NEW: After a preliminary review of the draft #azaudit report, we can provide a #FactCheck on several of the claims Cyber Ninjas identified as the most serious in their report:
🧵⬇️
CLAIM: 23,344 mail-in ballots voted from a prior address.
BOTTOM LINE: Cyber Ninjas still don’t understand this is legal under federal election law. To label it a “critical” concern is either intentionally misleading or staggeringly ignorant. AZ senators should know this too.
EXPLANATION: 1) Military and overseas voters can cast a “federal only ballot” despite living outside the U.S. The address tied to their ballot would be their prior address in AZ.
2) People are allowed to move from one house to another (or even one state to another) in October and November of an election year (yes, shocking!). If the driver’s license address matches the voter registration address, they are still allowed to vote.
3) For the November General Election Maricopa County had 20,933 one-time temporary address requests. In addition, snowbirds and college students tend to have forwarding addresses when they are out of the county.
4) Mail-in ballots are not forwarded to another address.
CLAIM: 10,342 potential voters that voted in multiple counties
BOTTOM LINE: There are more than 7 million people in Arizona and, yes, some of them share names & birth years. To identify this as a critical issue is laughable.
EXPLANATION: 10,000+ votes in multiple counties is unlikely.
More likely: different people, same name. Example: if you search for Maria Garcia born in 1980, you’ll get 7 active voters in Maricopa County and 12 statewide. And that’s just one name.
If Cyber Ninjas understood data analysis, they would have performed standard processes to rule out situations that lead to faulty conclusions.
CLAIM: 9,041 more ballots returned by voters than received
BOTTOM LINE: This suggests a lack of understanding about how EV 33 files work. It’s not unusual for more ballots to be returned by voters than received.
EXPLANATION: The majority of these involve cases where voters returned a ballot without a signature or with a signature discrepancy. In those cases, election staff contact the voter to ensure their vote counts.
The most common reasons for a single voter having multiple entries in the EV 33 file are:
• a voter sent back an envelope unsigned
• there’s a signature discrepancy
A record for the original ballot is entered into the EV 33 file (where we track returned ballots). A second entry is recorded when a ballot envelope is signed or the signature discrepancy is resolved.
The appropriate conclusion to draw from this finding is that the early voting team was performing their statutory-required responsibility by reviewing signatures on all returned mail-in ballots.
Back with additional fact-checking in one hour.
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Have you seen this viral video? The people sharing it are lying to you.
So here we go, defusing a new election ‘bombshell’ that’s a lot like the old ‘bombshells.’🧵
Claim: "Maricopa County did secret testing of tabulation equipment. Just look at this video!"
Facts: If it was a secret, why did we livestream it? That's the opposite of secret. People interested in the facts can find those in our May 10 court filing. Excerpt below:
Bottom line: The video shows the installation of new memory cards which happens in each election. A judge already considered this supposedly "new" evidence in Ms. Lake's election contest and found it unconvincing.
BOMBSHELL 🧵: We’ve noticed that election misinformation seems to spread more widely when there’s incendiary language & out-of-context graphics, pictures, or videos. So we are going to EXPOSE the UNBELIEVABLE facts as election workers are CAUGHT IN THE ACT following the law. ⬇️
What happens in the tabulation center isn’t a state secret. Cameras are rolling throughout, political party observers are present, and our elections directors are telling them what’s happening as it is happening.
Black canvass bags are used to transport voted ballots & results reports from Vote Centers after polls close on Election Day. Bags have a tamper evident seal for security, are logged on a chain of custody form, & returned to @maricopavote by 2 poll workers of differing parties.
VOTERS: All legal votes will be counted. Your vote will count equally whether it is reported first, last, or somewhere in between. Thank you for participating.
CANDIDATES: All legal votes will be counted, including votes for you. If you have the most votes in the final tally, you will be elected. If you do not have the most votes, you will have lost your election.
DISINFORMATION SUPER SPREADERS: Please read Arizona election law & the elections procedures manual before asking leading questions about how something seems suspicious. There are processes + checks and balances in place to make sure every legal vote is only counted once.
What happens after Vote Centers close their doors? An all-night process with employees and volunteers across the political spectrum working to report results and prepare early ballots requiring signature verification. 👇
Poll workers close down voting locations after 7 PM. Depending on any lines, the process can vary, with most taking anywhere from 30-60 minutes.
In-person election result data and Vote Center equipment is returned to the downtown election center, where early ballots are organized for scanning, while in-person voting results are uploaded and then reported to the results website.