AZ Senate’s Sham ‘Fraudit’ Is Chasing Rabbits Down The Rabbit Hole (Updated)

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Permanent musical accompaniment, White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane (1967).

The Arizona Democratic Party and other critics of the state Senate’s audit of Maricopa County election results reached a settlement on Wednesday in a lawsuit with top Republican legislators, guaranteeing certain measures for ballot security and voter privacy as well as access for observers and reporters to witness the process. Democrats settle lawsuit with Arizona Senate, Cyber Ninjas on Maricopa County election audit.

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Or maybe not. The state’s top election official, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, is threatening to go to court unless the procedures being used by the Arizona Senate in its special ballot audit are changed.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports, Hobbs threatens more litigation over Senate audit:

In a letter Wednesday to Ken Bennett, the Senate’s audit liaison, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs detailed a series of “concerns” ranging from the the lack of safeguards to protect the ballots to the apparent failure to provide standards to determine exactly for whom someone intended to vote.

Hobbs also said the method being used to count the votes is flawed.

That’s critical since one purpose of the Senate review is to determine the accuracy of the results reported by Maricopa County. But she said the procedures being used here actually could result in a higher error rate than the margin of victory for Joe Biden in the presidential race.

That’s kind of the point of this fraud, Katie.

The secretary of state is doing more than informing Bennett of what she sees as shortfalls.

She pointed out that an agreement to settle the lawsuit over the access by the Senate to the Maricopa County ballots requires that certain procedures be followed. That agreement, signed by Bennett, Senate President Karen Fann and Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, includes requirements that ballots are secured in a manner to prevent unauthorized access and protect information from unauthorized copying or transfer.

More to the point, it gives them 48 hours to address any issues raised. And that agreement says if the issues can’t be resolved, the plaintiffs in that case, which now include Hobbs, are entitled to go back to court to seek compliance.

Bennett dismissed her complaint as no big deal.

“I think that most of the things in her letter are completely unfounded,” he said. “And the ones that have a little bit of legitimacy can be dealt with pretty easily.”

As I have warned you before, no one should trust anything this moron has to say (and I say that from experience).

Bennett did not identify which complaints fall into that category.

But if Hobbs succeeds in sending the case back to court, it could bring to at least a temporary halt the counting process that Bennett already has admitted won’t be done by the May 14 deadline.

https://twitter.com/DillonReedRose/status/1390046521815539713

Potentially more significant, what it also could do is force a discussion in open court of the practices being used by the controversial Florida firm hired by the Senate to review the ballots.

[A]nd an open hearing also would expose to questioning some of the tactics being used, like using ultraviolet lights to search for watermarks, measuring the thickness of ballots and searching for folds in ballots.

And the latest rabbit QAnon is chasing down the rabbit hole, bamboo. Slate reports, Arizona’s Republican-Run Election Audit Is Now Looking for Bamboo-Laced “China Ballots”:

On Wednesday, a member of the Arizona election audit team that has been heavily touted by former President Donald Trump revealed that its examination of the 2020 vote in Maricopa County will include a “forensic” analysis of ballots to determine if the paper is made of bamboo—in order to determine whether or not China delivered tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots to tip the state to Joe Biden.

If that sounds much too crazy for an audit that was initiated by the Republican-led Arizona legislature and whose communications are being spearheaded by Republican former secretary of state, Ken Bennett, it very much is not.

On Wednesday, audit liaison John Brakey told a reporter from the local CBS affiliate in Phoenix that the audit team was checking to see if 40,000 Biden ballots were smuggled into Arizona from Asia by checking the paper’s fiber to try to detect bamboo:

“There’s accusations that 40,000 ballots were flown in and stuffed into the box and it came from the Southeast part of the world, Asia. And what they’re doing is to find out if there’s bamboo in the paper,” Brakey told Dennis Welch of CBS5 News.

Welch asked Brakey a series of follow-ups, such as “Why do you check for bamboo?” and “This is part of what you’re looking for?” and he answered that others were searching for the bamboo ballots because “people in Southeast Asia…use bamboo in their paper processing” and “this is part of the mystery that we want to un-gaslight people about.”

Again, is the bamboo analysis truly part of the audit effort? Apparently, it has been from the beginning.

During a press conference for the audit last week, Brakey said what auditors were “looking for is folds in pieces of paper, because there’s a guy who came out and said certain things, that the ballots were stuffed, that we’re going to find bamboo in the paper.”

Bennett, the spokesman for the audit, then confirmed, “we’re evaluating the paper. We’re evaluating the paper.”

Where did this theory—apparently of major concern for the Arizona auditors—that someone in Asia had sent 40,000 ballots to Maricopa County in order to sway the election for Joe Biden and against Donald Trump come from? It appears to have come from an election fraud gadfly named Jovan Pulitzer, who Slate’s Aaron Mak reported earlier this week is supporting the work of Maricopa audit firm “Cyber Ninjas.”

In addition to Pulitzer having claimed to invent a technology that would detect whether a ballot’s ink and folds might indicate forgery, Mak flags that back in December Pulitzer began to espouse a theory that China had imported ballots to tip the election to Biden and that he could detect such malfeasance by uncovering bamboo particles via “a forensic analysis.”

Here’s footage of Pulitzer making that claim, in a video that was circulated on Dec. 23:

Pulitzer claimed at the time:

The ballots are supposed to be printed here in the United States of America and, in some cases, the ballots have to be printed in that exact state. American paper has a signature in it. And with forensics, you can look at that paper and see if it is the constituents of that paper is what we use to make paper. Now let’s say there was an influx of China ballots. China does not have the tree and lumber population we have because it got deforested primarily a long time ago. They use bamboo—and they do use wood pulps—they use bamboo in their paper and they use about 27 different mixes of grasses that we don’t have here in the United States. And even though you can’t look at it and see it, it’s very detectable. And so I can ensure you that outside of a catastrophic failing this will be plugged.

In another video published on Dec. 29, Pulitzer further explained his theory.

“Well did you know from a forensic level that you can tell absolutely the difference between paper here in the United States, or paper that was made in China,” he said. “There’s different formulations, different inks, even different fibers, and our systems were able to tell every one of these.”

Now, Pulitzer—the inventor of one of the worst gadgets of all-time and a former professional treasure hunter—is assisting Cyber Ninjas in conducting this audit, complete with checking for bamboo fibers from “China ballots.” Bennett told the Arizona Mirror last month that Pulitzer had consulted with “Cyber Ninjas” CEO Doug Logan to design the process for testing the ballots.

As Washington’s Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman said during a press briefing about the audit on Tuesday, the reality is that with Pulitzer and Logan now in total—and secret—control of those ballots, the “chain of custody” for Maricopa’s election documentation has been completely compromised.

“Arizona and Maricopa County has opened up a lot of questions because, like I said, how do you know those ballots weren’t altered?” Wyman said. “And it doesn’t even matter if they were at this point, because I don’t think you can guarantee that they weren’t and that’s all you have to do is cast doubt on this process.”

“From a legal standpoint, chain of custody, ballot integrity has been so destroyed by a lack of procedures that moved into evolving procedures” Matthew Masterson, a former senior cybersecurity advisor at the Department of Homeland Security, said in the same briefing. “You can’t reestablish that chain of custody and integrity after the fact. So, from just a legal standpoint, I don’t know how you can establish proper chain of custody, evidence standards, anything for a court, or otherwise, it’s gone.”

Wyman added that the Department of Justice ought to be observing the audit going forward.

The letter followed a request by the Brennan Center for Justice and voting rights organizations, which wrote to the DOJ on April 29 and requested they send federal monitors to observe the audit and recount process.

The Arizona Mirror reports, Justice Department raises concerns with audit:

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking Senate President Karen Fann to explain what steps she’s taking to make sure the election audit she ordered doesn’t violate federal laws prohibiting voter intimidation and requiring ballots be preserved.

In a letter to Fann on Wednesday, Pamela Karlan, the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the department had two major concerns with the audit.

First, Karlan said federal law requires state and local election officials to safeguard and preserve election records. She expressed concern that Maricopa County election officials are no longer in control of ballots, election systems and other materials.

If the Senate designates someone else to serve as a custodian for election records, which must be maintained for 22 months, the Civil Rights Act of 1960 requires “administrative procedures be in place giving election officers ultimate management authority over the retention and security of those election records, including the right to physically access” them, Karlan wrote.

“We have a concern that Maricopa County election records, which are required by federal law to be retained and preserved, are no longer under the ultimate control of elections officials, are not being adequately safeguarded by contractors, and are at risk of damage or loss,” Karlan said in her letter.

Maricopa County officials wouldn’t allow the Senate to conduct its audit at county facilities, and have refused to participate in any way. The audit is being overseen by Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cybersecurity company with no experience in elections.

The other concern cited in the letter involved possible violations of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The statement of work for Cyber Ninjas called for the audit to “identify voter registrations that did not make sense” and knock on voters’ doors to confirm their registration information, as well as plans to conduct an audit of voting history in at least three precincts “with a high number of anomalies.” Those plans would require audit workers to visit the homes of voters to determine whether they voted in the 2020 general election.

Karlan said that raises concerns that audit workers might engage in voter intimidation in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

“Past experience with similar investigative efforts around the country has raised concerns that they can be directed at minority voters, which potentially can implicate the anti-intimidation prohibitions of the Voting Rights Act. Such investigative efforts can have a significant intimidating effect on qualified voters that can deter them from seeking to vote in the future,” Karlan wrote.

Karlan asked Fann to respond to her concerns and to explain what steps the Senate is taking to ensure the audit doesn’t violate federal laws. Fann, R-Prescott, said the Senate’s attorney is preparing a response for DOJ.

Finally, “Among concerns surrounding transparency in an effort to recount ballots cast in the 2020 election in Maricopa County, ABC15 has learned the company leading the effort is now requiring a Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) be signed by volunteers who want to participate.” That is so Trumpian, and likely not enforceable. The Trump campaign’s nondisclosure agreements have been voided by a court, opening the door for whistleblowers.

ABC 15 reports, Maricopa County Senate audit observers forced to sign non-disclosure agreements:

The non-disclosure agreement explains observers must agree to keep information detailing what they saw and experienced while present to themselves, unless given permission by the company.

“The very heart of being an observer is to be able to watch, to observe, to take that information and to share it with others,” said Tammy Patrick with the Democracy Fund. Patrick previously worked at the Maricopa County Elections Department from 2003 to 2014.

“To have a non-disclosure agreement is the exact opposite of what the heart of an observation program is supposed to be remedying,” she added.

The agreement does not explain what information could be considered confidential.

* * *

“There’s a lack of transparency here that is again deeply, deeply troubling,” said Patrick. “We need to make sure that that same level of transparency is happening anytime you have official ballots that are being reviewed in the way that they are at the coliseum right now and we need to make sure that if there are things that are arise that individuals in the room have the ability and the power to bring it to the attention of the people of Arizona and to quite frankly to the nation.”

* * *

“There’s nothing holding the people conducting this recount accountable, said Kim Wyman, Washington’s Republican Secretary of State. “Do you know who’s going to be held accountable if ballots go missing? What is the penalty if ballots are altered or disappear entirely? All of these things are hidden from public view and that is really the crux of my concern is how are any of these players going to be held to account.”

It’s time for the DOJ to shut this MAGA/QAnon shitshow down.

UPDATE: And now this from Arizona’s most mentally deranged state legislator.

Enforcing the Voting Rights Act is their lane, you ignorant insurrectionist.





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3 thoughts on “AZ Senate’s Sham ‘Fraudit’ Is Chasing Rabbits Down The Rabbit Hole (Updated)”

  1. Christopher Thomas, a fellow on the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, who served in the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office for 40 years, 36 as director of elections, and served previously at the Federal Election Commission, writes “Arizona audit ignores federal law on election records”, https://www.azmirror.com/2021/05/06/arizona-audit-ignores-federal-law-on-election-records/

    Arizona’s “sham” audit of 2020 ballots fails to comply with the federal election records retention law, further undermining the integrity of the exercise with the possibility of illegality.

    This law, which has been on the books since May 4, 1960, requires election officials to “retain and preserve for a period of 22 months” all election records, including ballots in any election for federal office, including the offices of president and vice president, presidential electors, and member of the U.S. Senate. (52 USC 20701, formerly 42 USC 1974). It seems no election official or counsel informed the Maricopa County Superior Court of the strict federal ballot retention requirements, and the judge’s opinion that the county had to turn over its ballots to the Senate offers no analysis of the federal law.

    Retaining and preserving documents, described as maintaining the chain of custody of critical records, including ballots, is a required legal precursor to any federal or state law enforcement investigation. These include allegations about the conduct of an election, violations of federal election laws such as the Voting Rights Act, or voters’ constitutional rights. If documents are not securely maintained by election officials within a valid chain of custody, there is no basis to establish the genuineness of the records in question necessary for prosecution.

    The U.S. Department of Justice details this requirement over seven pages in its Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses, noting that the “requirements of this federal law place the retention and safekeeping duties squarely on the shoulders of election officers.”

    This chain of custody has now been broken in Maricopa County. The state Senate and its consultants have physical possession of nearly 2.1 million November election ballots, meaning that Arizona election officials are no longer “retaining and preserving” election ballots. After the Senate completes its work and the ballots have been handled by an untold number of individuals employed by the state Senate or its consultant, it will be impossible for anyone to confirm or refute the results.

    Once the chain of custody is broken, the ballots are no longer genuine according to federal election law.

  2. The Arizona Mirror reports, “Secretary of state’s observers raise concerns with audit”, https://www.azmirror.com/2021/05/06/secretary-of-states-observers-raises-concerns-with-audit/

    Observers with the Arizona’s Secretary of State’s Office who were granted access to the state Senate’s audit of the Maricopa County election said they witnessed concerning issues in regards to security of computers, ballots and a general lack of procedures around the process.

    “What we are seeing here is outside what is normal ballot handling procedures,” Jennifer Morrell, a former elections official and partner at Elections Group, said to reporters Thursday. Morrell was one of three observers granted access to the floor of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum to observe the hand recount as part of a settlement reached in a lawsuit brought against the firm conducting the audit by Arizona Democrats.

    The observers, who have been on the audit floor for about a week, said they’ve seen discrepancies in how ballots are counted and in procedures are conducted at counting tables, and what they see as lapses in security.

    For example, Ryan Macias, a consultant at RSM Election Solutions and the former acting director of testing and certification at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, said that computers used on the audit floor were unlocked and did not have a “time out” where a person would have to later put in a password to enter into the system.

    “These computers were never locked,” Macias said. After noticing this, Macias looked at the Arizona audit livestream late in the evening and noticed computers on with their screens still unlocked. Many of the times Macias walked by these computers, he said he was able to see files readily available to anyone who would be able to sit down at the computer.

    The subcontractor that is helping Cyber Ninjas conduct the hand recount of the audit, Wake TSI, appears to be allowing each of the teams doing the hand recount to set certain procedures of their own, according to the observers.

    Morrell said this is already causing discrepancies to appear on the audit floor and that each table lead has a different procedure for how to deal with the batch numbers. In Maricopa County, election officials counted ballots in batches of 10, but on the floor of the coliseum ballots are being counted in batches of 50 to 100, according to Morrell.

    Observers also noticed what they deemed concerning issues with how results are being entered into spreadsheets once the batches are counted. Macias said aggregators would enter results from all three counters’ tally sheets, rather than a final result for each ballot. When Macias and others asked how they intend to add up these tallies, they were told that the Cyber Ninjas have hired an outside CPA firm to do so.

    “There is definitely not a clear procedure for this aggregation,” Macias said.

    The observers also noticed that there is no quality assurance to ensure that the numbers entered into the spreadsheet from the tally sheet are correct before the tally sheets are stored away.

    Morrell and the observers also said that the procedures for how an unproven piece of technology developed by a failed inventor seems to be evolving “day by day.”

    The technology is aimed at doing a forensic analysis of the paper of the ballots based on unfounded claims that counterfeit ballots made their way into the 2020 election. Morrell said some of the stations have rulers to align the ballots for the photos while others do not, but little is known about what the technology does or how it works.

    Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told reporters that she and a bipartisan group of other secretaries of state from across the country met with the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to discuss the audit and their concerns.

    “This is really dangerous for our democracy and we think they are writing the playbook for them to take this across the country,” Hobbs said. “This is potentially precedent setting.”

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