The Arizona Democratic Party and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo have filed suit to stop Senate Republicans’ fraudit of 2020 Maricopa County presidential vote.
“The sole reason for this lawsuit and injunctions is to protect the sanctity of the ballots and, more importantly, to preserve voters’ privacy from a sham audit that has been corrupted by agitators and conspiracy theorists. This corrupted process will not be transparent,” Gallardo, a Democrat, said in a tweet.
“Money influencers have handed picked the folks to observe and witness the “audit” that will be conducted by an uncertified and unqualified group,” he added.
The lawsuit to stop the fraudit was assigned to Superior Judge Christopher Coury. A hearing on the motion for an injunction has been set at 11 AM Friday.
In several articles, the Blog for Arizona has pointed out that the Fraudit violates the state Election Procedures Manual, which has the force and effect of law.
The Democrats seek a temporary restraining order prohibiting defendants Karen Fann, Warren Petersen, Ken Bennett, and Cyber Ninjas, Inc. (“CN”) from proceeding with their planned “audit” of 2020 General Election ballots from Maricopa County in violation of Arizona law.
They argue that the fraudit “will cause irreparable harm to the integrity of Arizona’s election systems and the privacy and confidentiality that Arizona law promises to Arizona voters.
“The private information of Maricopa County voters will be in the hands of untrained agents of a company operated by a known conspiracy theorist as part of an election “audit” funded by other conspiracy theorists and unknown third parties intent on finding fault with the outcome of an election with which they disagree,” the lawsuit says.
On February 25, 2021, a judge ordered the Maricopa Supervisors to turn over 2.1 million physical voted ballots, 360 small tabulation machines, 9 large counting center tabulation machines, and other voting equipment.
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, as Arizona’s chief elections officer, said, “the Senate plans to give CN full, unsupervised authority to conduct the Audit, the Senate will abdicate any responsibility or participation in the Audit, and neither the Senate nor any other government official will participate in the audit to ensure security and confidentiality of the ballots, voter registration files, or voting equipment.”
On April 1, 2021, Hobbs wrote to the County, “Unfortunately, yesterday’s announcement made it clear that the Senate has no intention of conducting an independent audit or ensuring the ongoing security and confidentiality of Maricopa County’s ballots and voting equipment. As you know, the Senate has confirmed its hiring of Cyber Ninjas Inc. This firm’s CEO not only harbors conspiratorial beliefs about the 2020 election but has shared conspiracies about Dominion election equipment, the exact equipment he has been hired to audit.”
“Moreover, Jovan Hutton Pulitzer confirmed yesterday that he too would be involved in this audit. To be sure, Mr. Pulitzer is also a known and frequently debunked conspiracy theorist (to say nothing of “failed treasure hunter” or inventor of one of the “25 worst tech products of all time”).”
Confronting voters
Making things worse, these “auditors” plan to confront Maricopa County voters at their homes to inquire about their registration and voting history.
The lawsuit charges, “Defendants have no policies and procedures in place for performing these tasks or for preserving the integrity of the process, including policies and procedures for ensuring:
- A secure and documented chain of custody for the ballots and election equipment.
- The physical security of the ballots and physical, data, and cybersecurity of election equipment so that they are not tampered with, stolen, or mishandled, or compromised.
- Markings on ballots are not altered or added while in Defendants’ custody.
- The handling, inspection, and counting of ballots and equipment is performed by bipartisan teams, including at least two members of different political parties.
- The security of hardware and other components of electronic voting systems.
The lawsuit adds, “the Audit workers who perform signature comparison are planning to use voter registration records, including the voter’s signature, date of birth, address, political party affiliation, and other personally-identifying information. The Audit workers who will perform signature comparisons are not trained in signature comparison or verification techniques. And all of this untrained work will not be subject to meaningful observation procedures.
Attorneys for the Democrats include Roopali H. Desai, D. Andrew Gaona, and Kristen Yost of Coppersmith Brockelman PLC in Phoenix. They are co-counsel with James E. Barton II and Jacqueline Mendez Soto of Barton Mendez Soto PLLC
Judge Coury has allowed to “fraudit” to continue. Per TPM:
“Maricopa County Superior Judge Christopher Coury indicated on Friday he would halt the audit if Arizona Democrats, who had brought a lawsuit against the auditors, put up $1 million in bond to the court. Later Friday, the state party announced that it would not put up the money, meaning that the audit will move forward.
The state Democratic Party, along with a Democratic member of the county board of supervisors, had filed the lawsuit on Thursday, just before the audit was set to begin. They alleged that the “Defendants’ planned Audit does not comply with” the election “safeguards and requirements” laid out in Arizona procedures, and that the “Defendants’ planned Audit undermines the integrity and security of Arizona’s elections and voter information.”
The judge has asked the Democrats to put up $1 million in bond to cover potential costs that the auditors could face when trying to make up for the lost time.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/arizona-audit-paused-court-order
Also in the article is a tweet from Jen Fifield, the “frauditors” are counting ballots with blue pens which is a major no-no as they could be used to fraudulently mark ballots.
I’d say what a bunch of cheating losers but then I’d be repeating myself.
As a resident of Arizona since 1969, I am embarrassed by what has happened to our state. Altho I am a democrat I pride myself in voting for the best candidate no matter which party. This move by the Republicans is ridiculous. As a teacher and single parent, I found it near impossible to get to polls before or after work due to tutoring etc…teachers haven’t been paid a fair salary here since I started reading…therefore I have cast my vote by mail for most of my life here. Now that I am a senior citizen it continues to be more convenient to vote by mail. What has happened to supposedly educated people????
This should have been done by supervisors a long time ago. It needed judicial oversight at a minimum.