This story is for subscribers only. @maryjpitzl and I found out earlier this week that Ken Bennett, the Senate rep, had shared initial results from the Senate's new ballot count w/ an outside group that's been critical of the Cyber Ninjas.
He did so without telling the Ninjas.
We called Ken about it. We also called @FannKfann. This was yesterday afternoon.
This morning, he's blocked. Cyber Ninjas told us Fann's office made the decision. She didn't respond to our text asking about that.
Fann says Bennett is still the Senate's liaison.
Please read our full story for more - including what these initial results are showing.
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AZ Senate liaison to the election review tells us all this morning he is considering resigning. Other than that, though, he used @JamesTHarris interview this morning to get a few things out he has been holding back about:
We've been hearing from audit insiders for a while now that Cyber Ninjas withholds information from Bennett. Bennett confirms that this AM, and reveals that him being kept from entering Friday was "the tip of the iceberg"...
Transcribed:
His two examples:
1. He was concerned the Cyber Ninjas had no way to get an accurate count of duplicated ballots. He said when he was asked for an update on that he was told the workers were told: “Don’t share anything with Secretary Bennett”
Yesterday, The Gateway Pundit ran an “article” saying some audit results were coming Monday. Shared widely. Then someone claiming to be involved in the audit repeated it in front of a crowd.
This is inaccurate. No results will be released until a final report, maybe in August.
This is why trusting credible sources is important. The Gateway Pundit is not a journalism outlet.
Now, I say this using Ken Bennett Senate liaison and Randy Pullen audit spokesperson as my sources.
But very possibly, people working inside the audit could leak some preliminary results. Remember the audit account tweeted about ‘spoliation of evidence’ already.
1. They are going back and recounting some boxes as a sampling method, to compare to the original count.
2. They are reviewing boxes where discrepancies were noted in original count, such as duplicate ballots w/o matching originals, or boxes w/ unexpected number of ballots.
Arizona election audit ballot recount & inspection is estimated to be complete by Saturday, June 26, Pullen said. The coliseum lease ends June 30.
No estimate from Pullen on how many ballots left to inspect. 15-20 pallets still have boxes on them, out of 46 total. #azauditpool
I see 4-5 ballot counting tables still operating, so recount continues
~50 inspection tables
And 5 teams of two people each sorting ballots in some way. Not sure what they are doing there.
They have changed their ballot storage system since last time I was here. Last week, this cage was almost empty, and it has always held the ballots that hadn’t been touched yet. Now, it has ballots that already have their colored tape on it indicating they have been counted.
Here’s the four parts of the ballot they are looking at:
🗳The filled-in oval in the presidential race
🎯 A bullseye symbol on the top-right hand corner.
‼️The top center of the ballot that shows directions to voters.
❌A crop mark on the very top left corner of the ballot.
A few things:
Can’t figure out why they are looking at the last two.
Bullseye alignment doesn’t dictate whether machine can read ballot, so no reason that I know to look at that.
Will be interested to see if they find that any ovals were not filled in by humans?