On July 15, Arizona Republicans issued a major announcement revealing that Maricopa County‘s 2020 election was breached.
During the proceedings, Arizona state Senate President Karen Fann and state Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen gave the floor to the auditors to discuss their findings.
The auditors announced that as many as 74,000 absentee ballot mail-in records are mysteriously missing, and also noted that the audit found a significant amount of irregularities in the vote. Even more disturbing, one digital forensic expert revealed that the Election Management System was breached.
JUST IN – Election Management System was breached during the course of the 2020 election, says digital forensic expert Ben Cotton at the Arizona hearing on the Maricopa County audit.@disclosetv pic.twitter.com/cGYD1b904R
— loindevant ℹ️ (@loindevant) July 15, 2021
Kyle Becker, CEO of Becker News, shared the announcement on Twitter, writing: “NOW I get why Maricopa County and Biden admin fought tooth and nail to prevent an independent audit. 74,000 absentee ballot mail-in records missing, 25K duplicates, voter rolls a mess, bleed throughs, tens of thousands of ballots on demand, admin passwords issues. A disaster.”
NOW I get why Maricopa County and Biden admin fought tooth and nail to prevent an independent audit. 74,000 absentee ballot mail-in records missing, 25K duplicates, voter rolls a mess, bleed throughs, tens of thousands of ballots on demand, admin passwords issues. A disaster.
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 15, 2021
Chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party Dr. Kelli Ward also tweeted about the breaking news.
“Revealed: Serious problems with how the Election Management System was used and maintained in Maricopa County. The last anti-virus update was August 2019 when Dominion software was placed in the machines. Extreme vulnerability,” she wrote, adding the hashtag #Hackable.
🚨 Revealed: Serious problems with how the Election Management System was used and maintained in Maricopa County. The last anti-virus update was August 2019 when Dominion software was placed in the machines. Extreme vulnerability. #Hackable @AuditWarRoom
— Dr. Kelli Ward 🇺🇸 (@kelliwardaz) July 15, 2021
“Expert says it would take LESS THAN 10 MINUTES to gain access to this system! We need the routers that were legally subpoenaed. Turn them over!” Ward continued.
“Maricopa County has no reason to withhold these routers. The ‘security concerns’ they bring up are unfounded. There is no personal data that will be revealed. MC is blowing smoke & obstructing,” she added.
Maricopa County has no reason to withhold these routers. The “security concerns” they bring up are unfounded. There is no personal data that will be revealed. MC is blowing smoke & obstructing.
— Dr. Kelli Ward 🇺🇸 (@kelliwardaz) July 15, 2021
The Hearing
Karen Fann, a Republican, began the hearing by introducing three individuals who played key roles in the audit process.
Destroying the left’s claims that the audit was not secure and not conducted properly, lead auditor Doug Logan played a video clip detailing the process, and emphasized the security measures taken by the auditors to ensure that the process was safe.
Going further in depth, former Arizona Secretary of State and Arizona Senate liaison Ken Bennett described the specifics of the audit, including “how many ballots were received and examined, how data was collected and examined from voting equipment and which security protocols were enforced while the audit took place,” according to reporting by The Western Journal.
Bennett also noted that the examination of duplicate ballots — ballots that are created when the original ballot becomes damaged or is improperly marked — was a difficult process.
“It has created great difficulty to try to match up a duplicated ballot to its duplicate,” he said, noting that some duplicated ballots were missing their serial numbers, and others were were printed on the top right side where “black square alignment marks” were present, making it difficult to read and match the numbers.
Next, digital security expert Ben Cotton was asked to describe the process used to forensically examine the devices used in Maricopa County’s election, including the security measures that the auditors took during that process.
“We have exactly a bit-for-bit image of these systems as we received them,” he said. “We did not modify, we did not change any chips, we did not access anything other than the hard drives… If there were any changes to equipment, those would have had to occur within the custody of the board of supervisors.”
The Western Journal reported:
“The security expert noted that the forensic examination looked into any possible internet connections on devices, unauthorized entries to the system or malware, as well as conducting live memory analysis of the machines.
Cotton additionally told the Senate members that auditors found over 37,000 queries on one day for a blank password on a system that only contained eight accounts. He also explained that it looked as though several people may have accessed the machines and conducted different processes under the same account, making it extremely difficult to determine chain of custody information.”
"We're seeing anonymous logins at the system level that do not follow that pattern of normal Windows behavior" says cyber expert Ben Cotton. He needs the splunk logs
— Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) July 15, 2021
“Accountability is out the window, from an individual aspect,” Cotton said.
The audit also discovered inconsistencies such as ink bleeds in incorrect places, incorrectly marked/placed ballots, and form number inconsistencies found on ballots.
Doug Logan:
This image shows a ballot with printing offset problems.
The plus symbol should line up with crosshair. This ballot had a 1,900 percent offset.
Ballots with significant printing offset can be rejected by tabulation machines and sent to adjudication.
3,000 % offset. pic.twitter.com/KzhxIJDFw9— PENNSYLVANIA IS TRUMP 🗣 🇺🇸 (@RED_IN_PA_2) July 15, 2021
One of the most shocking reports from the audit was that 11,326 people were found to have voted in the November 2020 election who were not on the voter rolls until December 4, while another 3,981 were shown to have voted but had not registered to vote until after the October 15 deadline.
STUNNING in race decided by 10,457 votes
3,981 voted despite registered AFTER Oct 15 deadline
11,326 voted who were NOT on rolls on Nov 7 but WERE on Dec 4
18,000 voted and then were removed from rolls AFTER election
74,243 mail-in ballots w/ NO evidence of ever being sent
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) July 15, 2021
Another discovery from the audit revealed that approximately 18,000 people who voted in 2020 had their names removed from the voter rolls soon after the election.
Hits keep coming.
Why would 18,000 names be removed from the voter roll right after the election? pic.twitter.com/FC6IyS9TuI
— SCUBA MIKE🤿 (@scuba2024) July 15, 2021
The Bottom Line
The audit is ongoing, despite the left’s attempts at stopping it. This information is just the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to the tireless work of the auditors and their supporters in the Arizona Republican Party, the American people will be given the information necessary to understand what happened in the 2020 election.
After this news, some Republicans are now calling for the Arizona election to be overturned.
“I have heard enough. With the tens of thousands of ballots mailed without being requested, the over ten thousand people who voted after registering after November 3rd, the failure of Maricopa to turn over the 40% machines, the passwords that Dominion still refuses to turn over, & tens of thousands of unauthorized queries demonstrating how insecure the election was, I call for the Biden electors to be recalled to Arizona & a new election must be conducted. Arizona’s electors must not be awarded fraudulently & we need to get this right,” tweeted Arizona state Senator Wendy Rogers.
to turn over, & tens of thousands of unauthorized queries demonstrating how insecure the election was, I call for the Biden electors to be recalled to Arizona & a new election must be conducted. Arizona’s electors must not be awarded fraudulently & we need to get this right.
— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) July 15, 2021
Others are pointing out that all of this evidence makes it easier to understand why the Democrats tried so hard to prevent the audit from happening.
Shocking results coming out of Maricopa County. Now we know why Democrats have been so against this audit!
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 15, 2021
Some Twitter users aren’t surprised by the revelations, and instead are expressing their anger at the Republican establishment for not preventing the fraud from happening in the first place.
“Watching what is unfolding in Arizona, I am not angry at Democrats. I fully expected this from them. I am fuming mad at the Republican establishment who sat by and did nothing when they could’ve been proactive. Instead they are reactive, and half-assed at that,” wrote Eric Matheny.
Watching what is unfolding in Arizona, I am not angry at Democrats. I fully expected this from them. I am fuming mad at the Republican establishment who sat by and did nothing when they could’ve been proactive. Instead they are reactive, and half-assed at that.
— Eric Matheny 🎙 (@EricMMatheny) July 15, 2021
