So first – everyone wants to know why it’s taking soooo long. Two main reasons:
- The county has not provided all of the required equipment and data that has been subpoenaed and court ordered AND
- The county will not make themselves available to answer questions for the auditors (this is the first time the auditors have performed an audit where the key players refused to participate).
I came in late and didn’t fully grasp every detail (it’s overwhelming!)…but here are a few of the concerns the auditors shared that are delaying the completion of the audit report.
The senators had asked for an updated and a list of items they need in order to finalize the audit.
Server Issues
- Dominion apparently holds the router key fobs (required for admin login) for their equipment. Which means only dominion has complete access to the tabulators – therefore, there is no way the county can certify that the results are accurate.
- The election server admin passwords are all the same – this is not a beat practice for security
- Splunk logs (centralized data analysis) – the routers only hold a certain amount of data – someone ran 37,000 queries looking for blank password accounts (on one day), which reset the data so the auditors can only go back to Feb 5
When a ballot is damaged, a duplicate is created to run through the tabulator. There should be one original and one duplicate. As you can see under the serial no…there are often more than two.
When a ballot is printed, the circle and cross are used to ensure each side is aligned correctly so that IF there is bleed thru, the selection doesn’t contaminate the vote on the other side. The first circle cross shows the maximum allowable offset. The second circle cross shows how far many of the ballots were. More than 168,000 ballots were outside the allowable offset limit.
If you remember there had been concerns about sharpies being used at one point so Maricopa issues a newsletter stating they only use Vote secure paper (thick, coated, so it won’t bleed thru) but the auditors found that many of the ballots were printed on standard paper stock which can cause votes to be cast for the wrong candidate (especially if the circle cross calibration is off).
Canvassing
The auditors highly recommend canvassing.
EB32 – gives record when sent
EB33 – gives record when received
Should be an EB32 for each EB33. There are 74,243 mail in ballots where there is no real clear record of them being sent out (meaning they can’t find the EB32 for those ballots).
The Senate included canvassing as part of the auditors contract but the Dept of Justice asked the Arizona senators to hold off because it’s intimidating to knock on doors (ironic that they are doing vax knock on doors).
Voter roles
11,326 were not on voter roles on Nov 7 but were on the Dec 1 version.
The court determined Voter registration was required by oct 15 – 3,981 individuals voted but reg after Oct 15.
18,000 who voted in the 2020 election were removed very soon after election – the auditors are asking to see the removal documentation.
Envelope signatures
They have an affidavits which specifically state that so many mail in ballots were received that the standard of signature comparison were reduced and eventually, they were told just to not bother reviewing signatures at all. Maricopa states they have the envelop signature files to the auditors, however the auditors do not find them in their data. They are requesting a new subpoena be given specific to just the envelope files.
Additional information needed for complete and final report:
- Backup copy of the database of voter roles with who made any changes
- Chain of custody from beg to end
- Systems for duplication of ballots – which machines or software was used?
- Portable media and external hard drives with backups – at least 3 orange drives they know about – they have recd one
- Network diagram to show how the election dept shares system with sheriffs office
- Digital copies of policies and procedures – they have some hard copies that they are told do not match the official docs
- Some of the data of the over seas uniformed voters seem a little off – so they would like the documentation of what’s been sent and received
There will ultimately be one of two outcomes:
- The auditors receive the required data and can state with certainty how much fraud may have existed or
- The auditors will finalize their report stating the findings are incomplete and indicating that the election cannot have been certified.
Closing
On a final note, the senators dismissed the auditors first and had them escorted by armed security before others were released due to concerns for their safety.
Tehama Citizens for Freedom 