Arizona Senate Doubles-Down On GQP Sham ‘Fraudit’ With New Subpoenas

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Senate President “Krazy Karen” Fann is doubling-down on her conspiracy theory driven GQP sham “fraudit” of Maricopa County ballots. Howard Fischer reports, Senate to issue new subpoenas for election audit:

Senate Republican leaders are setting the stage for a new legal fight with Maricopa County.

Kory Langhofer, the attorney for the Senate, said he will be issuing subpoenas Monday for all five Maricopa County supervisors, demanding they appear to explain why they won’t surrender certain equipment and information for review as part of the audit of the 2020 General Election returns. Langhofer also said the Senate wants to hear from Scott Jarrett, the county’s director of election day and emergency voting.

But that may just be part of it.

The Senate also may subpoena Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, a Democrat. That’s because it is Penzone who is telling the supervisors they shouldn’t surrender the county’s computer routers because it would result in “horrendous consequences” for law enforcement personnel.

Those subpoenas will set a date and time for the county officials to appear. And that hearing, in turn, could turn into a debate of not just the legal issues involved but a venue for a very public airing of the merits — and potentially the politics — of the Senate audit.

Potentially more significant is what happens if the senators won’t accept the explanation and the county won’t budge.

That would send the case back to court. And then a judge would have to decide whether prior rulings requiring the county to surrender the ballots and election equipment applies to what senators now insist is necessary.

Senate President Karen Fann said she remains adamant that what the Senate wants is essential to completing the audit. And she told Capitol Media Services that the reticence to produce it makes her desire it even more.

Spoken like a true conspiracy theorist.

“What are they hiding?” she asked, saying they may not have the confidence in the results they claim. Those results gave Democrat Joe Biden 45,109 more votes in the county than Republican Donald Trump. And that edge was enough to have Biden defeat Trump by 10,457 votes statewide.

The county already has surrendered all nearly 2.1 million ballots as well as the tallying machines and other election equipment. All of that has wound up at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum where the Florida firm of Cyber Ninjas is conducting the review.

But Fann said the company she hired needs two other things to complete its work.

One is a list of passwords to some of the counting equipment that was located at polling centers. County officials have said they don’t have those in their possession because they belong to Dominion Voting Systems, from whom the county leases the equipment.

I’m surprised that Dominion Voting Systems has not already moved to intervene in this action to protect its proprietary information and trade secrets, and enforce its contract with Maricopa County. Once you have the paper ballots for a hand count audit, what do you need with passwords to Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment?

Clearly this “fraudit” is pursuing the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory “that Dominion Voting Systems ‘deleted’ millions of Trump votes, citing a report on the far-right cable news outlet One America News Network” (a sponsor of this GQP sham “fraudit”). QAnon’s Dominion voter fraud conspiracy theory reaches the president.

UPDATE:

Now Dominion Voting Systems’ lawyers will intervene for certain.

Fann said she is skeptical, given that the county has claimed to have done its own forensic audits. She questioned how that could have been done without being able to look at everything, including the source code.

Um, because it’s not necessary when you have the ballots and precinct tally sheets. Has “Krazy Karen” Fann never done a hand count audit before? It’s not an accurate ballot count that these conspiracy theorists care about, they want access to Dominion Voting Systems’ source code, which is protected proprietary information and a trade secret. Dominion’s lawyers really need to move to intervene in this matter. Just sayin’.

A bigger fight, however, surrounds the routers. These are the devices the county uses to funnel computer traffic among its computers.

The routers themselves contain no information on what was transmitted or received.

But what they would show are the unique IP — for internet protocol — addresses of any traffic, both sent and received. And that could answer the allegation that someone, somehow, electronically injected extra votes for Joe Biden into the results.

Like I said, this “fraudit” is pursuing the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory “that Dominion Voting Systems ‘deleted’ millions of Trump votes, citing a report on the far-right cable news outlet One America News Network” (a sponsor of this GQP sham “fraudit”). QAnon’s Dominion voter fraud conspiracy theory reaches the president.

It is that new request by the Senate that has angered Penzone and caused the supervisors to balk.

“Its most recent demands jeopardize the entire mission of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office,” he said in a prepared statement.

“We are talking about confidential, sensitive and highly classified law enforcement data and equipment that will be permanently compromised,” the sheriff said. “The current course is mind-numbingly reckless and irresponsible.”

Penzone provided no details on how review of the computer traffic from computers used by the sheriff’s office would compromise any investigation or the safety of any officer. But he hinted he would be willing to provide specifics if asked — or subpoenaed.

“It is my hope that additional education of the exposure of this data and equipment will compel the Senate Republican caucus to take a more responsible course of action,” he wrote.

Jack Sellers, who chairs the supervisors, said there’s a separate problem.

“We have learned providing the physical routers will cripple county operations and cost as much as $6 million if we must replace the routers while the Cyber Ninjas have them,” he said. And Sellers said providing “virtual images” of the routers, while dealing with the technical issue of removing them, is not more acceptable because that still leaves the security issues cited by Penzone.

If senators are not satisfied with the explanation, the next step would be for them to ask a judge to declare that they are entitled to the additional information and access.

There is precedent for that — or at least the basic premise.

In February Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Thomasson swatted down a series of arguments by county officials who argued the lawmakers have no legal basis for the subpoena they issued. And Thomasson brushed aside claims by county officials that the real purpose of the subpoena is not to use the information gathered to review existing election laws but instead to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“Granted, Fann has made public comments about concerns of ‘many voters’ regarding the accuracy of the presidential election and the need to ‘audit’ the election,” he wrote.

“The court is not in a position to determine if the ‘real’ purpose of the subpoenas is to try to ‘overturn’ the result of the election,” Thomasson wrote. Anyway, he said, such a move “would clearly be futile” given that the Electoral College has voted, Congress has confirmed the results, and President Biden has been sworn in.

Anyway, the judge said, is even if the election could somehow be challenged, “there is still a perfectly valid legislative purpose for the subpoenas,” meaning the oversight that the legislature has of elections.

Now that the judge has seen the irreparable harm to public confidence in election results his incorrect opinion has caused, maybe Judge Timothy Thomasson will reconsider his damaging opinion. (He should not be retained the next time he comes up for judicial retention on the ballot).

UPDATE: It appears that there may be a work around for the upcoming high school graduations at “the Madhouse on McDowell.” Ballot integrity has already been compromised and the chain of custody destroyed, so what difference will any of this make at this point? That ship has already sailed.

Brahm Resnik points out that Senate President “Krazy Karen” Fann has abdicated her official responsibilities for overseeing this GQP sham “fraudit.” If this sideshow has been farmed out to the “Stop The Steal” conspiracy theorist Douglas Logan from Cyber Ninjas, and Trump TV propagandists One America News Network (OANN), how can Judge Timothy Thomasson say with any seriousness that this “fraudit” is an officially sanctioned function of the Arizona Senate? In reality, the Arizona Senate set itself up to be used as a cutout, or a front, for a MAGA/QAnon operation. If they get away with this fraud now, they will certainly use this precedent to do it again in future elections.

UPDATE:

Senator “Krazy Karen” Fann should be facing a recall by now. All 16 GQP senators who authorized this fraudulent GQP sham “fraudit” should be forced to resign in disgrace. Where are the editorials calling for their resignations?




5 thoughts on “Arizona Senate Doubles-Down On GQP Sham ‘Fraudit’ With New Subpoenas”

  1. The New York Times reports, “Trump’s acting attorney general to affirm there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2020.”, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/us/politics/rosen-fraud-congress-testimony-trump.html

    “The Justice Department “had been presented with no evidence of widespread voter fraud at a scale sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election,” Jeffrey A. Rosen, who served as the acting attorney general for the final month of the Trump administration, said in a prepared statement to the House Oversight Committee.

    The department chose not to participate in legal challenges to the certification of the Electoral College results based on that assessment, his opening statement said, declining to appoint special prosecutors to look into election fraud or to ask state officials to overturn the results.”

    But “Krazy Karen” Fann and her QAnon conspiracy buddies know better than all the experts.

  2. Bill Gates (no not THAT Bill Gates), a County Supervisor in Maricopa County, says the audit of votes in his state is based on the lie of election fraud, and is “tearing at the foundations of our democracy.” “Why a Lifelong Republican Views Arizona’s Recount as Wrong”, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/us/politics/arizona-election-recount.html

    One of the most outspoken Republican critics of the audit is Bill Gates, who was re-elected as a Maricopa County supervisor in 2020, and along with other supervisors helps oversee the county’s election procedures.

    Mr. Gates is a lifelong Republican who once worked as an election lawyer for the party. He considers himself a loyal member of the G.O.P. and points to former President Ronald Reagan as an inspiration for his interest in politics. But he is horrified at the partisan audit taking place in his district, saying that the recounts Arizona already conducted had sufficiently validated the results of the election.

    We spoke to Mr. Gates about the recount, the future of the Republican Party and what he, along with millions of others, calls the “big lie.” The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

  3. The Arizona Republic reports, “Election experts say giving Maricopa County routers to Arizona Senate’s election auditors could be security threat”, https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/05/11/experts-say-giving-maricopa-county-routers-arizona-senates-election-auditors-bad-precedent/4995728001/

    Arizona Senate Republicans are trying to get access to the county’s routers and administrative passwords to the county’s voting machines, and to provide that to private contractors they’ve hired to audit the county’s 2020 election results, which began April 23.

    Routers serve as the mail carrier of a computer network: They deliver messages using maps of networks and computer addresses.

    Think of it like a mail carrier who relies on maps and addresses to get mail to the right place.

    Given access to the mail carriers’ — or routers’ — information, it would be easier for a bad actor to get access to a person’s mail, or to target the information inside the network.

    That’s an analogy one tech expert – Matt Bernhard, a research engineer at Voting Works, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for open source election technology — gave while explaining the importance of keeping Maricopa County’s routers secure.

    Bernhard said providing access to the routers is a “pretty specific risk” to the county. Also, he and other election security consultants across the country are unsure why exactly the auditors would need the routers to audit the election results.

    Senate liaison Ken Bennett has said they are needed to check whether the county’s voting machines were connected to the internet during the election. But a county spokesperson said that the auditors already have the information and machines to perform that check, and a previous independent audit commissioned by the county proved they were not.

    [B]ennett said he believes the contractors want the routers to address concerns from “people that have always suspected something nefarious about elections being connected to the internet.”

    [In other words, chasing conspiracy rabbits down rabbit holes again.]

    But Megan Gilbertson, spokesperson for the county Elections Department, has reiterated that the county’s ballot-counting machines are not connected to the internet. She said the county has provided the contractors with what they need to confirm that.

    “In January, the county provided Windows event logs, precinct-based tabulator logs, Election Management System workstations, server logs and more in compliance with the Senate’s subpoena,” Gilbertson said. “Someone with knowledge of the equipment would be able to confirm through a review of those logs that the equipment was not connected to the internet.”

    Also, independent contractors hired by the county already checked for that in a previous audit. The results from that audit found no malicious hardware on voting machines, found that the machines were not connected to the internet, and found that the machines were programmed to tabulate ballots accurately.

    Providing the routers would be disruptive to county business, since the county would need to take the routers offline to make a forensic copy, and get other routers to provide the network service in the interim, he said.

    “What the (routers) would provide the state recounters is absolutely nothing other than making life completely miserable for those providing the data,” Weaver said.

    County Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers said last week that it would cost as much as $6 million if the county has to replace the routers while the Cyber Ninjas has them.

    .Many election security consultants told The Republic they are concerned by the demand.

    The routers aren’t needed to audit election results, and the lack of clear answers about why the Senate’s contractors want them raises questions, said Matt Masterson, former head of election security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

    “[This] request leaves those who understand these systems and processes with their hand up in the air saying, ‘What are you doing? What are you trying to do?” Masterson said.

    Weaver said there is “no logic” in the demands.

    “It is a 100% malicious request,” he said, referring to the inconvenience and potential risk to the county with no clear benefit.

  4. There was talk about these freaks going door to door and asking people who they voted for, and Frances Perkins is correct, if these freaks ever show up at my door these freaks will go through some things.

  5. Next they will want to interview every voter. This would take a year or two. If they showed up on my doorstep, or anybody’s, it could get ugly. Justifiable defense.

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