There were two major developments on Monday in the ongoing audit of Maricopa County, Arizona, but it’s a mixed bag.
First up, the State Senate issued Maricopa County a new subpoena demanding the routers and other election material that has yet to be provided to the auditors:
BREAKING: Maricopa County receives a new subpoena for election materials from Republican leaders of the Arizona Senate pic.twitter.com/76Ss3JQ8VB
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 27, 2021
The county has said previously that the voting machines were never hooked up to the internet and there’s no reason to hand over the routers:
Another subpoena in Arizona. Republican state senate just served Maricopa Board of Supervisors with 3rd subpoena demanding election “routers”. Routers which STILL were NOT connected to the internet …
— Erin Burnett (@ErinBurnett) July 26, 2021
And they have security concerns:
Fully qualify, I'm not a networking guy. I know that the county does not want to hand over the routers b/c they don't want MAC/IP address pairs exposed for their other departments, especially the sheriffs since someone could use that to discover sheriff network traffic.
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) July 16, 2021
This will likely end up in court, so, pull up a chair and prepare to sit a spell:
If you thought the AZ election audit was anywhere close to ending, just know that the court battle regarding the original subpoenas lasted three months.https://t.co/lJvZm6jtV4
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 27, 2021
And to follow up on our post on Sunday suggesting trouble was brewing between the state Senate and liaison Ken Bennett, he was “banned permanently” from the building where the audit is taking place on Monday:
Senate liaison Ken Bennett is banned permanently from the building where the election review is taking place https://t.co/d9NPKvnIHM
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 27, 2021
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This is over reports that Bennett shared information with third party that shed doubt on the way Cyber Ninjas was counting the ballots:
Background for non-subscribers, although I hope you consider trying out a subscription to support our work following this audit. https://t.co/cy0NfldgxR
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 27, 2021
He admitted sharing the information during a radio interview:
“I shared some box counts of how many ballots were in each box and that got leaked to the press,” said Ken Bennett.
The #Arizona Senate liaison for the #MaricopaCounty audit of the 2020 election is considering resigning after being barred from the audit. https://t.co/iy92fqsb0x
— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) July 27, 2021
According to reports, he shared this information with the company that conducted an independent review of the vote counts and their numbers “matched @maricopacounty numbers to the order of 99.9%”:
.@MarkPhllpsnews reports today that an independent review of 24 ballot boxes machine counted by the #azaudit matched @maricopacounty numbers to the order of 99.9%.
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) July 26, 2021
The independent review was done by the retired CEO of @clearballot, Tim Halverson, also @clearballot, and Benny White, a GOP operative from Pima county.
The box tallies were given to them by Ken Bennett.
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) July 26, 2021
Bennett threatened to resign during the interview as well:
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:
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 26, 2021
And it sounds like things could get much worse between Bennett and the State Senate:
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: pic.twitter.com/dfsk7kTI0z
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 26, 2021
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”
The Senate's representative…?
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 26, 2021
2. Bennett said he asked Randy Pullen, another Senate rep, how Pullen planned to keep this new ballot count the Senate decided to do this month fully independent from the Ninjas. He says Pullen said he wouldn't tell him.
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 26, 2021
In talking about #2, Bennett revealed:
1. He thinks Ninjas ballot count is "significantly different" from the county's.
2. Bennett is concerned this new ballot count is going to be fixed to match the old count, or vice versa. He never got answers on how this would be prevented.— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 26, 2021
Bennett also pushed back on former President Trump’s narrative that the audit was for him:
Also revealing. Donald Trump's comments at his rally this weekend made it seem like he believes this audit is for him. But Bennett, the representative of the body that ordered the audit and got the ballots, says clearly to Harris this morning that this is NOT Trump's audit.
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 26, 2021
There’s a worry that if Bennett isn’t involved, the audit will have no legitimacy:
Bennett says in closing comments he won't be involved in the Cyber Ninjas' portion of this audit anymore unless he is given full transparency.
Elections activist/audit consultant John Brakey says if Bennett is not involved in CN report, here's no chance it will have integrity.
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) July 26, 2021
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Related:
Doug Logan from Cyber Ninjas releases a statement on the alleged missing 74,000 ballots in Maricopa County https://t.co/rWL23Bh2dm
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 24, 2021
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