While the public awaits the Arizona Senate’s report on how Maricopa County conducted the 2020 General Election, one senator is demanding Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich investigate the actions of the county’s board of supervisors in connection to the audit.
On Tuesday, Sen. Sonny Borelli (R-LD5) formally called on the attorney general to launch an investigation of the county board’s refusal to fully comply with Senate subpoenas issued in January and July as part of the audit. State law obligates Brnovich, also a Republican, to determine within 30 days whether the county has violated state statutes.
Should a violation of state law have occurred, Maricopa County could lose its portion of Arizona’s shared sales taxes. As of June 30, the county had benefited from shared sales taxes to the tune of $700 million, according to public records.
Borelli was not the only state lawmaker upset Tuesday by Maricopa County’s official attitude toward the Senate audit.
Rep. Jake Hoffman (R-LD12) accused the board of supervisors of engaging in “one of the most divisive and dangerous subversions of government” ever witnessed in Arizona.
“The Board’s blatant disregard for the Constitution and public mockery of the lawful oversight of elections by the Arizona legislature is not only disrespectful, it undermines the very fabric of our Republic,” Hoffman added. “Through its obstructionism, lack of transparency, and outright trampling of the Constitution, the Board of Supervisors has effectively spit in the face of every voter in Maricopa County and this state.”
Hoffman’s statement was in response to ongoing comments by Jack Sellers, the Republican chair of the county board, who has been openly critical of the Senate’s audit.
On Monday, Sellers chastised the Senate for hiring auditors with “no experience and little understanding” of how elections are run. He also characterized the audit as an “adventure in never-never land.”
“If you haven’t figured out that the election in Maricopa County was free, fair, and accurate yet, I’m not sure you ever will,” Sellers wrote. “There was no fraud, there wasn’t an injection of ballots from Asia nor was there a satellite that beamed votes into our election equipment.”
Sellers also called on elected officials “to tell the truth and stop encouraging conspiracies” and he challenged the Senate to be prepared to defend any accusations of misdeeds by the county.
“It’s time to move on,” Sellers wrote at the end of his letter.
Sellers’ tone and tenor is the norm for public comments issued by county officials about the audit, including a July 16 tweet by @MaricopaCounty which called the audit contractors “unqualified and untrained.” The tweet also repeated a common county mantra about the unreliability of any data put forth by Cyber Ninjas, the company Fann hired to conduct the Senate’s audit.
In other audit-related news, Judge Michael Kemp of the Maricopa County Superior Court issued an order Tuesday mandating Fann to comply with a request submitted in May for audit-related documents.
American Oversight sued Fann and the Senate after Fann and the Senate’s attorneys denied the non-profit advocacy group access to several audit-related documents via a public record request. The Senate turned over a number of documents, but several were denied on the basis that those documents were in the possession of Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractors, thus not qualifying as public records.
Kemp turned away Fann’s efforts last month to dismiss American Oversight’s lawsuit. Then on Tuesday, the judge ruled Arizona’s public records law requires the disclosure of the remaining documents.
According to Kemp’s ruling, Cyber Ninjas and its various subcontractor are private companies -not officers or public bodies- but are “clearly agents of the Senate Defendants.” Thus the Senate has a duty “to keep and maintain all records relating to this audit,” including all records of Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractor.
“Whether these public documents are in the actual physical control or possession of Senate Defendants is irrelevant to their duties and obligations,” under Arizona’s public records law, the judge ruled. Kemp added that claims that the senators have not seen the requested Cyber Ninjas documents does not carry water.
“Willful blindness does not relieve Senate Defendants from their duties and obligations” under the public records law, he ruled.
It is expected that the Senate will file with the Arizona Court of Appeals for review of Kemp’s ruling.
Twelve hours after announcing his plans to step down as the liaison for the Arizona Senate’s audit, Ken Bennett says he is back in the good graces of the audit team and will be provided full access so he can assist in review of any reports to the Senate.
Bennett told KFYI’s James T. Harris on Wednesday morning he had become “liaison in name only” and may not even be involved in the preparation of the final audit report into how Maricopa County handled the 2020 General Election because he was locked out of the audit premises by other team members at the directive of Senate President Karen Fann.
But by Wednesday evening, Bennett told colleagues that Fann had agreed to meet several demands to keep Bennett actively involved through the end of the audit. Details of the agreement are to be announced Thursday.
Bennett, a former Arizona Secretary of State, was chosen by Fann to act on her behalf with Cyber Ninjas, the company she contracted to conduct the audit. There have also been several subcontractors.
However, last week Fann became upset that Bennett released some unconfirmed audit data to an election expert, from whom it was released to the media. In addition to the lockout, Fann issued a statement Tuesday scolding Bennett for his actions even though he had publicly apologized several times.
Fann also noted in her statement that Bennett would continue his involvement in the audit which is now in the analysis phase leading up to preparation of final reports. Audit observers say those reports need to have Bennett’s blessing in order for the public to accept any of Cyber Ninjas’ findings.
Bennett, however, told Harris his continued involvement, particularly with any reports, was would not be feasible if he continued to be frozen out of the audit process. “I cannot put a rubber stamp on a product that I am being locked out of its development,” he said.
Fann and Bennett were reportedly finalizing the terms and conditions of Bennett’s continued participation with the audit on Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan announced Wednesday that more than $5.7 million was donated toward the cost of the audit. The funds came from five groups, including one co-founded by OANN reporter Christina Bobb and another connected to Sidney Powell, who served earlier this year as one of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys.
According to Logan, $3.25 million was received from Florida-based The America Project. There was also nearly $977,000 from America’s Future, a non-profit organization chaired by Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, (USA Ret.), along with $605,000 from Bobb’s Voices and Votes.
Another $550,000 was received from Defending The Republic, whose board of directors include Powell, Flynn, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and others who support claims that former President Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election. And $280,000 is reported as coming from the combined Legal Defense Funds for the American Republic and the Election Integrity Funds for the American Republic.
Logan’s company was contracted earlier this year by Fann contracted for a total payment of $150,000. The contract did not preclude Cyber Ninjas or any of the subcontractors from seeking or accepting private funding toward the true cost of the audit, which has involved more than 1,500 workers and volunteers
On Thursday, the Arizona Senate held a hearing on the election audit as it heads into its final days of work. Election auditors testified that they discovered a sweeping variety of discrepancies within the election proceedings, including: ballot numbers and quality, voter rolls, cybersecurity, and signature matching processes. Additionally, the auditors reported that they were still lacking the chain of custody logs and routers, which were included within the Senate’s subpoena. The three audit officials testifying were Senate Liaison Ken Bennett, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, and CyFIR founder Ben Cotton.
Among their findings from over 80,000 hours of work, the auditors testified that they discovered a surplus of over 74,000 mail-in ballots received and counted than were mailed out, 4,000 individuals were registered to vote after the October 15 deadline, over 11,000 voters disappeared from the rolls after the election but reappeared a month later, over 17,000 voters were removed from the voter rolls after the election, thousands of duplicate ballots lacked a serial number, most ballots were vulnerable to over-voting or unintended voting due to being printed out of calibration, election security systems on the machines weren’t updated after 2019, and a sizeable number of ballots were discovered with bleed-throughs.
Notably, only 52 out of around 1,700 boxes of election materials were reportedly secured with tamper-evident tape. The remainder were secured with regular packing tape. Logan assured the Senate that they would return these boxes numbered with new seals of tamper-evident tape.
Cotton explained that system updates on election machines are crucial for cybersecurity. Without updates, any system may grow increasingly vulnerable to hackers. Since the machines weren’t updated after 2019, hackers had several years to breach the system. This may explain the 38,000 inquiries for blank passwords that the auditors reported discovering.
At least one incident of hacking likely occurred with the Maricopa County election systems in the 2020 election. Federal agents raided the home of an individual named Elliot Kerwin on November 5 over intelligence indicating that he’d breached the systems sometime from October up through Election Day.
Maricopa County claimed that it used ballot paper thick enough to prevent bleed-throughs. However, the auditors said that they discovered the opposite was true. Logan said that anything from ballpoint pens to Sharpies could cause bleed-through.
The SharpieGate debacle concerned this very issue. Although several court cases were filed after voters were unsure whether their Sharpied ballots counted, but ultimately that case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.
Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) reminded viewers and the floor that this audit was devoid of political agenda or allegiance to previous President Donald Trump.
When Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) asked the three men what more they would need to finalize their report. Logan responded that they would need the routers, splunk logs, portable media and external drives, chain of custody documents, the network diagram, election management data backups, records of all papers sent to vote centers, the total of all ballots sent to eligible voters, and a full backup copy of the voter rolls.
He added that they would also need copies of the election policies and procedures, including information on ballot adjudication processes. While those documents are available in part to the public, Logan explained that there were more detailed documents given to election officials and workers that they required.
A day before the hearing, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform submitted a letter to Logan requesting information about their audit process, leadership, interactions, and findings. The request letter listed a number of grievances against Cyber Ninjas’ conduct of the audit, citing multiple times their “lack of election audit experience.”
Congress further cited reporting on the audit to bolster their claims of mismanagement. One citation included a reporter’s indication that blue pens were used during the audit in violation of Arizona election law. That reporter later retracted her claim in part, noting that those pens were during training and cleared from the floor before any live ballots were brought out.
Fann offered a parting thought on the resistance by Maricopa County, as well as Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, to this audit.
“I do not know why Maricopa County has fought this so hard,” remarked Fann.
Corinne Murdock is a contributing reporter for AZ Free News. In her free time, she works on her books and podcasts. Follow her on Twitter, @CorinneMurdock or email tips to corinnejournalist@gmail.com
On Tuesday, Republicans were stunned to discover that a popular bill, SCR 1003, had opposition in the Senate. The bill, sponsored by Sen Warren Petersen, passed with the support of all Republican legislators through the Senate earlier in the session.
The bill was amended in the House and needed the nod of the Senate before heading to the governor. However, Sen. TJ Shope, who had previously supported the bill, is now saying he is opposed.
Every Republican supported SCR1003 when it passed the Senate in February. Four months later the House finally sent an amended version back to the Senate. Now we’re hearing that @TJShopeforAZ has flip-flopped, & is blocking it from final passage. Sen. Shope: please support SCR1003 pic.twitter.com/7BWqeBzOKA
Because the bill deals with reining in the governor’s executive powers, Capitol insiders believe Shope’s opposition stems from his allegiance to the governor.
As amended the bill:
1. Authorizes the Governor to proclaim a state of emergency as provided by law.
2. Stipulates that a state of emergency, except for a state of war emergency, terminates by proclamation of the Governor or by concurrent resolution of the Legislature.
3. Directs the Governor to call a special session to assemble the Legislature within 10 days to determine whether to terminate or modify the state of emergency and to address matters by enacting laws or issuing legislative orders.
4. Asserts that legislative orders have the same authority as executive orders.
5. Outlines the powers, processes and procedures of the Legislature when called into a special session during a state of emergency.
6. Specifies that a special session may not adjourn until the state of emergency that caused the special session is terminated.
7. Provides requirements for when the Governor protests any actions due to the issuance of a legislative order or terminations or modifications of an executive order.
8. Prohibits the Governor, if the Legislature terminates a state of emergency, from proclaiming a new state of emergency arising out of the same conditions.
9. Stipulates that if the proclaimed state of emergency is terminated by the Legislature, the Governor may not proclaim a new state of emergency arising out of the same conditions for which the terminated state of emergency was proclaimed.
10. Directs the Secretary of State to submit this proposition to the voters at the next general election
UPDATE: At approximately 8:30 p.m., the Senate passed the primary budget bill and worked until 2:30 a.m. to pass all of the 11 budget bills including the tax cut.
Arizona lawmakers are nearly halfway toward approving what Sen. JD Mesnard calls a “once in a lifetime overhaul” of the state’s tax system, but whether the other half get approves this week is still in question.
As of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Senate had passed 8 of the 11 budget bills on a 16 to 14 margin in a marathon day of amendments, commentary, and votes which was continuing as of press time. Among those eight were appropriation bills for higher education, criminal justice, health, environment, capital outlays, and transportation.
It also included the tax omnibus and revenue bills which are two of the three priorities of the legislature’s majority Republican caucus. And among the legislation were several amendments offered by senators which matched a variety of bills that failed to pass earlier in the session.
One amendment offered to the health budget bill, SB1824, came from Senate President Karen Fann to codify Gov. Doug Ducey’s recent executive order prohibiting COVID-19 vaccinations for community college and university students. It appears, however, that the prohibition is only valid while those vaccinations are offered under “emergency” approval.
That is one of the amended bills the State House is expected to consider on Thursday. None of the budget bills were discussed by the House on Tuesday because 28 of the 29 Democrats in the chamber failed to show up.
The maneuver by the minority party caused a lack of quorum due to the fact four of the 31 Republicans were participating remotely. House rules allow members to vote remotely but for purposes of determining a legal quorum there must be at least 31 representatives present on the floor or in their official House office.
In explaining his support of the budget bills, Mesnard cited several features, including an appropriation toward paying down state pension liabilities. He also noted income taxes will be cut “at a significant amount” which in turn will put Arizona in a positive competitive position.
Throughout Tuesday’s floor session, most of the 14 Democrats in the Senate proposed numerous amendments for how to spend Arizona’s $2.3 billion surplus. Many of the options involved additional funding for lower income residents but were voted down on a 16 to 14 margin.
And some supporters of the Democrats’ amendments suggested the tax cuts contained in the budget bills were disproportionately beneficial to higher income residents.
Sen. Sonny Borrelli said he took many of the Democrats’ comments “as contempt for the rich.”
Earlier in the day the House Committee on Government & Elections gave due pass recommendations to two bills, including SCR1010 which would promote a three-day States’ Convention in September. All seven Republicans on the committee voted for the Sen. Kelly Townsend sponsored bill but indicated they would likely vote against it on the floor.
However, the bill never made it to the full House due to the lack of quorum. The same problem affected Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita’s attempt via SB1431 to bring changes to the citizen advisory committees utilized by flood control districts.
Ugenti-Rita explained there is currently no restrictions on who sits on those committees, which has allowed city officials to hold seats on what is supposed to be a citizen committee. The bill would also mandate all counties with a population of 1.5 million or more must have a citizens committee; the only county which would be impacted by that provision is Maricopa County, even though Pima, Pinal, and Yuma also utilize citizen committees for their flood districts.
