Update: Judge Concerned The Rights Of Voters Are Not Being Protected In AZ Senate Sham ‘Fraudit’ (Updated)

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The Arizona Senate “fraudit” case was reassigned on Monday to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Martin, who scheduled a hearing for 11 a.m. Tuesday.

UPDATE: From the Arizona Republic, Judge concerned about protections for voters as Maricopa County audit continues:

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A judge on Tuesday raised concerns that the Arizona Senate and its contractor, the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas, have not protected the rights of voters as they recount the 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County during the last election.

But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Martin said the Republican-controlled Senate has the authority to conduct what it has billed as an audit (sic) of the last election and left it for future hearings to decide exactly what rules apply and whether the public can see the procedures the Senate’s contractors are following.

The Arizona Democratic Party and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo filed a lawsuit last week to stop the unprecedented undertaking before workers at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where the ballots are now housed, began poring through votes on Friday. The lawsuit argued that the process violates various election laws and does not include necessary measures to protect the security of the ballots.

A different judge ordered Friday that the Senate’s contractors turn over some of its policies and procedures to the court. Lawyers for Cyber Ninjas moved over the weekend to keep the documents secret, however, and asked the court to shut the public and the press out of a hearing. The company argued making the documents public would compromise security and expose trade secrets.

That judge has since recused himself from the case and Martin did not rule on the argument Tuesday. He set another hearing for Wednesday to hear more on the issue.

“The Arizona Senate has the constitutional authority to conduct the audit as part of its legislative function. However, the manner in which that audit is conducted must be balanced against the constitutional rights of the voters in Maricopa County, including the rights to secrecy and confidentiality of information,” he said.

Before the hearing ended, Martin added: “I am not yet persuaded that there has been a showing that the rights of the voters in Maricopa County are being protected.”

Lawyers for Senate Republicans argued the judge should throw out the lawsuit altogether due in part to legislative immunity, contending lawmakers cannot be sued during the legislative session.

Martin rejected that argument on Tuesday.

The judge said some policies of the state’s election procedures manual do not apply to post-election audits but some clearly do.

“Thus, in the court’s judgment, the heart of this case lies in the policies and procedures to be applied to the audit by the Arizona Senate,” Martin said.

The judge said, for example, that Cyber Ninjas is not required to ensure the political parties are equally represented in the recount process.

The company has not provided any assurances that every team counting ballots would include at least one Democrat and one Republican.

But Martin said that is a different question from ensuring all political parties can observe the process, along with the media.

Reporters so far are not allowed to watch the recount, except if working as observers, during which time they are not allowed cameras.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

UPDATE:

Jen Fifield from the Arizona Republic, the only actual reporter to have been inside Veterans Memorial Coliseum not working for the “Trump TV” OANN propaganda network, reports Journalists gain access to Arizona election audit; about 2M ballots still to count:

After days of silence, on Tuesday journalists got limited access inside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum where the Arizona Senate’s contractors are attempting to hand count all Maricopa County ballots cast in the November election.

Officials with Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, the private contractor leading the audit, were not present in the press area to answer questions, including how many of the nearly 2.1 million ballots have been reviewed since the audit got underway Friday.

Ken Bennett, the Senate’s liaison for the audit, spoke to the media in a news conference outside the state Capitol for the first time since Friday, but he said he did not know how many ballots had been counted.

“I have an estimate of what the number is,” he told reporters, offering that just shy of 100,000 ballots had been tallied.

Bennett said he was confident the count could be completed before the Senate’s lease on the coliseum ends May 14.

“We’re on track to get the job done in the time that we have,” he said.

While there have been numerous concerns raised about the security of ballots and private voter information, Bennett said they were “making sure that everything is very secure.”

There has been no readily apparent evidence to support his bald assertion. This fool is defining the context of “security” very narrowly. What about the reporters who were able to just walk in through an unlocked door on the first day? Do you think we have forgotten?

“There’s nothing happening there that would violate the identity of any voters or any privileged voter information,” he said.

At the coliseum, the recount appeared to be operating smoothly.

As the auditors worked, an American flag hung in the stands above them, next to a banner reading, “The MADHOUSE is OUR HOUSE,” referring to the coliseum’s moniker, “The madhouse on McDowell.”

Meanwhile, it appeared that some procedures for how ballots were being counted had been adjusted since an Arizona Republic reporter (Jen Fifield) had observed operations on Friday.

Now using green pens and red pens instead of blue.

Race against the clock

While Bennett was unable to provide an exact number of the ballots counted, it was clear looking at the pallets that auditors had hardly made a dent. Of about 46 pallets of boxes, five had been opened, and the boxes on two of the pallets were nearly emptied.

The counting began in earnest about noon Friday. It got off to a slow start as procedures were finalized on the fly and training happened on the spot. Counters had looked at about 150 ballots by 1:30 p.m. that first day.

If the auditors have counted almost 100,000 of nearly 2.1 million ballots as of Tuesday afternoon, that’s nearly 5% in more than three days of counting. The auditors have about 19 total days in the coliseum that they plan to work, since they are not scheduling shifts on Sundays.

Bennett said the companies are looking to expand counting hours if possible, potentially moving to three five-hour shifts instead of the original two shifts.

Counting procedures have changed

This is the way ballots are counted: Three counters review each ballot. The counters are to mark down what they see on the ballot on a printed spreadsheet.

They are making three tally marks for each ballot: one to indicate that they checked a ballot, one to indicate which presidential candidate the voter chose and the last to indicate which U.S. Senate candidate the voter chose.

Counters were working at about 18 tables on Tuesday afternoon. They were using green pens to mark their tally sheets, and red pens were also available to them.

Here are a few ways that counting procedures have changed since Friday:

      • The way that counters are counting the ballots. On Friday, someone would first scan a ballot and project it on screens in front of the three counters before putting the actual ballot on a turntable. The counters then would look at the actual ballot on the turntable and the scanned ballot on the screen before marking the votes. As of Tuesday, the screens were gone and the counters were just looking at the ballot on the turntable in front of them.
      • Counters are reviewing ballots in smaller batches before a fourth person, the table monitor, checks to see whether their counts match. The ballots were checked after every 100 on Friday. Now, that appears to be less.
      • If counters need something while ballots are on the table, someone yells “runner.” The runners literally run to help, including taking completed tally sheets from the tables to another area of the room for further review.

Counting took about 15 seconds per ballot Tuesday, but the counting was not continuous as there were breaks between batches.

Workers inspect ballots, but it’s unclear why

After the ballots were counted, they went to an inspection table with three people. There are many questions about what the workers there were doing and what they were looking for, but here is what we know about what each one was doing:

      • The first person lines up the ballot under a Canon camera hooked onto brackets.
      • The second person lines up the ballot under a device that displays a portion of the ballot onto a computer screen. One of the images displayed on the screen is a filled-in bubble, and it is magnified and examined.
      • The third person holds the ballot inside a box set up on the table. The person takes a UV flashlight and shines it on particular areas of the ballot. As The Republic observed, the ballot was being examined on one side in particular, and the middle.

Rumors have spread about the workers checking the ballots for watermarks, but the paper that Maricopa County uses for ballots does not have a watermark. Shortly after the November election, QAnon conspiracy theorists claimed that former President Donald Trump and others secretly watermarked mail-in ballots to prove fraud.

That would be an actual criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and state and county elections officials and their vendors if it were true. But we are talking about this idiot “Q” who doesn’t get anything right.

A USA TODAY fact check and others found the claims false because mail-in ballots are designed by local governments and ordered from private printers.

Another rumor was that workers were checking the ballots for fingerprints, but that has not been confirmed, nor has the idea of why fingerprints would be significant.

Asked about the purpose of workers examining ballots with lights, Bennett said, “I personally don’t know.”

For a former Secretary of State who is supposed to be overseeing this process to lend his imprimatur of credibility to this “fraudit,” this assclown doesn’t seem to know anything about what is going on. So much for his imprimatur of credibility to this “fraudit.”

Journalists win access to observe

Local media organizations joined together to hire an attorney to push for media access after journalists initially were being denied entry unless they signed up as a volunteer observer and worked a six-hour shift.

A Republic reporter was admitted on Friday as a volunteer observer, while others were not. The Republic reporter was told about halfway through that shift that she could not provide further updates until the shift was over.

After that, the media’s only access to the live audit before Tuesday was watching a livestream feed [from OANN], with cameras on azaudit.org showing only a bird’s-eye view where it’s unclear what auditors are doing.

On Tuesday, journalists obtained pool access to the audit, meaning one reporter, one photographer and one videographer could be there at a time, in a designated area.

Journalists in the pool were in a roped-off press seating area in the center of the coliseum stands.

Reporters will be posting updates on Twitter using the hashtag #azauditpool.

Journalists can observe only the main counting floor. Somewhere else in the coliseum, auditors are examining the county’s voting machines. The media was not given access to that area, and the livestream does not show that area, either.

This violates the manufacturer’s proprietary information, patent protections and “trade secrets” (the very thing that Cyber Ninja’s is claiming in court to prevent disclosing its proprietary information about its “fraudit” process). There is generally a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) between election equipment manufacturers and county election officials. The Arizona Senate has exposed the state to a lawsuit from the manufacturers. I’m surprised that they have not already sued.

Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers were at the site on Tuesday providing security, in another change from last week. Initially, DPS officials said they would not be at the facility.

Using state police for a partisan political process? How is this legal? And it calls into question the integrity of DPS.

Journalists were told by security on Tuesday that if they went anywhere other than where they were allowed to go, they would be arrested for trespassing.

“Everything that’s happening over at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, we’re trying to make it as transparent as possible,” Bennett said.

That viewpoint is under scrutiny in court.

A hearing will continue Wednesday before a Maricopa County Superior Court judge about what rules and procedures should be followed in the audit. The Arizona Democratic Party and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo filed a lawsuit last week to stop the undertaking.





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2 thoughts on “Update: Judge Concerned The Rights Of Voters Are Not Being Protected In AZ Senate Sham ‘Fraudit’ (Updated)”

  1. The longer this charade goes on the more ballots they’re altering (note there are NO independent observers in the process), and the more lies they’re propagating. They’re already claiming over 250,000 “fraudulent ballots”.

    This is as if the Reichstag arsonist strolled into the building in broad daylight with a can of gasoline and in full view of witnesses and cameras, torched the place.

    • OANN is lying. “Ken Bennett, the Senate’s liaison for the audit, said he did not know how many ballots had been counted, but ‘I have an estimate of what the number is,’ he told reporters, offering that just shy of 100,000 ballots had been tallied.” These assclowns haven’t even counted 250,000 ballots yet. You can’t believe anything anyone associated with this sham “fraudit” says.

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