According to a new report, former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a vehement critic of former President Donald J. Trump has provided $150,000 in seed money for a new election-centered nonprofit based in Arizona. That group is called the Public Integrity Foundation, and Flake’s six-figure donation came from his U.S.…
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During a House Oversight Committee hearing addressing the results of the audit of the independent Maricopa County ballot audit ordered by the Arizona Senate, one of the Maricopa County Supervisors who fought the audit admitted that hundreds of thousands of election related files were deleted. Instead of producing them in response to the legislative subpoena, he said the county “archived” them.
Responding to a question from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) asking him whether it was appropriate to delete files on a server after an election, Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates said, “I would say it is appropriate to maintain files, and that is exactly what we did. We deleted — the files that have been discussed, they were archived.”
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The House Oversight Committee held a hearing Thursday on the results of the audit of the independent Maricopa County ballot audit ordered by the Arizona Senate. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) found the audit results troubling, leading him to question whether Joe Biden really won the election in Arizona.
At the beginning of the hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08) asked Biggs who won the presidential election in Arizona. Biggs responded, “We don’t know. There are a lot of issues with this election that took place.” He said the only reason the hearing is being conducted is because the chair, Carolyn Maloney (D-NY-12), wants to see any election integrity legislation scuttled.
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Public health authorities announced Friday four more Arizonans have died from complications of the West Nile Virus.
The Arizona Department of Health Services updated its data on West Nile Virus instances Friday, showing the new death total for the summer and fall mosquito season has risen to 14. ADHS also increased the state’s probable and confirmed West Nile Virus case count to 256.
Maricopa County is home to the majority of cases. ADHS data shows 207 of the 256 confirmed and probable cases originated in the state’s most populous county. Neighboring Pinal County has had 34 confirmed or probable cases.
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Following the release of explosive findings by an independent forensic audit of the 2020 election in Arizona’s Maricopa County, the state may step in to assume direct control of election administration there before the next election, Arizona Senate President Karen Fann hinted Friday.
The long-awaited results of an outside audit of the county’s 2020 election process were announced Sept. 24. While confirming the rough accuracy of county vote tabulation giving Joe Biden a razor-thin victory in Arizona, the auditors flagged more than 50,000 suspect ballots for further investigation of issues ranging from people voting from addresses from which they had already moved to residents voting twice.
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In response to the report released last week about the Maricopa County ballot audit, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s Election Integrity Unit sent a letter to Maricopa County instructing the recorder and supervisors to preserve all records related to the 2020 election in preparation for litigation. He also sent a letter to the Arizona Senate requesting more information related to the audit.
“The Arizona Senate’s report that was released on Friday raises some serious questions regarding the 2020 election,” Brnovich said in a statement about the letters. “Arizonans can be assured our office will conduct a thorough review of the information we receive.”
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Arizona Senate Republicans issued the results of the independent ballot audit they conducted of the 2020 presidential and U.S. Senate election in Maricopa County on September 24 during a presentation, revealing findings that numerous election laws were broken and security measures breached.
The most startling finding came from Ben Cotton, the founder of CyFIR. He said hundreds of thousands of election files — which the Maricopa County Supervisors refused to allow the auditors to examine — were deleted the day before the audit began, a violation of federal law which requires federal election records to be retained for 22 months. Although the name of the account that deleted them was not tied to a specific election worker, Cotton said there is video of the person who accessed those servers at that time.
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Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS) and the Arizona State Senate announced on Friday that they reached an agreement related to the state’s subpoenas for 2020 election material.
The agreement will allow a special master, former U.S. Rep. John Shadegg, to examine the routers and Splunk logs, which are internet activity logs.
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Members of the Arizona State Senate will releasethe results of the months-long forensic audit of approximately 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County.
According to a social media post by Republicans in the Senate, the information, gathered and compiled by a third party firm, will be detailed on Friday, September 24.
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The Arizona Supreme Court has rejected an effort by the state’s GOP-led Senate to keep confidential records of its review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County now in possession of the contractors conducting the recount.
The court on Tuesday rejected the appeal filed after two lower courts ruled the documents are public records that must be released, according to the Associated Press.
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A Republican member of the Arizona Legislature says her family’s safety is her first priority after getting a threatening email over her scrutiny of Maricopa County’s 2020 election.
State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, posted a screenshot of an email from an account named Matt Boster that started out by calling her a racial slur.
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A grassroots canvass of Maricopa County voters in the 2020 election found that over 34 percent of those canvassed said they voted even though the county didn’t have a record of their vote.
Liz Harris, the Arizona resident who organized the independent canvass talked to Steve Bannon about her Voter Integrity Project findings on the Wednesday morning edition of the “War Room.”
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KORE Power, Inc. announced on July 29 that they are building the first lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility owned entirely by a U.S. company in Maricopa County, bringing 3,000 jobs to the Grand Canyon state.
The one million square foot KOREPlex manufacturing facility 40 miles west of Phoenix in Buckeye will support up to 12 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery cell production. Once operational, the facility will produce enough power capacity for 3.2 million homes each year, the company said.
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Arizona Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-Prescott) launched a petition recently demanding the decertification of the 2020 election results in Arizona, based on preliminary results from the ballot audit in Maricopa County ordered by the Arizona state senate. The audit is looking at both the presidential race and the U.S. senate race, where Democrat Mark Kelly defeated incumbent Republican Martha McSally by a small margin. According to a tweet Friday evening from Rogers, the petition was at 36,302 signatures despite server issues forcing the site offline periodically. She is aiming for one million signatures.
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Arizona Senate President Karen Fann released a statement on Friday that confirmed former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett will continue to serve as the Senate’s Liason to the ongoing audit.
Further, Fann promised that Bennett will be granted “full access” to all aspects of the forensic audit, after Bennett threatened to leave the post earlier this week.
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PHOENIX, Arizona – The Star News Network Wire Service – Former President Trump took the stage to thunderous applause at his rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday, where he highlighted efforts across the country he said are needed to ensure the integrity of elections.
“Thank you to Charlie [Kirk] for that introduction which was so beautiful, and for your fearless leadership at Turning Point Action and Turning Point USA,” Trump told the crowd as he began his speech at 3:55 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.
“Let me also express my appreciation to the thousands of bold, young, and proud American Patriots that are with us today. What a crowd, what a crowd … You are the pulse of our movement, you are the ones who will make America Great Again,” the 45th President of the United States added.
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State Senator Paul Boyer (R-Glendale) won’t hold Maricopa County election officials in contempt for noncompliance with the Senate’s subpoena for election equipment and materials needed to complete the audit. This was revealed by Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) after Senate Liaison Ken Bennett shared that one of sixteen Republican senators wouldn’t hold the county accountable.
The auditing company, Cyber Ninjas, explained in a hearing last week that they still lack the splunk logs, chain of custody documents, portable media and external drives, router configuration files or data, network diagram, backups of election management data, digital copies of all election policies and procedures utilized, files transmitted for duplicating or spoiling ballots, records of all paper distributed to vote centers, information and guidelines on adjudication of ballots, total count of all ballots sent to eligible voters on the state’s voter information portal (UOCAVA), and a full backup copy of database of voter rolls.
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Kelly Dixon, assistant director for the Maricopa County Election Department’s recruitment and training division, who admitted she knew there were “issues and concerns” with voters marking ballots with Sharpies, donated to Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ). She earmarked a $100 contribution to him through a donation she gave to the Democratic campaign fundraising organization ActBlue, Headline USA reported on Monday.
Maricopa County voters complained about poll workers handing them Sharpies on election day that bled through the ballots. Dixon knew ahead of election day that using sharpies to mark a ballot was an issue. In an email dated October 22, she wrote “Starting tomorrow, 10/23, and through 11/2, we are asking the Clerks hand voters BALLPOINT PENS rather than markers.” However, she then said “We NEED to use markers on Election Day.” She did not explain why. Republicans voted on election day in huge numbers last year, driven by fears of voter fraud. A Gallup survey found that 62% of Democrats said they would vote early last fall, compared to only 28% of Republicans.
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A recent poll conducted on the Arizona election audit demonstrated high levels of support from Republican voters and that almost half of the state’s residents believe the ballot examination is important.
The Arizona Public Opinion Pulse poll showed that the majority of Republican voters view the audit favorably, and 62% believe that the results of the audit will show that former president Donald Trump received more votes in Arizona than President Joe Biden.
Read More During the Arizona Senate hearing on the election audit in Maricopa County Thursday morning, audit officials reported discovery of issues such as ballot duplicates and surpluses, voter roll data, and machine security. The audit officials testifying were Senate Liaison Ken Bennett, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, and digital security firm CyFIR founder Ben Cotton. Cyber Ninjas is conducting the audit.
The Arizona Sun Times checked the Arizona legislature website at 8 am MST. The website was down. All that was displayed was an error message that said service was unavailable. The website remained that way until sometime after the Senate hearing began.
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Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Thursday, praising the efforts of the forensic audit in Maricopa County, Arizona.
The ongoing examination is utilizing a third party firm to focus on roughly 2.1 million ballots that were cast in the state’s population center.
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The Arizona Senate held a public briefing on Thursday to update and brief residents of the state on the ongoing forensic audit of roughly 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County.
Leaders of the legislative chamber heard testimony from the vendors hired to conduct the audit, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and CyFIR founder Ben Cotton.
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The audit of Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 election ordered by the Arizona Legislature finished last month, and State Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) said Tuesday the ballot totals don’t match the county’s official results. She told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show, “They haven’t released a number yet, if you will, however we do know that those numbers do not match with Maricopa County at this point.”
When asked about the degree of the discrepancy in the audit versus the official county tallies, Fann said, “I do not know. They have not told me the number;” adding that the auditors are “finishing up.”
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Former President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will hold a rally in Phoenix, Arizona to highlight election security efforts.
Trump is hosting the rally, dubbed “Rally to protect Our Elections,” in connection with Turning Point USA — the group’s founder Charlie Kirk announced in a tweet.
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Maricopa County intends to replace all of its election machines, due to concerns that the audit compromised the equipment. The county’s Dominion Democracy Suite 5.5B voting system was turned over to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) and Senate Majority Leader Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) through subpoena earlier this year. The Senate contracted with a private company, Cyber Ninjas, to conduct the audit.
Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel confirmed on Monday the county’s intent to replace their entire fleet of voting machines in a reply letter to Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
Read More The counting and examination of paper ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona concluded on Friday, but there is still more work to do before the full results are made public. According to one report, however, preliminary results could be released as early as this week.
The Maricopa County Audit Twitter account announced that they had finished counting paper ballots Friday evening.
Read More The ballot audit in Maricopa County is winding down, and as details leak out from the counting and analysis, it is becoming clear what many of the problems are that will need addressing. Some could be honest mistakes, such as voters marking their ballots incorrectly, but others could be far more serious.
Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) listed off several discrepancies in a letter to the Maricopa County Supervisors on May 12, such as different numbers of ballots in the boxes than the numbers listed on the pink sheets inside the boxes. She cited several examples, including one box that contained an alarming 35 fewer ballots than the number on the pink slip.
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Georgia state Senators Burt Jones (R-Jackson) and Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta) traveled to Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday to tour the ongoing Maricopa County ballot audit.
The two are examining the process behind the audit after a similar audit was originally allowed to be completed in Georgia. However, since the initial ruling, many officials have attempted to stop the audit.
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Republicans in multiple U.S. states are mounting investigations into the circumstances surrounding the 2020 election, moves that come amid the contentious ongoing audit of election results in Maricopa County, Ariz.
The Arizona audit — which includes a hand recount of over two million ballots — has reflected bitter partisan divisions in the state, with Republicans and Democrats squaring off in a series of volleys over the conduct of the audit and the political fallout surrounding it. Establishment media outlets have joined in Democratic attacks against the audit, with CNN claiming that the process is “bogus” and FiveThirtyEight calling it a “partisan inquisition.”
Nevertheless, efforts are underway in several states to undertake investigations similar to Arizona’s, though none are anywhere near as large in scope as is that in Maricopa, the state’s largest county.
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A lot of people on both sides of the political aisle seem to be missing the whole point of the ongoing election audit in Maricopa County, Arizona.
This process isn’t about “proving” fraud or overturning an election. Rather, it’s about determining what, if anything, went wrong with the election process in 2020 and providing a road map for further investigation. In other words, it’s about determining the right questions to ask as we work to restore confidence in our electoral process.
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A ruling issued by a Georgia judge on Friday will allow officials to conduct an audit of roughly 145,000 absentee ballots cast in Fulton County in the 2020 election.
The scope of the audit will allow for the examination of signatures on these ballots to ensure that they are legitimate.
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More than four years before Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone used his law enforcement credibility to resist subpoenas in the Arizona Senate audit of the county’s general election, he was running for the office he now holds.
Crucial to the Democrat’s victory over incumbent Republican Joe Arpaio: $2 million from progressive megadonor George Soros.
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Officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County are withholding materials subpoenaed by the state legislature as part of its audit of the county’s 2020 election, claiming that surrendering them would constitute a security risk for both law enforcement and federal agencies.
A Monday letter sent from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to Ken Bennett, the former Arizona secretary of state and the liaison between the state Senate and the auditors, said the county had elected not to turn over “several routers” requested by the legislature due to an alleged “significant security risk to law enforcement data utilized by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as well as numerous federal agencies.”
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The board of supervisors of Maricopa County, Arizona, voted this week to audit the election equipment it used in the 2020 election, following months of allegations of election irregularities there and elsewhere around the country.
The supervisors voted unanimously in favor of the audit, the county said Wednesday on its website. Both audits will take place early next month.
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Arizona’s largest county refused Friday to comply with a subpoena from the state Legislature, going to court instead to fight turning over election evidence to a Senate committee investigating alleged ballot irregularities.
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Many people, including some good friends, believe that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election fair and square.
Many others – and I place myself among them – believe that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, or, to be more specific, in the cities of Milwaukee, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Detroit, not to mention Maricopa County, Arizona. I think what happened was so rotten that I regard the election as illegitimate.
What proof, you might ask, do I have?
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The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit Saturday in Arizona alleging ballots may have been improperly disregarded in Maricopa County, the state’s largest metropolis.
The suit alleged that some in-person votes were not counted because of improper guidance provided by poll workers in situations known as an “over-vote.”
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Deputy Solicitor General at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office Michael Catlett said in a Nov. 4 letter that their office had received hundreds of complaints about the use of Sharpie markers for ballots at Maricopa County election locations, with people conveying concerns that utilizing the writing implements could have led to the rejection, spoiling or cancellation of ballots.
The letter, sent to Director of Elections Day and Emergency Voting with the Maricopa County Elections Department Scott Jarrett, included questions about issues such as the extent to which Sharpies were supplied and used at voting places, how many ballots were rejected and how many were specifically rejected due to over-votes caused when ink passed through the paper onto the other side of the ballot.
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Arizona’s most populous county on Wednesday joined a growing movement in which areas are declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and protecting their rights to keep and bear arms, according to ABC News.
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