You may have seen my post Monday about the Iowa man sentenced to prison for threatening two AZ election officials.

That man will stick with me for a while. His story gave me a deep understanding of how we ALL got here (& where we are going).

So I want to tell you, too🧵 First, though, please read this about his victims.

Maricopa County Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman told the judge an emotional story about what the threats have done to him and his family.

Most important to me was capturing all of that, here: arizona.votebeat.org/2023/8/29/2385…

Still seeing claims that the main cause of Election Day problems in Maricopa County was shrunken ballot images (some claiming the county did this purposefully).

Once again, that is not possible.. Why? It takes a bit to explain so follow me. Ballot tabulators (the machines that scan your ballots to count your votes) are very sensitive. Even errant marks cause the tabulators to be rejected.

The image has to be perfect on the page for the tabulator to read it...

There's a dispute that's been happening behind the scenes about Maricopa County's Election Day problems that I've been watching unfold for months.

Now that I have all sides of the story, I'm ready to tell it. 👇👇👇 Maricopa County has maintained that there was nothing that should have signaled some of its ballot printers would fail on Election Day in Nov, causing widespread problems.

But the company that made the printers say the risk was clear.

A 🧵, and story: arizona.votebeat.org/2023/7/27/2381…

Watch the Kari Lake trial, starting here, search "Lake" or "Hobbs" and click on the eyeball.

superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/calendar/today/

Here's what you need to know about why this is happening: arizona.votebeat.org/2023/5/17/2372… Lake's attorney is giving opening. He doubles down on claim that the county workers didn't verify voter signatures on mail-in ballots at all.

Showing a video he says shows worker moving too quickly to check sigs - but in doing that is acknowledging that this activity happened.

Kari Lake is granted trial, starting Wednesday.

Her claim, according to the judge, is that the higher-level employees reviewing voter signatures on mail-in ballots conducted no signature verification at all. He tells her to prove it with evidence & prove she lost because of it. Her briefings so far have acknowledged that hundreds of ballots were rejected for bad signatures.

The number of early ballots rejected for “bad” voter signatures more than doubled for the midterm, my analysis here found: arizona.votebeat.org/2023/3/30/2366…

It’s been one month since Election Day.

We still don’t have all answers from Maricopa County on what caused machines to reject thousands of ballots. County officials have said answers will come later.

Voters didn't want to wait until later. Neither did I.

So I didn’t. A 🧵 For a month now, I’ve interviewed poll workers & observers, election tech experts.

I examined the technical guides/user manuals for the county’s ballot printers & tabulators

Finally, two people closely familiar with the county’s equipment agreed to talk.

Here’s what I found.

Breaking: Cochise County just voted to delay certification until another discussion Dec. 2. Today is the county's deadline to certify. This sets up a legal battle.

Here's how it will play out: arizona.votebeat.org/2022/11/22/234… I'm at Maricopa County's certification meeting, and we are monitoring a discussion in Mohave County right now.

Crowd outside Maricopa County supervisors board room sings Amazing Grace as they wait to be let into meeting where supervisors are scheduled to certify the election. There’s one man screaming with a megaphone but the others in the crowd were trying to drown him out by singing patriotic songs. We are being let in now.

🧵 What happens now that two Arizona counties have postponed certifying their elections?

The answer is they will be forced to certify. Here’s how this will all play out. arizona.votebeat.org/2022/11/22/234… I spoke with several election lawyers who all said the same thing. They have a non-discretionary duty to certify, under state law. County supervisors have no choice.

If they don’t by Monday, SOS Office will sue.

Election deniers are putting pressure on county supervisors in several AZ counties to not certify their midterm election results. Will all counties vote to certify by the Nov. 28 (next Monday) deadline?

Here's what I'm watching ... 👀👀👀 Cochise County discussed their election results on Friday. The supervisors decided not to vote and to discuss again on Nov. 28.

Many public speakers told supervisors the vote-counting machines weren't properly certified, but state elections director testified they were.

While Maricopa County was blowing up, Cochise County decided to move forward with its 100% hand count against court order.

Someone called me last night to tell me the Republican recorder just decided to do the random draw for the hand count anyway. By 5 p.m., the Secretary of State's Office had been alerted that an appeal to the order had been filed.

I knew the supervisors had held a 1 p.m. emergency meeting to most likely file the appeal but didn't realize they would just move forward without the court hearing the case?

Live updates from Maricopa County: 17,000 voters put their ballots into the secure box after the machine rejected them yesterday, or about 7% who voted in-person. There were 7,000 provisional ballots total, which is lower than in 2020, which to me shows that the ballot scanning issue did not cause more provisional ballots.

Maricopa County Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates takes questions at the central elections center. There are a lot of reporters here.

Maricopa County says vote-counting machines aren't working at a bit more than 10% of vote centers. There's two machines at each of those, so some have at least one machine working.

Waiting on word on what's going on, but in the meantime, tips for voters... If you get somewhere and the machines aren't working, the workers may tell you to put your ballot in the slot below the machine.

THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY.

A bipartisan team will transport your ballot to central count & it will be counted there.

If you don't want to do this...

🧵I filled out a web form for Clean Elections USA, the AZ drop box watchers accused of voter intimidation, expecting to get on an email list.

Imagine my surprise when I was given access to a discussion board & nationwide contact list w/ 4500+ names/emails.

Here's what I found: Clean Elections USA is trying to mobilize thousands of volunteers to collect evidence of "ballot mules" for the creators of "2000 Mules," (True the Vote) to pass to conservative sheriffs across the country.

Exclusive from me: '2000 Mules' creators are linked to AZ drop box monitors accused of voter intimidation.
@VotebeatUS got access to internal communications showing the connection and showing thousands of volunteers have signed up nationwide
arizona.votebeat.org/2022/10/27/234… The forum I gained access to (simply by entering my email into an online form) shows volunteers reporting photos, video and information directly to True the Vote.

True the Vote plans to report that to Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb's org, who plans to pass it to local sheriffs.

You may have seen the news that Cochise County moved forward with a full hand count of ballots. Nope, they clarified today, that’s not happening. New from me: arizona.votebeat.org/2022/10/26/234… After all that hoop-la, even the less-extensive plan to simply expand their hand count audit could still be blocked. Under law, that audit doesn’t happen unless all political parties approve. The Arizona Democratic Party told me told that it isn’t sure yet what it will do.

Cochise County supervisors are discussing what they actually voted on yesterday. One of the supervisors is saying they didn't vote to hand-count all ballots and all races. One of the supervisors is refusing to clarify.
County attorney is repeatedly saying even he is confused. OK final clarification (I hope). The supervisors will tell Secretary of State that this will not be a full hand-count of every ballot & every race. It will just expand the % of in-person Election Day ballots hand-counted during the post-election audit prescribed in state law.

Just emphasizing that no one knows what the heck Cochise County approved last night.

Could be a hand-count audit of all ballots. Could be just hand-count of in-person ballots. Could still be that the attorney blocks the whole thing. If it's just hand-counting ballots cast in-person at precincts, they would have a much easier time of it.

In 2018 (last gubernatorial), 10,285 voters cast ballots in person. Total ballots was 45,927.

Exclusive @VotebeatUS: Trump allies have interviewed nearly 200 election officials to probe for weaknesses
votebeat.org/2022/9/30/2338… @VotebeatUS The America Project, founded by Patrick Byrne and Mike Flynn, is conducing the interviews in swing states. Votebeat found dozens of interviews and recordings on web pages that appear to be unlisted on the org's websites.

Why didn't anyone tell me how incredibly difficult it is to introduce yourself in an email newsletter without being incredibly awkward