General McInerney, [23.04.21 12:18]
Where the FUCK is our military?
https://t.me/GeneralMcInerney/638
Arizona Democrats file last-ditch lawsuit to stop Senate audit of Maricopa County election
by Kaelan Deese, Breaking News Reporter | April 22, 2021 10:41 PM
The Arizona Democratic Party sued to stop the GOP-led state Senate audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County a day before it is set to begin.
A motion, filed on Thursday, requests a temporary restraining order, arguing that the review of the county's voting machines and 2.1 million ballots cast is in violation of state law.
The pair of plaintiffs, which also includes Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, insisted the audit is led by partisan contractors hired by the Republican-led state Senate.
"The sole reason for this lawsuit and injunctions is to protect the sanctity of the ballots and more importantly to preserve voters’ privacy from a sham audit that has been corrupted by agitators and conspiracy theorists," Gallardo tweeted on Thursday.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors already conducted two forensic audits, showing no irregularities in the county's 2020 general election, and agreed to share the election materials with the GOP-led state Senate after it got a favorable ruling from a judge.
Senate President Karen Fann, who is named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit, has said the GOP-led forensic audit would be conducted independently and would be a transparent process aimed at restoring voter confidence after supporters of former President Donald Trump in the state echoed his claims the election was stolen from him due to widespread fraud.
The lawsuit filed by the Arizona Democratic Party and Gallardo, the lone Democrat on the five-member Maricopa Board of Supervisors, expresses concern for ballot security and confidentiality.
The complaint also names the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas, the company tasked to conduct the audit, as a defendant. Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan has reportedly been an active promoter of the "Stop the Steal" movement.
Gallardo also tweeted that the audit would not be "transparent" as Fann had promised earlier this year, adding the audit was being funded by "dark money influencers" who chose an "uncertified and unqualified group" for the process.
The Arizona Senate Democrats released a statement supporting Gallardo's position, saying, "It’s clear that this audit is no more than a temper tantrum from those still upset that they lost the election and it is deeply damaging to the integrity of our elections and our democracy."
Maricopa County initially challenged the Senate GOP subpoena in February for election materials, but a lower-court judge upheld the subpoena. The county did not attempt to appeal the subpoena but refused to allow the Senate-led audit to be conducted on county property.
The audit, which was expected to go on for weeks, is slated to begin Friday at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, and the transportation of the election materials began earlier in the week. A hearing on the filing is set for Friday morning. Arguments will be heard by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/arizona-democrats-file-lawsuit-to-stop-senate-audit
Judge pauses Trump-backed 2020 election audit in Arizona
by Kaelan Deese, Breaking News Reporter |
Arizona Democrats scored a victory as a judge ordered a temporary pause of a GOP-led state Senate audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona, that was to begin on Friday.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury ruled that the review of voting machines and 2.1 million ballots, which has the backing of former President Donald Trump, should be put on hold at 5 p.m. local time until Monday at noon, allowing the Republicans to have time to appeal.
The plaintiffs who filed the suit on Thursday, including the Arizona Democratic Party and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, have to provide a $1 million bond by 5 p.m. to protect the audit team from financial losses.
"I do not want to micromanage and it is not the posture of this court to micromanage or even to manage the process by which another branch of government, the Legislature, the Arizona state senate proceeds," the judge said.
In making his ruling, Coury noted, in part, local reporting that raised security concerns about the venue for the audit, which is the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, where election materials were transported this week. Earlier in the day, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs cited that reporting in asking the Arizona attorney general to investigate whether there were any violations of state law.
The judge said the audit must comply fully in all respects with Arizona law, requesting the Republican-led Senate and Cyber Ninjas, an auditing firm, to present their procedures for the 2020 election audit over the weekend.
Roopali Desai, a lawyer for Gallardo and the Democratic Party, said during the hearing Friday that blue pens were distributed to workers inside the facility because the audit firms said blue marks could not be read by ballot processing machines.
However, blue ink is a permissible way to mark a ballot when voting, according to the Arizona Republic. The state's election procedures manual requires only red pens to be used during audits to ensure ballots are not tampered with or manipulated. The presence of blue pens at the facility was reported by a journalist for the outlet who was observing the audit on Friday.
Kory Langhofer, an attorney for the defense, said the Arizona Senate has legislative immunity and argued that the separation of powers prevents the courts from halting the recount.
Democratic state Sen. Martin Quezada posted to Twitter saying Republican Senate President Karen Fann, who is leading the audit efforts and is a defendant in the lawsuit, should call off the recount.
"We are venturing into dangerous ground here," he said.
Trump released a statement praising the "brave and patriotic" Senate Republicans for pursuing the audit, an endeavor that was buffeted by his claims of 2020 election fraud.
"Why are the Democrats so desperate to stop this Election Fraud from being revealed? That answer is obvious!" he said.
Democrats argue that the results from two previous audits conducted by the GOP-majority Maricopa County Board of Supervisors showed no irregularities in the county's 2020 election, calling it a "dangerous fishing expedition" that could do damage to the sanctity of the secret ballot.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/judges-pauses-trump-2020-election-audit-arizona-maricopa-county
that water witch bottom of page is a blinking seizure. bucket plz.
Maricopa County supervisor Steve Gallardo, alleges the audit is led by partisan contractors and 'dark-money influencers'.
Supervisor Steve Gallardo
@Steve_Gallardo
1/ The sole reason for this lawsuit and injunctions is to protect the sanctity of the ballots and more importantly to preserve voters’ privacy from a sham audit that has been corrupted by agitators and conspiracy theorists. This corrupted process will not be transparent, dark
3:52 PM · Apr 22, 2021·Tall Tweets
https://twitter.com/Steve_Gallardo/status/1385366019791806466?s=20
Replying to
@Steve_Gallardo
2/ money influencers have handed picked the folks to observe and witness the “audit” that will be conducted by an uncertified and unqualified group.
https://twitter.com/Steve_Gallardo/status/1385366024862715911?s=20
azmirror.com
Dems won’t post $1M bond, so election audit won’t be paused
Jeremy Duda
A brief weekend pause in the Arizona Senate’s election audit that a judge ordered on Friday won’t happen because the Arizona Democratic Party declined to put up a $1 million bond that the judge requested to cover any expenses that the Senate wrongfully incurs due to the halt.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury ruled that the audit must halt from 5 p.m. Friday to noon on Monday. But that order was contingent on the Arizona Democratic Party, which brought the lawsuit seeking to block the audit, posting a $1 million bond to cover any expenses that the Senate wrongfully incurs due to the delay. The Senate’s lease of Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where the audit is being conducted, ends on May 14.
Roopali Desai, the Democrats’ attorney, said the party won’t put up the bond. That means the audit will continue uninterrupted.
Nonetheless, the audit will still have to comply with several other orders Coury issued during a hearing on Friday.
""The judge ordered the Senate and its audit team to comply with all laws governing the right to a secret ballot and the confidentiality of voter registration data, and to provide copies of all relevant policies and procedures to the court, which the audit team has never made public. He also ordered that the auditors use only red pens on the audit floor, an issue that came up after an Arizona Republic reporter who’s working as a volunteer observer noted that the auditors were using blue pens.
State election rules require that only red pens be used near ballots because the tabulation machines that are used to count them will read any markings made in blue or black ink.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday afternoon, the Democratic Party and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo alleged that the audit was unlawful because the Senate and its contractors were violating various laws regarding the confidentiality of ballots and voter registration data, and had failed to abide by other requirements on election procedures.
Attorney Kory Langhofer, who represents the Senate, argued that the lawsuit should be barred by lawmakers’ legislative immunity from being served with lawsuits during the legislative session. He also argued that the Democratic Party and Gallardo lack standing to sue, and that the lawsuit violates the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches.
Langhofer told the Arizona Mirror that the Senate will still appeal the ruling to defend lawmakers’ right to legislative immunity during the session. A hearing with a duty justice of the Arizona Supreme Court is scheduled for 3 p.m.
Coury ordered the attorneys to file briefings over the weekend on the legislative immunity, separation-of-powers and standing arguments, and will hold another hearing at 11 a.m. Monday.
Desai argued in the lawsuit that, in addition to the laws protecting ballot secrecy and voter registration information, the Senate and its audit team are ignoring other requirements in state statute and the secretary of state’s election procedures manual, which has the force of law, that govern other aspects of the election process.
For example, Desai noted in the lawsuit that the manual requires counties to ensure that election workers have training in signature verification, which is used to confirm the identities of voters who cast early ballots. She argued that the Senate’s auditors aren’t following that requirement.
Langhofer said Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based cybersecurity company that’s leading the Senate’s audit team, is contractually bound to follow all applicable state and federal laws, including on issues like the confidentiality of voter data. But not all of the laws that the Democrats cited are relevant, he said.
“A lot of (election procedures manual) procedures they cited just don’t apply here,” Langhofer said.
The Senate’s attorneys also said that the auditors who are counting the 2.1 million ballots from the election in Maricopa County are bound by non-disclosure agreements to keep the information they see confidential, which the Senate and its audit team had never publicly disclosed prior to Friday’s court hearing.
***UPDATED: This story has been updated to include additional information from the court hearing.
https://www.azmirror.com/2021/04/23/dems-wont-post-1m-bond-so-election-audit-wont-be-paused/
as the world turns..