectation when modern elections depend on
4) No private company should be trusted with the keys to our democracy. If a county doesn’t even have the administrator passwords for its vote-counting machines, the county cannot properly monitor its own elections.
5) Election officials must ensure that all evidence is preserved and that a top-to-bottom audit of an election is possible when warranted. The audit found that Maricopa County overrode the entire activity log in its Election Management System. This was accomplished by turning more than 37,000 identical queries seven days after the court ordered Maricopa County to produce its election materials to the Arizona State Senate. Maricopa County also failed to provide documentation sufficient to reconcile duplicated ballots to corresponding original ballots, refused to cooperate with the audit, and directed its vendors not to cooperate with the audit either. Our laws should require transparency and affirmative cooperation from every elected official.
Fann concluded, “Arizona voters deserve an unimpeachable electoral process – and the State Senate is already working hard a new legislation to deliver that.”
“As the Senate enters that next phase there are several items in the reports that merit the attention of your office. I’m there for forwarding the reports for your office’s consideration, and if you find it appropriate, further investigation as part of your ongoing oversight of these issues.
Audit Reports:
View Bennett Presentation HERE
View Pullen Presentation HERE
View Cotton Presentation HERE
View Cyber Ninjas Presentation 1 HERE
View Cyber Ninjas Presentation 2 HERE