Maricopa County, Arizona, has formed what it refers to as an “election command center” in hopes of combatting election misinformation, adding officials will vet journalists who they deem qualified to participate in the events.
A group of six elected officials plus elections and communications professionals have worked together to establish the “2022 Elections Command Center”, according to a press release from the county’s office.
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Will Maricopa County prosecute women who have abortions under the state’s old abortion ban?
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell posted a video on Facebook Tuesday clarifying Arizona state law regarding abortion and that she will not prosecute women who have the procedures.
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Maricopa County announced Tuesday that it will now require a press pass for media personnel to enter its facilities or cover events related to the 2022 General Election.
“Because of logistical and security considerations, it is impossible to give the public and media limitless access to Members of the Board of Supervisors, the County Recorder and election experts for events such as press conferences and availabilities,” according to Maricopa County.
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The Arizona Legislature was unable to get a bill passed this year clearly banning unmonitored absentee ballot drop boxes, so local activists are organizing schedules of volunteers to watch them, concerned after reports of unusual activity during the primary election this year. Existing law, A.R.S. 16-1005(E), prohibits absentee ballot drop boxes operated by entities other than the government, but legal disputes remain over how much the government is required to monitor them.
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Election officials around the country, including the Maricopa County Recorder, saw a flurry of public records requests at the end of August asking for the “cast vote record” (CVR) from the 2020 presidential election. The requests came after My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, who is actively investigating election discrepancies in 2020, urged attendees at his Moment of Truth Summit in August to request them. The CVR reveals the type of ballot used by each voter and how they cast their votes, without exposing their identity.
Walter C. Daugherity, who has a background in computers and engineering, two degrees from Harvard University, and experience in artificial intelligence and quantum computing, submitted a declaration about his analysis of CVRs in a lawsuit filed by Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Trump-endorsed candidate for State Representative Mark Finchem (R-Oro Valley), who is running for Arizona Secretary of State. Their complaint aims to stop the use of electronic voting machine readers in the Nov. 8 election.
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With the recent expiration of the federally mandated 2-year window for preservation of 2020 presidential election records, counties across the country have been inundated with public records requests from Americans concerned about election integrity.
During his “Moment of Truth Summit” last month spotlighting 2020 presidential election irregularities, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell exhorted “every single person in the country” to ask for cast vote records from the election from their local county clerk’s office. His website links to the Ordros Analytics, Inc., website, which provides templates of public records requests for cast vote records.
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A felon in Arizona has been sentenced to six months in prison after illegally voting in the 2020 election.
“Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced that Victor Manuel Aguirre, age 47, of Sahuarita, was convicted and sentenced to prison for illegally casting a ballot in the 2020 General Election on August 29, 2022,” according to a Wednesday release from Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office.
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The Voter Reference Foundation (VRF) has said that ballot drop boxes in Arizona’s Maricopa County should be manned with staff from the two major parties, based on the discovery that one of two drop boxes lacked proper surveillance during the primary.
Maricopa County Republican Chairman Mickie Niland said the county’s drop box camera was not recording during the primary and reported the surveillance error, the Foundation said.
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In its final canvass report for the 2022 primary election, Maricopa County says it rejected 14 times more signatures than it did in the 2020 general election. This comes on the heels of Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s finding that the county’s standards for signature verification were “insufficient to guard against abuse.”
“Canvass Queen” Liz Harris, so named after conducting an 11-month long independent grassroots audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, told The Arizona Sun Times, “The entire voting system needs an entire overhaul. Period.”
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Until this month, Pennsylvania owned the dubious distinction among states of most embarrassing election management. But given its own lethargy in counting votes in its primary, Arizona has now edged out the Keystone State. While Pennsylvania had problems counting the last portion of votes the evening after its primary, it took Arizona two days to count the last 20% of the vote.
As RealClearPolitics has noted before, Pennsylvania could solve its voting-administration issues by adopting Florida’s voting reforms – but Pennsylvania is hamstrung by a divided government. Arizona does not face this problem, however. For at least the next four months, Arizona will have a Republican state legislature and governor. Arizona’s governor and state legislature should enact Florida-like voting reforms before the November elections to avoid further embarrassment.
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The Phoenix Aviation Department launched its City of Phoenix Airport Worker Child Care Scholarship Program Aug. 2.
The program supports workers in the aviation industry who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years, according to a press release. A $4 million investment with funds from the city’s American Rescue Plan Act strategic plan will fund the child care program for workers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
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In an era in which the federal government has identified conservatives as would-be domestic terrorists, many Americans are looking for sanctuaries where their constitutional rights will not be infringed.
Pinal County, Arizona, where Sheriff Mark Lamb has formed a civilian posse to act as a bulwark against tyrannical government encroachments, may be one such place.
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A transportation bill dubbed the “Maricopa County Transit Slush Fund Tax” by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) is steadily advancing through the legislature, and its supporters say it will probably make it through the Arizona Legislature this year in a referral to the ballot. Senate Bill (SB) 1356 has passed the Senate, the Senate Transportation and Technology Committee, and the House Transportation Committee. Valley Metro’s new CEO Jessica Mefford-Miller said this week about it, “We are cautiously optimistic about SB 1356.”
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Two representatives from True the Vote, the election integrity organization whose work using GPS smartphone data to investigate ballot harvesting in Arizona and other states was featured in the recent 2,000 Mules documentary by Dinesh D’Souza, testified during an Arizona Legislative hearing on Tuesday providing further details. Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder and president, and Gregg Phillips, a data expert, drew frequent gasps and clapping, despite a request for no clapping at the beginning. When asked by legislators what Engelbrecht recommended for action, she said pass HB 2289. Sponsored by State Rep. John Fillmore (R-Apache Junction), it bans drop boxes and has passed the House, but has been held up in the Senate.
Democrats in the legislature tried to interfere with the hearing by forcing a vote on a gun control bill, stalling it for well over an hour. Right Side Broadcasting filmed the hearing live on YouTube, but it was yanked by YouTube by the time it was finished.
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A voter integrity organization will present information about ballot harvesting in the 2020 election to a group of Republican law makers next week.
“On Tuesday, May 31, True the Vote will host a presentation for Arizona State Senate and House Members relating to findings of ballot harvesting that occurred in both Maricopa and Yuma Counties during the 2020 General Election,” the Arizona State Senate Republican Caucus said in a Friday press release.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Arizona GOP Senate hopeful Blake Masters about his primary opponent Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s failure to pursue evidence of election misconduct in the 2020 election.
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A man who was convicted of voting in Arizona and New Hampshire for the same election has continued voting in Arizona. Court documents show Sigmund Boganski, 77, voted in both states in the 2016 election, but according to the Maricopa County Recorder, he requested an early ballot for the 2020 election.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Arizona GOP Senate hopeful Jim Lamon after his town hall with supporters in Sun City. Lamon told TSNN he would not have voted to certify Arizona’s electors Jan. 6, 2021.
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Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has responded to the rising cost of goods and services with a property tax rate cut.
The board approved a tentative FY 2023 budget aiming to mitigate the impact of inflation in the county by using hundreds of millions of dollars in American Rescue Plan funds for financial assistance and resources to residents and businesses.
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When asked what big takeaway there was in the Maricopa County election audit, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake told The Georgia Star News, “There were so many. It’s like death by a thousand paper cuts. I call it death by a thousand knife wounds because these are so much bigger than paper cuts.”
“We had 34,000 votes that were counted two, three or four times, 740,000 ballots with no chain-of-custody. They shouldn’t have even been counted, and it goes on and on. The wrong paper stock was used,” she added.
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Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake told The Georgia Star News Friday she maintains confidence in Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, despite some doubts in her ability to adequately complete the 2020 election audit.
“I do have confidence in Karen,” Lake told The Star News. “I’ve seen a few things that have made me pause a bit, but don’t forget, she’s the one who got things going.”
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Former President Donald Trump slammed Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich for his actions relating to the 2020 election and signaled his opposition to Brnovich’s run to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate.
According to Trump, Brnovich’s lack of results is proof he is “going to kick the can down the road” and “stay in that middle path of non-controversy.”
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The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved $17 million in spending to create more affordable housing units.
The money–given to the state by the federal government through the federal government’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)–will go toward two separate projects. Of it, $8 million will create 50 new housing units by converting a hotel in central Phoenix. Meanwhile, the other $9 million will support the construction of affordable rental units.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued an interim report this past week on his investigation of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election in Arizona, which found “instances of election fraud by individuals who have been or will be prosecuted for various election crimes,” and a couple of days later he learned some more possibly troubling news. Attorneys for Maricopa County told him ballot tabulators used artificial intelligence to determine whether voters’ ballot affidavit signatures matched their signatures on file.
During an interview with former Trump advisor Steve Bannon on Bannon’s War Room show, Brnovich broke the news. “We got another letter from their lawyer for the first time — and this is not in the report — admitted they are using AI to verify signatures,” he said. “And so the whole signature verification process, is something that I think that, regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, it should be troubling and concerning that they are trying to verify hundreds of thousands of signatures so quickly. And of course that raises the question, how is that even humanly possible?”
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The highly anticipated first report from Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s investigation into the results of the Maricopa County independent ballot audit are in, and includes criminal prosecutions. Addressed to Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott), who launched the independent audit, the letter referenced the work of his office’s Election Integrity Unit. Brnovich stated, “The EIU’s review has uncovered instances of election fraud by individuals who have been or will be prosecuted for various election crimes.”
Leading gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who just called for the results of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona and Wisconsin to be reversed, told The Arizona Sun Times, “Today, Attorney General Brnovich confirmed what most of us have known since November 3rd, 2020: The election in Maricopa County was crooked and never should have been certified. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. It’s an American issue. I look forward to seeing the prosecutions that the Attorney General has in store. It’s time for the perpetrators of this fraud to be held accountable for their actions.”
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The lead lawyer for the third-largest prosecutorial body in the U.S. will resign at the end of the week, her office announced Monday.
Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel said her last day in office would be Friday.
“I am confident that the important mission of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office will continue,” she said in a statement, offering no explanation for the resignation.
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It is National Sunshine Week, which celebrates transparency in government, including creating awareness about requesting information from governments through FOIA public record requests. In Arizona, there are two tools provided by state agencies which allow anyone to look online at some of the government spending by state and local governments. Although it is a minimal amount of data, it reveals some missteps and waste.
The Arizona State Treasurer manages AZCheckbook.com, which provides information about funding the state gets from all sources, including the federal government, and how much it is distributing to schools, cities, and towns. The Arizona Department of Administration operates OpenBooks.AZ.gov, which provides checkbook-level information about individual state expenditures, including on the city and county level.
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Democratic former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who is running for Arizona Secretary of State, is calling for the Arizona Legislature to impeach Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich. The former county elections chief said it is due to Brnovich’s “grotesque political self-service, abuse of office, and other bad acts.”
Fontes declared, “It is well past time for Arizona’s legislative leadership to investigate, for possible impeachment proceedings, the increasing instability of our state’s top prosecutor.”
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The latest voter registration numbers in Maricopa County from February reveal that independents now outnumber both Republicans and Democrats, with 76 more registrations than Republicans. Also according to new data from the Maricopa County Recorder, significantly more Democrats than Republicans left their parties to become independents, 1,331 compared to 1,154 Republicans. The trend favoring Republicans continued with more independents becoming Republicans than Democrats, and more Democrats switching to Republicans than Republicans switching to Democrats.
Independents and Republicans now each make up 34% of voter registrations in the county, with Democrats lagging behind at 30% and Libertarians at .08%. While 806 independents became Republicans in January, only 544 became Democrats. There were 301 Democrats who became Republicans, while only 175 Republicans became Democrats.
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Arizona Republicans, stressing the value of local representation and denying retaliation over the 2020 general election controversy, have given early approval to legislation that would split Maricopa County into four counties.
Should Gov. Doug Ducey sign House Bill 2787, it would take the nation’s fourth-largest county and split it into four counties by June 15, 2023. Maricopa County would remain but would be much smaller and centralized around metropolitan Phoenix.
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The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) announced that it would receive about $3 million in grants from the Department of Justice to help victims of crime.
One grant the office will receive will help the office in investigations where DNA is used to find perpetrators in cold cases where it cannot find the offender. Another grant will pertain to the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (often referred to as SAKI). It allows law enforcement to process rape kits quicker.
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Republicans continue to outpace Democrats in changes to voter registrations, according to information released by the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.
According to the data, more than 1,300 individuals in the country switched their party identification to “Republican,” compared to approximately 900 who changed to “Democrat.”
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The founder and CEO of the Sarasota, Florida, based Cyber Ninjas told The Star News Network that politically-motivated reporters let their bias taint their coverage of his company’s audit of the ballots from the 2020 presidential voting held in Maricopa County, Arizona.
One of the frustrating parts of his effort to be open and transparent with the public was the constant twisting of facts and events by journalists, who were opposed to the audit from the very beginning, despite their protestations that they were objective, said Doug Logan, the Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, graduate, who founded the company in 2013.
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Maricopa County officials have issued a 93-page response to the findings of the independent Maricopa County ballot audit of the 2020 presidential election, which was ordered by the Arizona Senate. Presented during a meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 5, the officials claimed there were fewer than 100 questionable ballots out of the 2.1 million cast.
Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward watched a portion of the meeting and expressed skepticism to The Arizona Sun Times, “The part that I’ve seen so far was a group of related good ole boys attempting to convince people that they ran a perfect election,” she said. “They want Americans to believe them over what we saw with our own eyes. Arizonans were totally justified in demanding an audit of the 2020 election — and we should actually audit everything so we can restore voter confidence that our elections have integrity.”
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Arizona is one of the fastest growing states in the country, ranked No. 6 in 2021 by HomeSnacks. New data from the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity reveals that the growth is taking place in red parts of Arizona, not blue strongholds like Tucson — which could mean Arizona is not trending blue.
“The growth is around Maricopa County,” Rep. David Schweikert (R-06-Ariz.) told The Arizona Sun Times. “Maricopa County, which leans Republican, already dominates the state. This will give it even more power.” Currently, 62% of the population lives there.
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Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2021 conference kicked off the second day with a 9 a.m. speech by Donald Trump Jr. Other notable speakers on Sunday included Sarah Palin, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.), and Rep. Burgess Owens (R-04-Utah). The day wrapped up with breakout panels, including one on election integrity featuring Arizona lawmakers.
Trump Jr. spoke about some of the most contentious issues facing patriots currently. “There are women who work their a**** off … they spent their lives trying to reach the pinnacle of success in a sport only to be beaten by 38 seconds in the 500 freestyle,” he declared, referring to a transgender who recently won a women’s swimming competition at the University of Pennsylvania.
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The Arizona Attorney General’s Office announced that two more inmates from Pima County have been indicted for illegally voting from jail during the 2020 election. Michael Damian Herrera, 25, and Shadae Alexis Smith, 29, both of Tucson, were also indicted for false registration to vote. Both crimes are felonies.
Brnovich, who is running for the U.S. Senate, has made combating election fraud a high priority.
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UPDATE: On January 28 2022, Tyler Montague informed The Star News Network that the lawsuit pertaining to illegal campaign signs, which he described as a “frivolous complaint,” was dismissed in July of 2021. 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. Senate campaign committee, which remains open despite the fact that he is not currently running for office. Tyler Montague is the chairman of the newly founded Public Integrity Foundation, and a friend of Flake’s. “Jeff Flake is a long time friend, and he’s also interested in one of the charter purposes of the foundation, which is to do research and education around alternative forms of voting,” Montague told Axios. The group will be studying ranked-choice voting, and though Montague says it was not founded specifically to combat battles over election integrity like the one playing out right now in Arizona, he believes what the voters want is not adequately represented by our current system of voting. “It’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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