Lawless Rethuglicans In the Arizona Senate Are ‘Out of Order’ (Updated)

The Trump/QAnon cult in the Arizona legislature is still aggressively pursuing its fever dream that Donald Trump actually won Arizona and that there was widespread election fraud in Arizona. (If the presidential election was fraudulent, then so was every other race on the ballot, including their own election).

Senate Republicans want to conduct a “forensic audit” of Maricopa County ballots and election equipment in the quest to prove their fever dream conspiracies. Under the very laws enacted by a Republican controlled legislature, they are not entitled to this evidence (ballots are stored under seal after an election and cannot be produced, the proprietary software inside election equipment cannot be examined although the election data base can be produced). All of this was decided in the years-long Battle Over Ballots in Tucson’s Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election in 2006. There was far more evidence of impropriety in this lawsuit than Republican legislators have presented about the 2020 election.

Nevertheless, the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors allegedly agreed “to give lawmakers pretty much everything they are demanding in election materials and access to voting equipment.” Maricopa County to turn over election ballot info to Arizona lawmakers:

Sen. Fann (above photo) said the deal guarantees that the Senate Judiciary Committee will get copies of every ballot cast in the Nov. 3 general election. While the subpoena asked for the original ballots, Fann told Capitol Media Services this will suffice.

“We don’t want to break any rules,” she said. Fann said the duplicates will allow for a full audit of the returns, comparing the duplicate paper ballots with the official machine tally.

Potentially more significant, the deal, as outlined by Fann, gives the Senate access to the equipment used by Maricopa County to perform a “logic and accuracy” test on a random sample of tabulation machines as well as a review of the “source codes.” And there will be access to desktop servers and routers as needed by an auditor.

In a prepared statement, Jack Sellers, who chairs the supervisors, did not dispute the points made by Fann. But he said the county and the Senate are “working toward an agreement which delivers some of the requested documents and information while protecting voter privacy and the integrity of election equipment.”

All that paves the way for a deep dive into what happened in Arizona’s largest county and whether the vote tallies reported were accurate. Democrat Joe Biden bested incumbent Donald Trump by 10,457 votes statewide, with a 45,109 edge for Biden in Maricopa County offsetting results elsewhere where Trump outpolled the Democrat.

It also provides an opportunity to have an independent check into various allegations conspiracy theories fueled by Trump and his allies that the Dominion Voting Systems software and equipment were deliberately rigged to give more votes to Biden than were actually cast.

In turn, however, the Senate has agreed to have all the examinations performed by an auditor who is certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. And the documents and equipment produced will be accessible only to those authorized.

With the compliance, Fann said she hopes an auditor can be selected within days. And the Senate president said she wants the examination completed within a matter of days or weeks, not months.

Sen. Fann announced that the Senate and Maricopa County had reached a settlement on an audit, which the county disputed. That’s why you can’t take Fann’s word for it.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors instead decided to conduct its own election audit. Maricopa County supervisors order election audit in response to allegations:

Rampant but baseless allegations of fraud and misconduct in the 2020 general election prompted the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to order an audit of equipment used to tally the November vote, a move the supervisors hope will instill confidence in an election that some Republicans have spent more than two months undermining.

But already a top legislative Republican said the county’s planned audit is insufficient.

The audit will determine whether Maricopa County’s ballot tabulation machines have been hacked in any way or if any malicious software has been installed in them. It will investigate whether the machines were connected to the internet at any point during the 2020 election — something election officials have repeatedly said did not happen — and that no votes were switched. And it will ensure that the machines, which Maricopa County leased in 2019, were acquired through a proper procurement process.

* * *

Though [eight] lawsuits in Arizona have failed to produce any evidence of fraud, many of the allegations and conspiracy theories have persisted. Scott Jarrett, who oversees Election Day voting in Maricopa County, said an audit will help build confidence that the election was fair.

“We know that there’s a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there about this election. … I know that information, those rumors are not true. But there are … a good number of people in our community who do have mistrust. They’ve heard those rumors and they don’t know what to believe,” Jarrett told the supervisors.

* * *

The allegations of fraud arose not in response to genuine concerns, Supervisor Steve Gallardo said, but because some people didn’t like the results of the election.

“They continue to spread lies and conspiracies about how our elections are conducted. Now, our machines are the target. They continue to spread false allegations about how our democracy works,” Gallardo said in a fiery speech before the board voted on the audit.

But even though those people will never be convinced that the election was fair, Gallardo said, he supported conducting another audit to help alleviate people’s concerns.

“I understand there’s going to be folks out there who don’t accept the outcome of our election, and to be honest, I can care less what they think. We’re never going to convince them,” Gallardo said. “I put them aside. But I will go along with this, and I’ve said I would. Let’s go ahead and, for the fourth and final time, have an audit.”

* * *

Whether the audit will assure voters is one thing. Whether it will assure Republican leaders in the Arizona Senate, who want to conduct an audit of their own and are locked in a legal battle with the county over subpoenas for election equipment, is another issue altogether.

Former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman “Fast Eddie” Farnsworth held a hearing in December to probe the integrity of the election, and even though the hearing turned up no evidence of fraud or misconduct, he and Senate President Karen Fann issued subpoenas for ballots, equipment, software and data related to the election for the purpose of conducting a forensic audit of the election. The supervisors had already said they would conduct an audit after lawsuits challenging the election results concluded.

* * *
Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, who succeeded Farnsworth as Senate Judiciary chairman earlier this month, said the scope of the county’s audit is only an “inch deep” and said it won’t stop the Senate from conducting a separate audit.

“With the limited scope they have asked to be audited, they are guaranteed to find nothing,” Petersen said before the meeting.

* * *

Maricopa County will contract with two companies, Pro V&V and SLI Compliance, to conduct the audit. Those are the only two auditors certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, according to county spokesman Fields Moseley. A proposed settlement agreement between the Senate and the county would require the Senate to use an EAC-approved auditor. (See above).

One potential sticking point could be the actual ballots cast by voters in the election. The Senate subpoenas demanded copies of both the actual ballots and the electronic images that Maricopa County’s ballot tabulation machines make of ballots when they’re scanned and counted. The county has argued that state law strictly governs possession of those materials and says it can’t legally turn those over to anyone.

Maricopa County began its own audit of its ballot tabulation machines on Tuesday, which it expects to wrap up by the end of this week.

As you might imagine, this was not good enough  to satisy the Trump/QAnon cult members in the Arizona legislature pursuing their fever dreams of election fraud.

On Monday, the Arizona Senate gave an ultimatum to Maricopa County to say by noon on Tuesday when it will provide the equipment, materials and data it wants for a controversial audit of the 2020 general election. Senate wants Maricopa County to set date to comply with election subpoena. A judge has not yet ruled on whether the county must comply with the subpoena.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors rightfully rejected the GOP Senators’ ultimatum. Maricopa County rejects Senate election subpoena demands, spawning contempt charges:

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors did not comply with the Arizona Senate’s request to set a date for turning over materials that Republican lawmakers subpoenaed for a proposed audit of the 2020 general election.

The Senate had given the county supervisors a deadline of noon Tuesday to say when they would comply with the disputed subpoenas, which Maricopa County has challenged in court and says are outside the purview of the Senate’s legal authority After conferring with legal counsel on Tuesday morning, the supervisors again refused the Senate’s demand for ballot tabulation machines, software, data and more than 2 million paper ballots.

Fields Moseley, a spokesman for the county, said the supervisors have turned over some data sought by the Senate, such as publicly available voter registration information. But it legally can’t and has no intention to provide other items requested in the subpoenas.

“The board has no interest in turning over 2.1 million ballots that are under seal, per state law. There is no mechanism other than a court order to compel the release of those ballots,” Moseley said.

Moseley said the machines are critical infrastructure, and that giving them to people who aren’t certified or qualified to examine them would “create an inherent security risk” and might violate the county’s contract with Dominion Voting Systems, which the county leased the machines from in 2019.

Did I mention that a judge in the county’s lawsuit has not yet ruled on whether the Senate is actually entitled to the materials it sought with its subpoenas or whether the Senate has the legal authority to conduct an audit of the election?

Nevertheless, the Trump/QAnon cult in the Arizona Senate “signed on to a resolution introduced Wednesday afternoon that could lead to sending the Senate’s sergeant at arms to arrest Maricopa County’s elected supervisors as early as Friday.” Republican senators vote to find Maricopa County supervisors in contempt (Capitol Times subscription required):

The resolution, introduced by Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, states that all five of Maricopa County’s board of supervisors are in contempt of the Arizona Senate for refusing to turn over access to election equipment and ballots that the Senate demanded for an audit. It also directs Fann to take “all legal action” to enforce the subpoena.

Under state law, the Senate can send the sergeant at arms to arrest the five supervisors and bring them before the Senate.

The GOP-controlled county board maintains that it can’t legally provide confidential material, such as ballots that could contain voters’ signatures and other identifying marks, to the Senate. The county also already started its own forensic audit, after multiple tests of election equipment and regular post-election security audits found no evidence of any problems.

Supervisors Steve Gallardo and Bill Gates independently condemned the Senate’s resolution on Wednesday afternoon.

“The only contempt I see is what state senators have shown to Maricopa County voters since early November,” said Gallardo, a Democrat and former lawmaker. “Contempt for their privacy. Contempt for the way the majority voted. Contempt for the democratic process.”

Gates, a Republican, said the Senate has put Maricopa County in the impossible position of choosing between state law, or submitting the information demanded by the Senate’s subpoena.

“If the Arizona Senate believes that they have a right to examine your secret ballot, I invite them to make a good faith argument to a court and will respect any decision henceforth,” he said. “Barring a court order, I will never be in favor of turning over your ballots.”

I am reminded of one of the classic courtroom scenes in film in which Al Pacino yells “You’re out of order! You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order!” Because that is what is happening here: the lawless Trump/QAnon cult members in the Arizona Senate pursuing their fever dreams of election fraud are “out of order.” There is a lawsuit in which they can make their case. Instead, they are going for political theater to play to their unhinged conspiratorial political base.

The bad faith of the Trump/QAnon cult members in the Arizona Senate is self-evident. This is nothing but a back door work around of the courts to get Trump’s “elite strike force team” led by Rudy Giuliani access to election materials they could not convince any court to give them.

“Senate President Karen Fann has chosen a firm that produced a widely discredited report on voting in Michigan, and which includes a Trump campaign associate with a well-documented history of spreading false and baseless claims about the 2020 election, to conduct an audit of the election in Maricopa County, according to records obtained by Arizona Mirror.” Fann picks Trump-allied firm with history of false election statements to audit Maricopa election:

In a Feb. 2 email, attorney Kory Langhofer, who represents the Arizona Senate, informed two lawyers representing Maricopa County that the Senate had selected Allied Security Operations Group to conduct the audit. The Dallas-area firm, which has worked closely with the Trump campaign, would work under another auditor who has not yet been chosen.

“I have attached personnel resumes and the proposed scope of work for Allied Security Operations Group. The Senate has not yet selected the auditor under whom ASOG would work,” Langhofer wrote.

Senate President Karen Fann said no one has officially been selected to conduct the audit, and that the Senate is looking at a few firms. The Senate announced on Friday that it had hired a firm, though Fann later told the Mirror that she had selected a firm, but nothing was official and she was still considering other firms as well.

The company’s audit team includes Phil Waldron, a retired U.S. Army colonel who testified as an expert for Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani at hearings in Arizona and other states where President Donald Trump falsely claimed the election was rigged against him.

As I said, you can’t take Fann’s word for it.

Allied Security Operations Group produced a report on the election in Antrim County, Mich., where a human error involving a software update in the county’s ballot tabulation machines briefly showed the heavily Republican county strongly favoring Democrat Joe Biden on election night. The error was quickly corrected but helped spawn months of conspiracy theories regarding Dominion Voting Systems, the company that provides the northern Michigan county’s ballot counting machines.

ASOG’s report falsely claimed that the Antrim County’s machines had a 68% error rate, an allegation that Trump repeated on Twitter. Michigan election officials and Dominion have taken issue with other claims from the report, which asserted that Antrim County’s election equipment “is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”

Michigan Secretary of State Josselyn Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel, both Democrats, said ASOG “has no apparent expertise in election administration and technology” and said its work appeared to be “limited to the previous release and amplification of other false information and fake documents.”

(There is much more detail in this in-depth report).

The Capitol Times continues:

Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates also objected to the Senate’s apparent choice of a “known, and frequently debunked, conspiracy theorist” to conduct their audit. While Fann and Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, announced last week that they had hired an “independent, qualified, forensic auditing firm” to conduct an audit, they declined to name that firm.

Reporting on a conservative blog and by AZFamily’s Dennis Welch turned up two names: ret. Army Col. Phil Waldron and Allied Special Operations Group, which employs the so-called military intelligence expert formerly known as “Spyder.”

Waldron was a fixture at Trump attorney Rudy Giuiliani’s post-election meetings with GOP lawmakers, where he gave “expert” testimony debunked by election officials in multiple states. “Spyder,” an anonymous expert witness named in several of Trump’s failed Kraken lawsuits, is really Joshua Merritt, a 43-year-old information technology consultant and military washout with no military intelligence training.

The Arizona Mirror adds Senate GOP all back arresting Maricopa County supervisors for contempt:

All 16 Republicans in the Arizona Senate co-sponsored a resolution calling for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to be held in contempt and arrested for refusing to comply with wide-ranging subpoenas for election equipment and materials.

Senate Resolution 1005 directs Senate President Karen Fann to “take all legal action pursuant to section 41-1153” of state law, which says that any “witness neglecting or refusing to attend in obedience to a subpoena may be arrested by the sergeant-at-arms and brought before the senate or house.”

Senate rules, which can only be waived with a two-thirds vote of the chamber, require a resolution to be read three times on separate days before a final vote. The chamber is adjourned on Friday, meaning the earliest a vote could take place would be Monday. Given the likelihood that all 14 Senate Democrats will vote against it, the resolution would require the unanimous vote of the Republican caucus to pass.

The supervisors have challenged the subpoenas in court, arguing that the Senate lacks the legal authority to seek some of the requested materials. But though a judge has not yet ruled on whether the Senate can legally demand the materials, Fann moved forward with a contempt resolution after the supervisors on Tuesday refused a request to set a date for when the county will comply with the subpoenas.

The subpoenas issued by Fann and Sen. Warren Petersen, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, demand that Maricopa County turn over ballot tabulation machines, 2.1 million ballots and other materials and data from the 2020 general election. Despite a lack of any evidence that the outcome of any races were affected by fraud or misconduct, they want to conduct a forensic audit of those materials.

* * *

[T]he county argues that state law prohibits it from turning over actual ballots. And the county said state law and its contract with vendor Dominion Voting Systems may prohibit it from turning over tabulation machines.

Supervisor Jack Sellers, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said it was “frustrating that the Senate would even consider” finding the board in contempt. He said state law bars the release of the ballots, and if the Senate wants them, it should convince a judge to allow access.

“If they truly believe in the legality of their position, they will join us in seeking a solution through the courts,” Sellers, a Republican, said in a press statement on Tuesday, after Petersen raised the possibility of finding the supervisors in contempt, including arresting them and charging them with misdemeanor offenses.

Supervisor Steve Gallardo, the board’s lone Democrat, said it was shameful that the Senate issued its subpoenas in response to “unfounded conspiracies,” and said it’s worse that it is now “doubling down in pursuit of these falsehoods by considering contempt charges.”

“Some consider our decision to stand firm ‘contempt’ of the Senate. The only contempt I see is what state senators have shown to Maricopa County voters since early November. Contempt for their privacy. Contempt for the way the majority voted. Contempt for the democratic process,” Gallardo said in a press statement on Wednesday.

UPDATE:

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will meet at 10am on Friday to discuss the Senate subpoenas

— Jeremy Duda (@jeremyduda) February 4, 2021

It sounds like the Board of Supervisors is going back to court. They voted to direct their attorneys to take action “to protect the integrity of the electoral process and the privacy of the ballots and of the voters of Maricopa county in the courts.”

— Jeremy Duda (@jeremyduda) February 5, 2021

UPDATED:

It's back to court we go. Maricopa County has filed a new complaint in Superior Court asking a judge to quash the subpoenas issued by the Senate.

— Jeremy Duda (@jeremyduda) February 5, 2021

Maricopa County asks judge to strike down Senate subpoenas, via @jeremyduda https://t.co/TUEoHx8yrh

— Arizona Mirror (@ArizonaMirror) February 6, 2021