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Arizona’s Anticipated Audit Draft Report Spurs Pre-Rebuttals
With the anticipated release of the draft report of the Maricopa County forensic audit to the Senate team on Monday, two high profile Arizona officials have publicly submitted their “pre-rebuttals.” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer hope to convince the public that “nobody stole Maricopa County’s election.”
In an effort to discredit the Senate’s independent forensic audit Hobbs in her 46-page anticipatory rebuttal, wrote:
“Despite the overwhelming evidence of a secure election and a complete lack of evidence to support claims of systemic fraud, there are those at the national, state, and local levels who dismiss the validity of these tests and refuse to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Instead, they offer outlandish, unsubstantiated theories of fraud, perpetuating disinformation that continues to simultaneously undermine the results of a free and fair election and erode public confidence in the democratic process.
Embracing these conspiracy theories, Arizona Senate President Karen Fann pursued further review of the election in Maricopa County. Despite frequent references to this review as an audit, the exercise undertaken by the Arizona Senate’s Florida-based contractor, Cyber Ninjas, fails to meet industry standards for any credible audit, much less for an election audit. The Senate’s contractors demonstrated a lack of understanding of election processes and procedures both at a state and county level. This exercise is more accurately described as a partisan review of the 2020 General Election ballots in Maricopa County, the results of which are invalid and unreliable for a number of reasons, which are outlined in this report.”
Hobbs then goes on to “prove” that the state’s “multiple checks, reviews, and audits of the election confirmed the security and integrity of the process, as well as the accuracy of the results.”
Pre-election logic and accuracy testing, statistical post-election reviews, a post-election hand count “of ballots from 2% of the Election Day vote centers and 5,000 early ballots,” and additional post-election logic and accuracy as well as additional post-election audits “comprised of three separate audits” in February of the ballot tabulation equipment used in the 2020 election.
“Maricopa County officials concluded: ‘The combination of these findings, along with the pre- and post-election logic and accuracy tests performed by election officials, the post-election hand count performed by the political parties, and the many security protocols implemented by the Elections Department, confirm that Maricopa County’s Elections Department’s configuration and setup of the voting equipment and election management system provided an accurate counting of ballots and reporting of results,’” Hobbs wrote.
Hobbs then proceeded to disparage the Senate Republicans further, stating in a bolded heading that their “review” was “secretive and disorganized.” Under that heading, Hobbs supports the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ failure to respond to subpoenas. The board is under investigation by Attorney General Mark Brnovich at the request of Senate Whip Sonny Borelli. She also criticizes the auditors, led by Cyber Ninjas, for its lack of access and transparency—even though they have appeared several times in front of the Senate to discuss the audit—have encouraged bi-partisan participation in the audit, and plastered the arena with cameras that documented every step of the process taking place over the months the audit was housed in the Coliseum.
Hobbs also alleges lack of compliance with federal law stating, “the Senate, and its agents, including the contractors, failed to comply with the custodial duties to protect and maintain federal election materials”—all patently untrue.
Interestingly, the Maricopa Board of Supervisors (BOS) required that the auditors move all the materials to the coliseum despite Senate President Karen Fann wanting the machines and ballots to stay at the County’s facilities so that chain of custody issues would never come into question.