PHOENIX — Any thoughts of the audit of the 2020 Maricopa County presidential election results coming to an end soon were quickly dismissed Thursday.
In a briefing at the state Senate, the auditors said they still need more data from the county and access to voters. Doug Logan, who runs Cyber Ninjas, the firm in charge of the audit, says he needs to talk with up to 74,000 voters. Logan claims there is no record the mail-in ballots were ever sent out.
"It is a way to know for sure whether some of the data we're seeing is a real problem or a clerical error,” Logan said.
Senate President Karen Fann would not commit to allowing the canvassing.
ABC15 looked into Logan’s claims that over 74,000 voters in Maricopa County were recorded as not being sent an early ballot but being recorded as having voted on. Logan demonstrated that he is unfamiliar with Maricopa County’s election procedures as voters in the county are allowed to early in person as well as mail-in voters. ABC15 determined and verified with county election officials that the 74,000 voters Logan is referring to voted in person in the last week of the November election.
Earlier in the spring, the Department of Justice warned doing it might amount to voter intimidation, a federal crime. “This is not about Trump. This is not about overturning the election. This has never been anything other than election integrity,” Fann said.
In the Senate President’s pursuit of election integrity, Fann appears to be willing to have Senate lawyers issue a new round of subpoenas.
Auditors want passwords the county says it doesn't have, and they also want computer network equipment directly related to the election and a complete copy of the Maricopa County voter registration database.
“That doesn't breed trust. It slows things down and it makes things difficult. We would like to work together with them,” said State Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen.
That seems unlikely.
In a lengthy statement released Thursday afternoon, Jack Sellers, the Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors called the auditors incompetent, saying their numbers were wrong.
“Finish your audit, release your report and be prepared to defend it in court,” said Sellers.
