Russia May Be Funding GOP Election Audit

The top election official of Arizona warned that funding for the GOP Senate audit of Maricopa County elections “could be coming from Russia for all we know.” The Senate used $150,000 of discretionary funds as seed money, and Republicans have aggressively been raising funds in secret.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said, “They set up a 501(c)(4) social welfare group, which is protected from public disclosure of their donors, to funnel contributions directly to Cyber Ninjas (the security company conducting the audit).” Hobbs spoke at the May 10 meeting of Democrats of Oro Valley.

US intelligence officials have found that Russia interfered in the 2016 and 2020 elections to support Trump’s reelection. Russia’s trolls pretended to be American people, including political groups and candidates. Their activity was designed to discourage certain people from voting, and they focused on swing states like Arizona.

“There are many, many red flags about what is happening that would potentially result in a finding that the use of private funding is improper,” said Roopali Desai, an election law attorney in Phoenix. She is fighting the audit in court.

“Are they making sure that the money that they’re raising for this audit isn’t being paid for by Russian operatives or some other country that is interested in finding fraud in our elections and undermining the public trust?” Desai asked.

For example, “Fund The Audit” claims to have raised $1.2 million as of May 3. It was started by former Overstock CEO and ardent Trump ally Patrick Byrne. He has been a leading voice in 2020 election fraud claims, which he made after it was revealed he had an affair with accused Russian spy Maria Butina.

“There’s plenty of evidence that Russian intelligence was behind promoting election fraud stories,” said Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida. He said America held fair elections in the midst of a pandemic, but Republicans incensed about Trump’s loss are damaging the process in a way that foreign nations do.

Export the Fraudit to other states

“The entire thing is a fishing expedition,” Hobbs said. She added that the audit “is 100% designed to undermine the public’s confidence in our elections, to continue to promote the big lie that Donald Trump is the President of the United States and that I stole the election in Arizona from him. So this whole thing is just a sham.”

“People around the country are watching Arizona right now because this is potentially precedent-setting, and they’re going to look for ways to try to bring this to other states,” Hobbs said.

GOP chair Kelli Ward is branding the audit as “America’s Audit,” saying in a podcast it is “the first full hand count and forensic audit by a legislative body of the 2020 elections — but perhaps not the last.”

Hobbs said the audit is “part of what they’re using to justify these terrible voter-suppression bills that we’re seeing here in Arizona as well as other states around the country. And they’re working to try to write the playbook to take this kind of audit.”

“It’s not an audit, but whatever it is to other states — battleground states where it has a chance to further erode the public’s confidence — it can affect really critical midterm elections by suppressing voter turnout, and help them to justify passing drastic changes to election law.”

Arizona, Florida, and Texas have led in voter suppression laws.

“We fully expect their report to indicate there was enough fraud that Donald Trump won the election,” Hobbs said. “It’s just designed to perpetuate the big lie and undermine the public’s confidence in our elections for who knows how long.”

Politicians are using the audit to advance their Republican careers. For example, Ken Bennett, the Arizona ex-Secretary of State and failed candidate for governor, telephoned the Senate president to get the audit liaison job.

“He was Secretary State in 2012 and decided to chase down Obama’s fake birth certificate from Hawaii and lead the charge on that conspiracy here in Arizona. And I think he lost an incredible amount of credibility when that happened, and I think in some regard, he’s really just desperate to be relevant again,” Hobbs said.

“Former Secretary Ken Bennett hasn’t gone through election certification since he left in 2016,” Hobbs said. “He was one of the people involved in Rudy Juliani’s post-election conspiracy circus going around the country, holding all of these ‘hearings.’ You all know there was no evidence to support any of this.

Department of Justice Action

Hobbs has been in touch with the DOJ, which sent a warning letter to the GOP senate, highlighting their concerns about the federal laws requiring ballot retention for 22 months following a federal election. Hobbs said she didn’t know what the DOJ would do next.

We can expect the DOJ to intervene as the Republicans get more aggressive with their demands.

GOP lawyers are now demanding the passwords for election counting equipment and the county’s internet routers. They want to check a conspiracy theory that ballots were magically wired in over the internet.

Exposing the passwords and routers would expose critical law enforcement data and individual personal information — like social security numbers — to online criminals and dangerous hackers. Sheriff Paul Penzone called the demands “mind-numbingly reckless and irresponsible.”

The demand may bring in DOJ monitors to Arizona, because untrained election “auditors” have commingled counted and non-counted ballots, and failed to segregate “fraudulent” ballots. “It’s a mess,” Hobbs said. “It’s a mess.”

Hobbs herself is under protection from state troopers after she received death threats from Trumpers for her comments. “They believe that I belong in an orange jumpsuit at Gitmo with a noose around my neck for treason,” Hobbs said.

Watch: Katie Hobbs in conversation with election audit experts discuss the many procedural deficiencies in the State Senate’s audit circus.

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What citizens can do

“We have to keep telling the truth about this election, and I know that there is a section of people that are never going to believe the truth,” she said. “We’ve been doing a good job of really discrediting the audit, along with the media. So we know whatever result they have is not gonna be valid.”

She called on citizens to find truthful information at Arizona.Vote, set up by the Secretary of State’s office. It includes facts about voter info, voter registration stats, and importantly, Combating Misinformation.

“There’s the Coliseum, otherwise referred to as the Madhouse on McDowell where the audit happening, and then in the parking lot, which is the Fairgrounds, they were hosting a carnival called the Crazy Times Carnival at the same time,” Hobbs joked. “So, I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.”