As @ArizonaAudit ballot counting wraps up, here’s a timeline of how we got here. 🧵⬇️
Oct-Nov. 2020: County conducts all required pre- and post-election tests, including statistically significant hand count audit that matched machine count 100%. Public meeting addresses constituent concerns. Arizona certifies the election results. maricopacountyaz.medium.com/2020-election-…
Nov-Dec. 2020: Over a dozen courts find election lawsuits lacking evidence and rule in Maricopa County’s favor. “The court finds no fraud, no misconduct, and no effect on the outcome of the election,” said Arizona Superior Court Judge Randall Warner. azmirror.com/2020/12/04/jud…
Dec. 2020: 20 Arizona legislators sign a resolution asking “that the alternate 11 electoral votes be accepted for Donald J. Trump or to have all electoral votes nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted."
Dec 2020: Maricopa County voluntarily attends an Arizona Senate committee hearing. The County Board Chairman & the Elections Director spend six hours answering every question from members during the committee hearing. maricopacountyaz.medium.com/2020-election-…
Dec 2020: After the hearing, the former Senate Judiciary Committee Chair and Senate President subpoena the Board. No full vote of the Senate is taken. azcentral.com/story/news/pol…
Dec 2020: Did you know the subpoenas demanded access to data and information from the Board that isn’t even used in Maricopa County? maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter…
Dec 2020: In a court filing, Senators said they need the subpoenaed data "sufficiently in advance of the congressional review of the Electoral College returns on Jan. 6, 2021."
Jan. 2021: At the start of the 2021 legislative session, the new Senate Judiciary Committee chair and the Senate President subpoena the Board. Again, no full vote of the Senate or the committee is taken.
Jan. 2021: The Board provides more than 11 gigabytes of publicly available data to the Senate, while asking the courts to weigh in on secret ballots, private voter information and critical election equipment.
Jan. 2021: The Board votes unanimously to authorize a multi-layered forensic audit of the tabulation equipment by two certified firms. maricopa.gov/CivicAlerts.as…
Feb. 2021: The Senate holds contempt vote against Board, with the possibility of arrest, for not turning over private voter information, secret ballots and critical election equipment. This happens as the County is seeking guidance from the court. The measure does not pass.
Feb. 2021: The County’s election equipment audits show no evidence of vote switching or hacking and no issue with elections equipment or software. maricopa.gov/CivicAlerts.as…
Mar. 2021: A Superior Court Judge rules the Senate subpoenas are valid. The Senate is not ready to receive what they requested and asks the County to hold onto the ballots and equipment until an audit location can be found.
Apr. 2021: The County delivers more than 8 terabytes of election data, ballots and tabulation equipment into Senate custody. maricopa.gov/CivicAlerts.as…
Apr. 2021: Reporters and election watchdogs detail issues at Senate audit including:
-Security concerns
-Time wasted investigating conspiracy theories like bamboo in paper & non-existent watermarks
-Poor audit procedures
-Lack of transparency on funding for this public exercise
Apr. 2021: A Department of Justice letter to Senate President Fann expresses concern the “audit” may violate federal election laws. abc15.com/news/region-ph…
May 2021: The Senate President falsely accuses the County of deleting files & the Senate’s anonymously controlled Twitter account falsely accuses the County of a criminal act: spoliation of evidence. The truth? The files were there & nothing was deleted.
May 2021: Maricopa County’s elected officials call on Senate President Karen Fann to end the “grift disguised as an audit.” maricopa.gov/CivicAlerts.as…
May 2021: A Cyber Ninja subcontractor, Wake TSI, quits the audit after the hand count extends for weeks past the original two-week timeline. They are replaced by StratTech Solutions, a company with no experience in supervising hand court audits. azcentral.com/story/news/pol…
June 2021: As the hand count continues, Arizona Secretary of State observers chronicle “problematic practices, changing policies, and security threats that have plagued this exercise from the start.” azsos.gov/about-office/m…
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First, @ArizonaAudit account falsely accused @maricopacounty employees of a crime (spoliation of evidence). Now, the Senate subcontractor who claimed we deleted files... gets to take county election data to an out-of-state lab w/ no oversight? #RealAuditorsDont operate this way.
Audits that build trust are transparent. We know who's involved, what they will do, how they will deliver results, and how they will be paid.
Thread⬇️
Maricopa County disclosed the true costs of the two independent audits we conducted and did not take private donations. There was a public vote, involving all five board members, authorizing the audits. The firms hired were known, experienced, and certified to do this work.
Their processes were spelled out in detailed scopes of work & did not change over the course of the audits. The auditors produced capstone reports following their work and did not share what they found prior.
The Arizona Senate's approach has been, well, different. #NotOurAudit
The Senate Cyber Ninja audit resumed today. Maricopa County is not a part of this audit and does not support it. To ensure election integrity, Maricopa County relies on best practices in auditing and the expertise of experienced professionals.
Read more: maricopacountyaz.medium.com/auditing-elect…
We hired nonpartisan, accredited firms to conduct two forensic audits. We would never work with an unaccredited, partisan firm like the Cyber Ninjas. Maricopa.gov/forensicaudit#NotOurAudit
After each election, our hand count audit is done with bipartisan teams appointed by county political party chairs. They are trained to review each vote. The Cyber Ninjas are not requiring unanimous counts.
The Board of Supervisors and our election professionals take election integrity seriously. Before, during, and after the 2020 General Election, they took many steps to ensure free and fair elections in Maricopa County, including:
-Performing an election audit in 2018 following issues stemming from the primary election: maricopa.gov/4987/2019-Elec…
-Entering into a new election operations agreement with the Recorder in 2019, providing more oversight to county elections: maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter…
-Investing in new equipment and staffing ahead of the 2020 elections.
-Appointing an experienced auditor as co-elections director.
-Sharing extensive plans with the public before each election: BeBallotReady.Vote
One reason we can say #RealAuditorsDont operate like Cyber Ninjas & other Senate contractors is because we have an auditing department at the County. We know what a good audit looks like because we conduct them all the time. maricopa.gov/1524/Internal-…
Thread ⬇️on best practices:
Real auditors maintain independence and objectivity. This means that auditors should be unbiased and free from conflicts of interest... like conspiracy theorist CEOs or close ties to biased news orgs.
Real auditors adopt and follow a set of industry auditing standards. The most common standards for independent auditing firms are the Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS) issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Maricopa County refutes lies about election audit in letter to @fannkfann. Bottom line:
-NO deleted files
-NO chain of custody issues
-We provided what they asked for except for routers, for security reasons
-“Auditors” trouble locating info we provided is THEIR problem
Thread:
Files: @ArizonaAudit falsely claimed that files were deleted from a County server. Here’s the truth. When the server was shut down on 4/12/20 for delivery to the Senate, the metadata on the files updated to the dates of the shutdown. Nothing was deleted. maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter…
From the Board’s letter to Senator Fann: “The failure of the Senate’s so-called ‘auditors’ to locate files on a copy they made of the County’s server speaks more to their ineptitude than it does to the integrity of our dedicated employees…”