Threats are "completely unacceptable," said Senate President Karen Fann. Republicans passed the bill out of the Senate Government Committee in a 4-3 party-line vote, but it is almost certain to die in a vote of the full Senate or in the House. "This tops the level of constituent interest those issues have. The purpose ofthis audit was to overturn the result of Arizonas presidential election, prove fraud and expose flaws in our election system. Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. All rights reserved. Salmon also said the county didnt cooperate. This means the countys voting equipment is now compromised. This is an important finding because the paper ballots are the best evidence of voter intent and there is no reliable evidence that the paper ballots were altered to any material degree.. 15 Jan 2023 07:03:11 . [1/6]People gather outside Arizona Government building ahead of the announcement of interim findings from a widely criticized audit of the 2020 election in Phoenix, Arizona, September 24, 2021. I have been listening to The Arizona Senate giving an update on the election audit in Maricopa County. So. The full-hand recount of roughly 2.1 million certified ballots cast. More from this show. But he did give the option of letting him see the records first and then deciding. Yes, it seems that Arizona's elusive election fraud has finally been uncovered. I will take all necessary actions that are supported bythe evidence and where I have legal authority, Brnovich said. A judge said Thursday he's not ready to cite the Arizona Senate and its president, Karen Fann, for contempt of court. Official finding or not, Jack Sellers, who chairs the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, seized on the report to say that it exonerates the county's handling of the election. Its not just Logan who will report findings. State laws stipulate that vote audits must be transparent and include more than one political party. An Associated Press review in six states disputed by Trump has found fewer than 475 cases of potential voter fraud, a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 election. Two weeks ago, he demanded the county turn over thousands of signatures and other records after an election conspiracy theorist said he compared signatures from public documents to those on mail-in election envelopes and said many did not match. India to become worlds most populous country. This person will be recognized as the expert in systems administration who provides guidance and internal consulting expertise toward . "As theONLY Arizona Senate Candidate for LD-1 who declared that there WAS Election Fraud in 2020,Steve was attacked for his conviction. Its not a statistically massive difference, but it is a difference. 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Gates said in a statement that the county had handed over thousands of records sought by the attorney general and would respond to the latest request. In addition, there was no sign that any of the computer equipment in the countys Office of Enterprise Technology, which provides computer support for all the huge county departments, was compromised. Conducted by a company founded by an election-fraud conspiracy theorist and Trump supporter, the process is funded mostly by Trump loyalists and fails to meet any of the standards required for official recounts or audits by state law. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs shared a summary of incidents witnesses have noted in the. Situation Update: Keep Calm Babylon Is Falling! That leaves a private canvass conducted by Liz Harris, an unsuccessful legislative candidate. From left, Ben Cotton, Doug Logan and Randy Pullen in the Arizona Senate in 2021. , Yahoo, Yahoo. The latest Arizona headlines, national news events of the day + weather updates. The advice from Chief Deputy Cochise County Attorney Christine Roberts seemed to stun two members of the county board who are pushing the hand-count. Share this post on; Digg; Del.icio.us; I call on Arizona to decertify the election of 2020 and recall the electors, he said, though there appears to be no legal precedent for that. Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said the audit was filled with security lapses, delays, disorganization and a lack of transparency. She said the review failed to meet industry standards for an audit, much less an election audit., And the Arizona Democratic Party already has scheduled a press conference to occur four hours before the report is released, calling it a farcical, conspiracy-driven audit that is a disgrace to our democratic processes., It isnt only Democrats, however, who have raised questions. Its one potential true impact is the lasting damage to our trust in our electoral process., THE HILL 1625 K STREET, NW SUITE 900 WASHINGTON DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 TEL | 202-628-8503 FAX. That edge was enough to overcome Trump support in rural counties, giving Biden a final victory margin of 10,457 votes and the state's 11 electoral votes. Former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who served as the liaison between the Senate and the audit team, characterized the audit team's conclusions as "questions" and "concerns" rather than as definitive findings. "Truth is truth, numbers are numbers," Fann said at a Senate hearing on the review, which found only small variations, yielding 99 additional votes for Biden and 261 fewer votes for Trump. Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, running against Finchem for the Republican nomination for secretary of state, said she supported an audit but that it has been botched, blaming that on total lack of competence by Fann.. Arizona's top elected official Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, in a statement denounced the review as "a political stunt that created massive security risks, cost millions of dollars, and has shaken faith in free and fair elections.". In the recount and audit space, 1,000 votes is, for all intents and purposes, a landslide. Photo: Jeremy Duda/Axios. This commentary has been updated with those tweets. Here is one example of what is going on. He said Ayyadurai has identified a number of those. It wont be as smooth for the report by Ayyadurai, whom Fann added to the audit team midway through the process to examine signatures on the envelopes of the approximately 1.9 million early ballots. A margin of 10,000 votes is an off-the-charts landslide.. Arizona 85003 Main Line: 602-506-3011 ADA Compliance. In a statement released even before the official report was delivered, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R), who is running in a crowded Republican primary to face Kelly in next years elections, promised action. Shadegg then hired three computer experts to review the equipment. , IP, Yahoo. Also, Shiva Ayyadurai, hired as a handwriting expert, will say there are questions about the signatures on some envelopes in which county voters returned early ballots. Inspectors spent days looking closely at the paper on which those ballots were printed, looking for evidence of impropriety some suggested that ballots might have bamboo fibers, evidence of foreign interference. One report will come from Ben Cotton, founder of a firm called CyFIR, who examined the election tabulation equipment that the county surrendered to the Senate under subpoena. Whether the audit gets stopped, or they find no problems, or if they purport to find major problems, all of those will reduce voter confidence. What they found: The "audit" made dozens of allegations of problems with the 2020 election. The news comes as Republican politicians, some angling for higher office, were already declaring that the yet-to-be-seen final report found evidence of fraud. Repeating this kind of action in other states opens the door to a new era where our most important democratic process is undermined because there are two results in an election: the actual results, and the results of the partisan inquisition conducted by the losers. The day after the November 2020 election, the chairs of the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian parties of Maricopa County, Arizona, initiated a routine but important process to safeguard our democracy: a post-election audit. But it isnt fraud. Among the bills killed were measures that would have created new criminal charges for a variety of missteps by election workers and contractors; created new rights for election observers, including the right to question election officials during counting; set new requirements for post-election audits and recordkeeping; required a unique serial number on each ballot. This. BREAKING NEWS: Arizona Audit w/ @KelliWardAZ. The so-called "audit" in Arizona of Maricopa County's 2020 general election ballots started as a court battle between the state Senate and the county board of supervisors. betty crocker brownies in toaster oven. But the report does not specifically say that Biden or Kelly won. Nearly six months after President Joe Biden won Arizona by nearly 10,500 votes and Maricopa County by over 45,100 votes, auditors are set to hand count 2.1 million ballots in the county. Auditors have reportedly scanned ballots with UV lights to look for secret watermarks that conspiracy theorists believe then-President Donald Trumps Department of Homeland Security placed on legitimate ballots to differentiate them from fraudulent ones; theyve also inspected ballots for traces of bamboo to determine if they were imported from Asia. PHOENIX, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden in Arizona's most populous county, a review of results by his allies in the Republican Party has reaffirmed, capping a widely panned effort spurred by Trump's false claims of voter fraud. But, theres no way it can be a 27-point check, Pullen said. Kevin McCarthy Is Speaker, But He's Got A Tough Job Ahead. The recount took several months and resulted in a three-volume report by the Cyber Ninjas, the lead contractor for the Senate. Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. After more than five months and around $6 million (most of it privately raised among Trump supporters), the legendarily ludicrous Arizona audit of the 2020 election results from Maricopa County. Or maybe he intentionally omitted the fact that we are talking about nine whole cases of election fraud. Senate President Karen Fann tells Arizona Supreme Court that judges can't force her to give up the documents now held by Cyber Ninjas. It seems to be prompted by political motivations because the earlier counts and checks didnt produce the outcome that the legislators wanted.. "The Board of Supervisors remains committed to free and fair elections that conform to federal and state laws.". A recount was performed, and the rightful winners were elected. This boondoggle not only fails to meet the standards weve set in place to make audits and recounts a valuable tool for cultivating confidence in our elections but also subverts them to the opposite result. County Recorder Leslie Hoffman said that she is fed up with the nastiness and has accepted a job outside the county. Two of them live in Maricopa County, one in Cochise County. The traditional approaches work. Full-time. Fann said she had not yet read the report and had no immediate comment. There is very little transparency or public access to the count, and workers are looking into wild conspiracy theories. Here's what comes next in the partisan audit. Move your Those allegations were false, but it didnt stop some Trump voters from claiming their votes had been disproportionately thrown out. Click here to subscribe to any of our publications. 2910 N. 44th St., Ste. "This was Donald Trump's best chance to prove his cases of elections being rigged and fraudulent and they failed," Ginsberg said on a media call organized by the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan policy group. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. Why is there a need for another recount? The auditors are finding duplicate ballots. The state Senate's long-awaited audit report formally confirmed Friday that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in Arizona's largest county, and found no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. Election Readiness Update Memo (PDF) 07/17/20: County Contract Audit - Axon Products and Services (PDF) . Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. Yes, it seems thatArizonas elusive election fraud has finally been uncovered. founded by an election-fraud conspiracy theorist and Trump supporter, never performed any kind of election audit, the margin of victory must be 200 or fewer votes, won the presidency by more than 45,000 votes, a post-election audit revealed a software error, a judge ruled that 145,000 absentee ballots, California's Senate Primary Is Going To Be A Doozy. #ElectionIntegrity, she tweeted. The overlap with Trumps cause doesnt end there. "That should be the end of the story. The panel focused on Trumps efforts to undo Joe Bidens victory in a most local way by leaning on officials in key battleground states to reject ballots outright or to submit alternative electors for the final tally in Congress. Garrett Archer, a former top aide in the Arizona secretary of states office who now reports for Phoenixs ABC affiliate, told The Hill that the official data maintained by the county would have answered questions raised by the commercial data but that Cyber Ninjas did not take that step. Audits and recounts are an essential part of our voting system, but whats happening in Arizona isnt. Essentially we came up with the same number, Pullen said Thursday. Summary. Arizona's City of Scottsdale Unified School District No. - We The People News Monday, January 16, 2023 21:10 Video SITUATION UPDATE 1/16/23 (rumble.com) Share. Cyber Ninjas has tried repeatedly to get the Arizona Supreme Court to weigh in on lower court rulings that found it is subject to the state public records law, but the justices have declined to take the case. Flashback: Senate President Karen Fann ordered a review of the election in response to baseless but widespread allegations that it was rigged against Donald Trump. The county has repeatedly said since the November 2020 election that it was free and fair and that its systems and equipment were secure. Keep reading with a digital access subscription. Im not going to say in a verbal interview what Im going to be putting in writing for the report, Bennett said. Gates repeated that on Wednesday and said the report from Shadegg was the latest in a long string of evidence that showed that the election was well run. Several have sought to launch Arizona-style "audits" in their own states. Now, its possible that that scribble thats in that box is exactly the signature that the person put in as well, Pullen said. Ward even made a video about it (with a fundraising plea, no doubt, still to come). The county said they could not be handed over to the private firm the Senate hired last year to do a complete review of the countys 2020 election results and systems for security reasons. As part of a point-by-point rebuttal on Twitter, Maricopa County called that claim "laughable", suggesting those conducting the review may have failed to account for people with matching names and birth years in different counties, a not uncommon occurrence in a state of more than 7 million people. The intrigue: Bill Gates, the Republican chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and a defender of the county's handling of the election, said he finds it concerning that legislators could enact new election laws based on the audit's erroneous findings. Who is Solomon Pea, the GOP candidate arrested in political shooting case? So far no such proof has been produced either by Trump or his backers. A subscription helps you access more of the local stories that keep you connected to the community. 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