The following lays out every event that has happend with the Audit of Maricopa County since it began on April 24, 2021. It took months of legal wrangling before it reached this point. For that story click here for Part 1: Election Day to Forensic Audit: How Did We Get Here?
To skip to the problems the Forensic Audit has found scroll down to May 12.
April 24, 2021: Forensic Audit begins
After months of still-ongoing legal wrangling, to very little fanfare the Forensic Audit begins. It is reported sparingly and completely ignored by most media. The Forensic Audit is broadcast live via nine cameras for anyone to watch, links to the feeds are hosted on AZAUDIT.ORG, a website created specifically for the Forensic Audit.
All of the legal manoeuvring from this point forward is happening while the audit is taking place.
April 29: Judge rules against Democratic Party of Arizona and in favor of Arizona Senate's Forensic Audit
On April 29, six days after the latest lawsuit was filed, the Judge ruled against the emergency restraining order with a condition that the Cyber Ninjas must release documents detailing their audit procedures. The remaining issues in the lawsuit are still pending. The following day, per court order, the Cyber Ninjas release 191 pages of documents.
On the same day, the Brennan Center For Justice sends a letter to the Department of Justice requesting their involvement in the audit.
One day later, on April 30, Ken Bennet, Senate Liaison, writes a letter to Maricopa County Attorney's office asking the County to "provide additional passwords, user names, and/or security keys utilized with the County’s precinct based tabulators."
May 3: Routers and administrator passwords are missing from delivered materials
In regards to the request for passwords the Maricopa County Attorney's Office responded that nobody from the county government has the passwords being requested. This password is theoretically required to access the "guts" of the electronic voting equipment, something a Forensic Audit would need to examine.
Additionally, the same letter states that the subpoenaed routers were not delivered to the Forensic Audit due to ongoing concerns with private data stored on the routers.
May 5: Lawsuit from April 22 is settled, strongly worded letters delivered, Forensic Audit Volunteers sign non-disclosure agreement
Regarding the April 22 lawsuit, a settlement agreement is reached which allows the audit to continue so long as several demands made of the auditing team are followed, the parties agree to the following:
- Cyber Ninjas will not compare early ballot envelope signatures with those in the voter registration files;
- Auditors will allow news reporters freer access to the recount;
- Auditors will continue to allow the Secretary of State to send observers to the recount; and,
- Auditors will continue to abide by all of the policies and procedures which they submitted to the court last week.
Also on May 5, One America News Network ("OANN") reports that the Forensic Audit Volunteers have signed Non-Disclosure Agreements ("NDA").
A letter from Pamela Karlan, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice arrives to the Arizona Senate President, Karen Fann. The letter details concerns regarding the Cyber Ninja's ability to adhere with federal laws regarding voting records. At the end of the letter Pamela Karlan requests Karen Fann respond with details on how the concerns are being addressed.
Arizona Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs sends a letter to Arizona Senate Audit Liaison Ken Bennett. The letter outlines 13 points of concern regarding observed procedures accusing the process of being insecure and putting voter privacy at risk, among other charges.
May 6: Cyber Ninjas release statement
May 7: Arizona Senate threatens to subpoena each individual member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
Early in the morning, Attorney for the Arizona GOP sends an email to the relevant parties threatening to subpoena all members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the Elections Director. It would require them to testify for the Senate on the reasons for their failure to hand over the routers and passwords.
The subpoena threat resulted in a slew of responses from various parties:
- The Maricopa County Attorney's office responds by reiterating the County does not have the passwords and also details the reasons for failing to deliver the routers.
- Jack Sellers, Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors releases a statement full of various excuses for not delivering the routers and passwords.
- Arizona Maricopa County Sherriff Paul Penzone releases a statement stating the routers contain sensitive law enforcement data that can't risk being in the hands of the Cyber Ninjas.
- The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors post notice of an Emergency Meeting to discuss the Arizona Senate's subpoena threat.
Also on that day:
Arizona Senate President Karen Fann responds to the Department of Justice. In essence, Karen Fann states the Department of Justice's concerns are misplaced, no laws are being broken, and voter privacy is secure.
Senate Lisason, Ken Bennett, responds to Katie Hobbs, Arizona Secratary of State wherein he rebuffs all of her concerns with facts and evidence. Additionally he states that her letter "reads like a political press release calculated to undermine a process which you have opposed since its inception." Source
May 10: Arizona Senate votes not to subpoena the individual members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Republican Senator Paul Boyer voted with Democrats against issuing the subpoena, causing failure of the contempt resolution. Had the measure passed successfully, all five members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors would have been subject to immediate arrest.
May 11: Kenn Hobbs announces close to 275,000 ballots have been audited. Katie Hobbs' attorneys send letter to Forensic Audit attorneys.
One America News interviews Kenn Hobbs, Senate Liaison who announces close to 275,000 ballots have been audited, putting the Forensic Audit team close to the 10% mark.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs' attorneys send a letter to the Arizona Senate Forensic Audit attorneys with accusations that the ballots are not secured. Among a list of other concerns, one in particular relates to securing the materials during the pause of the audit which is scheduled between May 15 and May 24.
May 12: Contract to use Veterans Memorial Coliseum is secured through June 30
May 12: Cyber Ninjas discover ENTIRE DATABASE files were DELETED from voting machines on April 12, other serious problems reported
Karen Fann, President of the Arizona State Senate sent a letter to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors listing several serious concerns being discovered by the Forensic Audit regarding the subpoenaed materials.
These are the main issues raised in the letter:
Database files deleted from machines on April 12:
Several database files were deleted from the machines on April 12. It appears data recovery software was used indicating that perhaps many files were restored:
"[This] image ... shows the location of the files known to be deleted. In addition, the main
database for “Results Tally and Reporting” is not present." Source
Chain of Custody and Ballot Organization Anomalies:
The list below, from the letter, gives a picture that when the materials arrived they were somewhat of a mess and rather disorganized:
The County [did] not provid[e] any chain-of-custody documentation for the ballots.
The bags in which the ballots were stored are not sealed
Batches within a box are frequently separated by only a divider without any indication of the corresponding batch numbers.
Most of the ballot boxes were sealed merely with regular tape and not secured by any kind of tamper-evident seal.
The audit team has encountered a significant number of instances in which there is a disparity between the actual number of ballots contained in a batch and the total denoted on the pink report slip accompanying the batch.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20706832/5-12-21-letter-to-maricopa-county-board-1.pdf
The letter calls for the anyone with information regarding the listed concerns to attend a meeting on May 18th, 2021 at 1:00pm which will be live streamed to the public.
May 13: President Trump releases statement regarding Karen Fann's letter:
May 13: Maricopa County Board of Supervisors holds Emergency Meeting to discuss allegations in Karen Fann's May 12 letter.
Statement from Jack Sellers, Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors released after attending the Emergency Meeting:
May 14:
- Maricopa County Board of Supervisors announces a public meeting to discuss the allegations in Karen Fann's letter. They are holding their meeting on Monday, the day before the meeting they have been invited to attend.
- Ken Bennet, Arizona Senate Forensic Audit Liaison gives an interview to One America News Network stating 350,000 - 400,000 ballots have been audited.
- Dominion Voting Systems releases a statement in response to the Arizona Senate request for admin passwords. Dominion said they provided the passwords to the audit teams hired by the county, but will not be giving them to the Senate's audit team. Interestingly enough, the audit team hired by the County denied getting the passwords from Dominion and said they received them from the County.
- Clint Hickman, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors says he will not attend meeting on the 5/18/2021, with the implication that nobody from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will be attending.
May 15
- President Trump releases another statement about the deleted databases.
- Arizona Senate considers expanding audit to all races. This would mean checking all the votes for every candidate on the ballots, as opposed to just looking at the votes for President, as is their current mandate.
May 17
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors hold Special Meeting, send a whopping fourteen page letter to Karen Fann, President of Arizona Senate refuting all allegations as misunderstandings. The letter is peppered with smarmy sarcasm and reads like its written by a bratty character from a 90's movie. Amusingly they demand Karen Fann end the audit immediately.
May 18
Karen Fann, President of Arizona Senate holds a live streamed meeting to discuss problems the auditors have found.
The meeting was chaired by Karen Fann, Arizona Senate President and Warren Petersen, Senator. It was attended by the following, representing two companies performing the audit as well as the Senate liaison:
- Ken Bennett, Senate Liaison
- Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas
- Ben Cotton, founder of CyFIR
No members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors attended the meeting. All attendees agreed that their questions remain unanswered as the letter of the previous day did not satisfy the queries.
This concludes Part 2. The audit resumes on Monday, May 24th, daily updates will be in a new article.