Real auditors have consistent policies and procedures. This ensures the results are reproducible and can be trusted. #RealAuditorsDont wait for a court order to come up with policies and procedures for their audit.
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…
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).