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Tag: voting machines
Facing Certification Deadline, Arizona Election Deniers Refuse To Admit Defeat

Facing Certification Deadline, Arizona Election Deniers Refuse To Admit Defeat

By Ned Parker

As Arizona counties face a Monday deadline to certify their midterm election results, Republican candidates and activists promoting false theories of voter fraud are refusing to back down.

State Senator-elect Jake Hoffman, head of Arizona’s Freedom Caucus, a group of largely pro-Trump Republican state lawmakers, told Reuters he will lead an investigation into the state’s election when the legislature reconvenes in January.

Right-wing activist Steve Bannon, a former Trump administration official and promoter of election conspiracy theories, said voting machine mishaps on the November 8, Election Day, tainted Democrat Katie Hobbs’ victory over Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor who has refused to concede.

Hobbs “will never be considered legitimate,” said Bannon, who has been providing Lake counsel. "That's going to cripple her ability to govern. So that's why this is a crisis. There's a crisis for the entire state.”

Lake, a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, was one of dozens of Republican candidates who questioned or denied the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and lost in the midterms.

The defeat of Lake and other election deniers was seen as a powerful rebuke of candidates who echoed Trump’s myths of a stolen election.

Lake, however, has remained defiant after her 17,116-vote loss.

“We know we WON this election and we are going to do everything in our power to make sure that every single Arizonan’s vote that was disenfranchised is counted,” Lake said in an interview posted on her Twitter account on Saturday.

Lake’s team filed a lawsuit in state court on Wednesday against the Republican government of Maricopa County, demanding information on voters whose ballots were affected by voting machine problems. Her Republican colleague, Abe Hamadeh, who ran for attorney general and lost by 510 votes, has filed a lawsuit against his Democratic opponent as well as state and local officials, seeking to overturn his defeat.

In Maricopa County, tabulators at 71 of 223 polling stations were unable to read ballots because of printer ink problems on Election Day.

County officials said the issue was quickly addressed. Affected voters could deposit ballots in a secure on-site container called “box three” or wait for another ballot or travel to another polling center.

Republican activists urged voters not to use the secure box on Election Day, according to Maricopa County officials. Some activists expressed concerns on social media that ballots placed in secure boxes would not be counted.

“It certainly was not helpful as far as we were concerned because it was contradicting the official elections department information that we were trying to get out to voters in real time,” said Maricopa County spokesman Jason Berry.

Rejecting the secure boxes backfired, said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “If they followed instructions, there would've been no lines. There would've been no delays. They would've moved through the process very, very effectively.”

Becker, who consults for Republican and Democrat election officials around the country, said Maricopa’s technical problems were not unusual and occur in every election at hundreds of polling centers nationally.

Maricopa officials, who are Republicans, have said that an estimated 17,000 voters were impacted by the problem with the printer ink.

Maricopa County on Sunday released a report detailing voter numbers by location on Election Day and was scheduled to certify election results on Monday.

DELAYS IN CERTIFICATION

Elsewhere in Arizona, two conservative counties, Mohave and Cochise, do not plan to certify election results until Monday, the final day to formally do so, following pressure by election deniers.

The chairman of Mohave County’s Board of Supervisors, Ron Gould, told Reuters that his county delayed certifying last Monday because his board was waiting to see Maricopa’s explanations for what happened to the ballots of its affected voters.

In Cochise County, the three-person board postponed its certification after hearing testimony on November 18 from three election conspiracy theorists who argued that the county’s voting machines were not properly certified.

The Secretary of State’s office said the matter was due to a clerical error and sent a letter to the board last Tuesday that included documentation of the machines’ licenses.

But in an email to Reuters, Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby declined to say whether the board will certify the county’s results on Monday.

(Editing by Jason Szep and Linda So)

Michigan GOP Attorney General Nominee Probed In Voting Machine Scheme

Michigan GOP Attorney General Nominee Probed In Voting Machine Scheme

Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel announced in a press release on Aug. 8 that her department had petitioned the Michigan Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, a state agency that provides legal research to the state's prosecuting attorneys and coordinates their activities, to assign a special prosecutor to an ongoing investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Nessel's petition, based on evidence obtained during an investigation by the office of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, says that the Michigan Department of Attorney General and the Michigan State Police are investigating "a conspiracy to unlawfully obtain access to voting machines used in the 2020 elections." Named in the petition are a Republican candidate for Michigan attorney general, Kalamazoo lawyer Matt DePerno, and eight other people.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Christina Grossi said in a letter to Benson dated Aug. 5:

Ultimately, our investigation uncovered that, after the 2020 election, a group of individuals gained unauthorized access and compromised tabulators from the following clerk’s offices: the Roscommon County Clerk, the Richfield Township Clerk, the Lake City Township Clerk, and the Irving Township Clerk. All unauthorized access occurred between the dates of March 11, 2021, and late June of 2021. All impacted tabulators have been seized as evidence as part of our investigation and decommissioned from use in any future elections.

Nessel's petition states, "The Michigan State Police and the special agents with the MDAG have completed a preliminary review and it is now time for a prosecutorial review for charges that include but are not limited to Conspiracy ...; Using a Computer System to Commit a Crime ...; Willfully Damaging a Voting Machine ...; Malicious Destruction of Property ...; Fraudulent Access to a Computer or Computer System ...; and False Pretenses."

Through analysis of images included in a lawsuit filed in 2021 by DePerno and attorney Stephanie Lambert aiming to overturn the results of the election in Antrim County, Reuters connected DePerno's group, the "Michigan Antrim County Election Lawsuit and Investigation Team," with unauthorized access to vote tabulation equipment in Richfield County..

The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed, and the state Senate Oversight Committee called it "frivolous."

Former President Donald Trump and his supporters continue to claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite investigations in Michigan and across the country turning up no evidence of fraud.

Also named in Nessel's petition is Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has a history of associating with extremist militias and belongs to the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, whose members falsely insist that county sheriffs have absolute law enforcement authority in their jurisdictions, even above state and federal authorities, including governors and the president of the United States. In a special report on Leaf published in July, Reuters noted that in May the association had encouraged its members to investigate so-called fraud in the 2020 election.

Leaf did open an investigation and tried unsuccessfully to seize voting machines in an effort guided by Lambert, who was a member of a team of Trump lawyers spearheaded by Sidney Powell that filed a lawsuit in federal court in Michigan in a failed attempt to overturn the state's election results. Reuters reported that its investigation shows "People spearheading Trump's rigged-election claims in Michigan were deeply involved with Sheriff Leaf early on, making Barry County a pillar of their efforts to overturn the presidential vote in a fiercely contested state that Biden won by 154,000 votes of 5.5 million cast."

DePerno, who has been endorsed in his run for attorney general by Trump, defended his actions during an appearance August 8 on the podcast "Michigan's Big Show," telling host Michael Patrick Shiels:

[Nessel's] allegations are total garbage. This is coming strategically. She's trying to damage me right now, clearly. We have county conventions coming up Thursday, we have the state convention at the end of August. She knows right now that she's losing. The most recent assessment shows DePerno with a +1 advantage in this race, so she comes out with this nonsense, claiming that somehow I did something illegal, and that she's going to conduct an investigation. And that's a terrible thing for a sitting attorney general to do against a political opponent. She's weaponizing her office again, just like she did in the Flint water case.

DePerno's troubles did not begin with his attempts to overturn a free and fair election, however. He has also been dogged by allegations offinancial impropriety. He was fired by his former law firm on the basis of accusations of "fraud, deceit and dishonesty with regards to bogus billing, duplicate billing and write offs, in addition to other wrongful acts."

More recently, former Michigan House Speaker Tom Leonard, who is also running for the Republican nomination for attorney general, raised questions about $400,000 donated to an "Election Fraud Defense Fund" that DePerno managed, claiming that the money was donated directly to DePerno and hasn't been accounted for.

While DePerno is running for to be the top prosecutor in the state, he has no experience as a prosecutor.

DePerno's office did not return requests for comment for this article.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Trump Drafted Order For Military To Seize Voting Machines

Trump Drafted Order For Military To Seize Voting Machines

The House Select Committee has uncovered a draft of an executive order written sometime in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election. According to Business Insider, the order would have called for the U.S. Secretary of Defense to "seize" voting machines and select a special counsel to conduct an election investigation.

The document, reportedly dated December 16, 2020, "outlines a plan for the Pentagon to take the machines and for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to conduct an assessment of the machines within 60 days of their seizure."

"Effective immediately, the Secretary of Defense shall seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention," the draft order said.

In addition to suggesting a government seizure of voting machines, the order also echoes multiple election conspiracy theories largely circulated by former U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Trump's controversial campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, both of whom are known Trump allies.

"The appointment of a Special Counsel to oversee this operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings as appropriate based on the evidence collected and provided all resources necessary to carry out her duties consistent with federal laws and the Constitution," the draft order also said.

While it remains unclear who actually wrote the draft, it does appear to align with the ideology of former President Donald Trump's allies and many right-wing figures who circulated his claims of widespread voter fraud. The January 6 select committee was able to obtain the draft earlier this week after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Trump's request to block the panel from obtaining a substantial amount of executive-branch documents.

Although Trump's campaign legal team filed countless lawsuits contesting the election results in multiple states, election audits cybersecurity experts have confirmed there was no evidence of voter fraud.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Taxpayers Lose Millions On Voting Machines Ruined By Arizona ‘Audit’

Taxpayers Lose Millions On Voting Machines Ruined By Arizona ‘Audit’

Republicans in the Arizona state Senate are officially off the hook for the $2.8 million needed to replace hundreds of voting machines ruined during the GOP-led, scandal-ridden "audit" of the 2020 election results in the state, the Arizona Republicreported.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted in August to force GOP state senators — who had signed an agreement saying that they would be responsible for any costs incurred from their "forensic audit" of the state's 2020 election — to pay the millions for the machines.

The county had determined that the machines were no longer usable after audit workers compromised the tabulators and left them vulnerable to security risks.

Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel informed the GOP senators in August:

The County incurred costs as a result of its election equipment being compromised while in the control of the Senate. Specifically, and as explained more fully below, the Senate allowed unqualified persons to handle, examine, and manipulate the County's election equipment in ways that compromised it and rendered it unfit to be used in future elections. As a result, the County has had to replace the subpoenaed election equipment at a cost to the County of $2,833,220.00. These costs are directly recoverable from the Senate pursuant to the Covenant of Indemnification.

But the Arizona Republic reports that Maricopa County reached a deal on Friday that would let the GOP lawmakers off the hook for the millions in damages. As part of the deal, Maricopa County will pay the costs of replacing the voting machines from its taxpayer-funded budget — despite the Senate's indemnification agreement that promised taxpayers wouldn't foot the bill for any costs stemming from the audit effort.

In return for dropping the costs, Arizona's Republican attorney general backed off his own threat to withhold $700 million in annual state funding to the county — or nearly half of its operating budget — because Maricopa County had not complied with one of numerous subpoena demands. Republicans in the Arizona Senate had subpoenaed routers from the county as part of their audit, but the county refused to turn them over, saying it could pose a security risk, according to the Arizona Republic's report.

Now, despite dropping its demand that the Senate pay for the ruined voting machines, Maricopa County will still have to answer questions about the routers, the Arizona Republic reported. But the Senate agreed to have the review done by former Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) rather than by Cyber Ninjas, the firm that conducted the audit and is run by an avid Donald Trump supporter who has promoted lies about election fraud.

Republican Senate President Karen Fann called the compromise a "HUGE win" for the Senate.

"Maricopa settlement gives us all the data needed to complete the review of the routers & splunk log to the most comprehensive election audit in history," Fann tweeted. "We got everything we need and more. Maricopa County goes home with its tail between its legs."

She told the Associated Press that the compromise was "a victory for election integrity and the Arizona taxpayer."

The GOP Senate has yet to release a report of its findings from the audit, which has been plagued by scandal and incompetence. Cyber Ninjas now says the report should be out Friday, blaming the delay on the fact that a number of its staff contracted serious cases of COVID-19.

Election experts said auditors did not follow proper procedure in counting the more than 2 million ballots it was reviewing and accused Cyber Ninjas and the GOP-led Senate of trying to back up Trump's voter fraud lies instead of accurately recounting the vote.

Even some GOP lawmakers in the state started to turn against the audit, saying it made Republicans look like "idiots." Polling also showed the audit is unpopular with voters and poses an electoral risk for the GOP in the 2022 midterm elections.

Prior to this audit, multiple previous recounts had found that there were no irregularities in the results and that President Joe Biden had won the state.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican who campaigned for Trump and for former Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ), wrote a letter in August chastising his own party for the audit, saying, "I'm embarrassed listening to my party concoct the most outlandish theories (Chinese ballots!) to avoid accepting the reality: We lost the top two races in Arizona."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.