Thread by @maricopacounty

NEW: AZ Senate leadership hired unqualified auditors with a lack of election knowledge & a wealth of political bias. The claims these contractors advanced in yesterday’s briefing to senators enabling & enriching them were not based in fact. We refute more claims below 🧵

CLAIM: 74,000 more mail-in ballots were counted in Nov. 2020 than were sent.

FACTS: @MaricopaVote calculated the true number of requests and returns:
REQUESTS = 2,364,426
RETURNS = 1,918,024

So the claim is not just wrong but completely wrong. We don't know where Cyber Ninjas came up with that idea or number. Maricopa County provided additional details in the tweet below.

CLAIM: More than 11,000 names were added to the voter rolls after Election Day but were recorded as casting a ballot in the Nov. election.

FACTS: This is likely referring to people who cast provisional ballots. 18,310 provisional ballots were cast in the 2020 General Election.

These go through a rigorous verification process to make sure that the provisional ballots cast are only counted if the voter is eligible to vote in the election. This happens after Election Day. Only eligible voters are added to the voter rolls.

Of note: 7,605 provisional ballots were rejected in the General Election due to the individual not being registered to vote.

It is possible for a voter to not be on the voter rolls, vote a provisional ballot, receive credit for voting, that ballot not actually be counted because they voted provisionally, and then later show up on the voter rolls.

Since the Senate contractors are unqualified and untrained for this work, it's tough to know exactly what data they're using to come up with numbers.

CLAIM: Maricopa County relaxed signature verification requirements.

FACTS: This is simply not true. Maricopa County follows rigorous state signature verification guidelines. Staff receives training prior to elections to ensure compliance.

In June 2020 prior to the Primary Election, all full-time staff members that perform signature verification in Maricopa County completed a statewide signature verification certification course offered by the Associated Forensic Laboratory, LLC.

CLAIM: Maricopa County’s Duplication process allowed illegitimate ballots to be counted.

FACTS: When ballots are delivered to Maricopa County from military voters, overseas voters, large print ballots, braille ballots, or when they are too damaged to be read by a tabulator,👇

Maricopa County duplicates these ballots to ensure the votes can still be counted. The Elections Department assigns a matching serial number to both the original and duplicated ballot. This number can be used to compare the ballots.

The accuracy of Maricopa County’s duplication process was confirmed in court (CV2020-015282 Ward v. Jackson) where the plaintiffs randomly sampled 1,626 duplicated ballots.

CLAIM: Maricopa County’s Tabulation System is connected to the internet.

FACTS: Maricopa County uses an air gapped system, meaning its tabulation equipment is never connected to the internet and is completely separated from the Maricopa County Network.

There are no routers connected to the system and there never have been. See attached network diagram of the Election Management System (County’s Tabulation System).

CLAIM: MC’s Tabulation System was hacked during the Nov. General Election.

FACTS: This is false. The event in question involved an individual inappropriately accessing and downloading publicly available info. The website is in no way connected to the Election Management System.

CLAIM: County Election Officials didn't configure tabulation equipment & outsourced programming to Dominion because the County doesn't have access to Dominion’s administrative security token & password.

FACTS: County Election Officials program and configure the election.

County Election Officials have everything they need to prepare the tabulation equipment and provided the Senate with the security token and related passwords that were used to configure the November 2020 General Election.

Dominion’s administrative token and security password can be used to update the firmware on the tabulators. Since any changes to the firmware must go through EAC Certification and State Certification testing, the County does not have access to these security protocols.

CLAIM: Vote Secure paper has a special coating that prevents bleed through.

FACTS: Cyber Ninjas trusted an unreliable source instead of asking the manufacture if this was true. According to the manufacturer, Vote Secure paper has no special properties that prevent bleed through.

The County used 80lb Vote Secure paper for all mail-in and in-person voting ballots: content.govdelivery.com/accounts/AZMAR…