by Corinne Murdock | Sep 17, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The results of the Arizona Senate’s audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results are expected to be released next Friday at 1 pm, according to State Senate Attorney Kory Langhofer. Audit results will include a hand count total of the ballots, a machine count total of ballots to compare the auditing company’s totals against the state’s, and complete analysis of mail-in ballot signatures.
State senators will be the first to lay their eyes on the audit findings prior to a public presentation. The auditing company, Cyber Ninjas, will privately present their findings to Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Peterson (R-Gilbert). Once the other senators have reviewed the report, the judiciary committee will convene formally in a meeting open to the public to discuss the report.
As of press time, neither Fann or the Arizona Republican Party have issued an official statement about this new date for the audit results.
Langhofer revealed the new release date during a hearing on Thursday before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp. The hearing was part of an ongoing lawsuit against the Senate, American Oversight v. Fann, et al., to obtain all communications and documents from Cyber Ninjas. Kemp also ordered Cyber Ninjas and the Senate to produce these records in another lawsuit, Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., v. Arizona State Senate.
Kemp originally ordered Cyber Ninjas to produce the requested records by August 31. However, Kemp granted them more time to turn over the thousands of records following their request.
Cyber Ninjas has faced several delays throughout this audit, which began in April. Most recently, progress halted after their entire team was reportedly infected by COVID-19. The company has also been waiting for Maricopa County election officials to comply with outstanding subpoenas for routers and passwords connected to the voting machines. If the county doesn’t comply by September 27, the state will withhold around $700 million in funding obtained from sales tax revenue.
Those missing items will not be part of this latest report.
Maricopa County argued that they didn’t have to comply with the Senate’s request because the legislative session ended in July. Attorney General Mark Brnovich disagreed. He determined that if the county didn’t comply by the deadline, they would lose out on their millions.
With just one week left before their deadline, the county’s board of supervisors decided to convene to discuss whether they will comply with the Senate’s subpoena. The meeting will take place on Friday.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 11, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Friday, Maricopa County issued an explanatory statement of two claimed fraudulent votes outlined in a new “ghost votes” theory challenging the integrity of the 2020 election. Failed state representative candidate and “Stop the Steal” leader Liz Harris led the investigation, reportedly executed by thousands of volunteers.
These were just two claims of hundreds of thousands made in Harris’s report. The grassroots effort claimed that just over 173,100 votes were “lost or missing,” meaning that the voters never saw records from the county that their mail-in vote was counted, and that nearly 96,400 mail-in votes were cast by voters who didn’t match the associated residential address or who had moved from the address prior to October 2020 – these Harris called “ghost votes.”
Maricopa County officials explained that they investigated two of the purported “ghost vote” addresses personally. They were able to identify the first address as an existing single-family home built in 2005 and located in Goodyear. According to their investigation, four registered voters resided in the home, three of whom voted by mail in the November election.
As for the second address listed by Harris, Maricopa officials explained that the voter in question had reportedly requested their ballot at a temporary address: the site of a formerly functional mobile home that they’d voted from in the 2016 election. The site in question held mobile homes through part of 2020 before the lot was cleared.
As for the remainder of the information, Maricopa County said that they were unable to conduct a more expansive investigation because Harris wouldn’t provide them with the information she’d gathered. The officials noted that they attempted to contact Harris multiple times about her report, but were unable to connect with her.
“The integrity of election and voter registration data is central to the mission of our Office to serve everyone who calls Maricopa County home. The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office have repeatedly asked Ms. Harris to provide details that support the findings of her report,” explained the office. “While we investigate any and all allegations of wrongdoing made, we cannot do so without credible evidence being provided. To date, Ms. Harris has refused to provide the Recorder’s Office or the Assessor’s Office with the kind of information we can use to conduct a full and thorough investigation into the claims made in her report.”
Read Harris’s full report here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Aug 27, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Thursday, Attorney General Mark Bnrovich determined that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS) were in violation of the law for ignoring the State Senate’s subpoena for the ongoing election audit.
Brnovich stated that MCBOS was notified that it must comply with the law. If the election officials still refuse within 30 days, the Arizona Treasurer will withhold state revenue from the county. According to county officials, that would total nearly $700 million.
MCBOS has refused to comply with the Senate’s latest subpoena for reports, findings, and other documents concerning any breaches to the voter registration server, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office systems, or any other aspect of the Maricopa County elections systems within six months of the general election; all ballot envelopes; all user names, passwords, pins, and/or security keys or tokens required to access or otherwise related to any and all ballot tabulation devices; all Maricopa County registered voter records to date and all change histories; routers; and splunk logs, network logs, net flows, or similar data.
MCBOS objected on multiple grounds to the Senate’s subpoena. They argued that the subpoena was unlawful because it was issued when the Senate was out of session; they weren’t given adequate notice; it was overly broad and unduly burdensome; it included records already in the Senate’s custody and control, records the election officials aren’t in possession of, records protected by attorney-client privilege, and records that may not lawfully be produced; wasn’t backed by a Senate vote or Arizona Senate Committee.
The election officials also argued that this subpoena was an abuse of power, or designed merely to harass, and was already mooted by the Senate’s actions.
Brnovich disagreed, concurring with a previous opinion held by the Maricopa County Superior Court.
“Our courts have spoken. The rule of law must be followed,” said Brnovich.
The issue will now go before the Arizona Supreme Court.
The attorney general’s full report is available here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Terri Jo Neff | Aug 7, 2021 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
The arrest of Arizona Sen. Otoniel “Tony” Navarrete (D-LD30) on multiple charges of sexual misconduct with minors has led to demands for his resignation, and many of those making the statements are including information about hotlines for victims of abuse.
Navarrete was taken into custody Thursday on seven felonies involving sexual misconduct with two boys, ages 16 and 13. An initial court appearance was held by video feed in a Maricopa County courtroom Friday at which time a judge set Navarette’s bail at $50,000.
According to court records, the older boy reported multiple incidents of abuse to the Phoenix Police Department on Wednesday. The next day a detective recorded a confrontation call between the boy and Navarrete before making the arrest.
A confrontation call is a common practice used by detectives in sexual abuse cases, particularly with children who cannot confront a suspect in person. The victim is told by a detective what types of things to say and ask in an attempt to obtain incriminating evidence against a suspect to use at trial.
A number of pretrial release conditions were also ordered in Navarrete’s case, including a no-contact order with the two victims as well as all other minors. He must also consent to electronic monitoring if he posts bail.
If convicted of all charges, Navarrete faces a mandatory prison sentence of nearly 50 years.
After the hearing, several public officials called on Navarrete to resign.
“Sen. Navarrete should resign immediately,” Gov. Doug Ducey’s statement read. “These allegations are abhorrent. My prayers are with the young victims and their loved ones during this traumatic time”
The governor’s statement was followed by Senate President Karen Fann.
“These are serious and alarming charges that require Senator Navarrete to step down immediately,” Fann stated Friday afternoon.
Raquel Teran, a state lawmaker and chair of the Arizona Democratic Party also joined the calls for Navarrete’s resignation.
“Like many in our community, I am grieving as more details come out about the charges against my Senate seatmate,” Teran tweeted. “I am calling on Senator Otoniel ‘Tony’ Navarrete to resign immediately. We are elected to protect the most vulnerable, and that begins with our children.
Other Democrats who called for Navarrete to step down Friday are Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Kathy Hoffman, Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Also garnering attention after Thursday’s arrest is a tweet Navarrete made Wednesday morning complimenting US. Senator Mark Kelly, who was critical of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018. Kelly called Kavanaugh “a dangerous choice” for the bench.
Blake Masters, who hopes to be Kelly’s opponent in the 2022 General Election, called out the senator for his silence on Navarrete’s arrest.
Navarrete, who is a member of the Arizona Legislature’s LGBT caucus, was elected to the State House of Representatives for LD30 in 2016. Then in 2018, he was elected to the State Senate, where he was assigned to the Senate’s appropriations, commerce, and health & human services committees during the last legislative session.
His official Senate biography lists his regular job as Deputy Director for Promise Arizona, a nonprofit community-based organization located in Phoenix. As Deputy Director, Navarrete worked to promote policies which “strengthen families and increase civic participation,” the biography reads.
by Corinne Murdock | Jul 16, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
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.
https://twitter.com/AuditWarRoom/status/1415743378776477697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1415743378776477697%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Farizonasuntimes.com%2F2021%2F07%2F16%2Felection-auditors-report-surplus-of-over-74k-mail-in-ballots-4k-voters-registered-after-deadline-18k-voters-removed-from-rolls-following-election%2F
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
