The Arizona GQP Senate's "audit" of the ballots from Maricopa County, the state's largest jurisdiction, is proceeding in secret, as befits a conspiracy- driven effort. The GQP senators and the state's GQP chair, certifiable nut Kelli "Low-IQAnon" Ward, has made sure fellow crackpots are in charge of the ballot counting/disenfranchising:
The private companies hired by Arizona Senate Republicans
to recount millions of ballots from the 2020 election are concerned
about possible Antifa attacks and planned to use UV lights to hunt for
fraud, internal documents released as part of a legal battle with
Democrats revealed. [snip]
The
documents offer a detailed look at the conspiratorial thinking behind an
extraordinary partisan hunt for fraud some six months after former
President Donald Trump lost the election and began pushing the lie that
it was stolen from him.
“It would be comical if it
weren't so scary,” Rick Hasen, an election law expert and a professor at
the University of California, Irvine, said of the audit.
The CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the group hired to count/disenfranchise ballots, is a Trump nut named Doug Logan:
Cyber Ninja's CEO, Doug Logan, reportedly
advanced 2020 conspiracy theories online, and refuses to say how much
money he will make on this audit. The audit is funded with $150,000 in
taxpayer dollars, as well as an undisclosed number of private donations
whose names are still shrouded in secrecy.
Logan and Ken
Bennett, a former Republican secretary of state of Arizona who is
overseeing the audit at the request of the GOP-controlled state Senate,
sparred with reporters over how much the effort would cost in a contentious news conference last week.
What kind of crackpot effort is underway you didn't ask? Here's one example of the standards:
Media access to the Veterans Memorial Coliseum arena where
the count is taking place was initially limited unless reporters agreed
to be volunteer observers. When one reporter from The Arizona Republic did so,
she noticed that proper procedures for handling ballots were not being
followed after she spotted blue pens near ballots. Election officials
say red or green pens are used to ensure that ink does not spoil or
change a vote, because ballot-counting machines can read blue or black
ink.
One America News Network, a right-wing cable channel,
has been given special access to cover the audit and reported that
audit workers were using ultra-violet light to search for watermarks — a
possible reference to a thoroughly debunked QAnon conspiracy that Trump secretly watermarked ballots to prove voter fraud.
“It's a bunch of bull!” Hobbs said of the alleged watermarks. “They're making stuff up."
That's what Republicans do, right? Make stuff up.
In the meantime, the Department of Justice has been asked to send monitors to document the shitshow:
Election security specialists with high-powered
policy groups are calling for federal monitors to oversee the Arizona
Senate's hand recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County.
Citing
violations of voting and election laws, representatives of the Brennan
Center for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
and Protect Democracy urged the Department of Justice to protect ballots and prevent voter intimidation.
"Ballots
that are protected under federal law are in imminent danger of being
stolen, defaced, or irretrievably damaged, and Arizona citizens are in
imminent danger of being subject to unlawful voter intimidation," the
four security specialists wrote in the April 29 letter. [snip]
"We believe that the Senate and its agents ... are violating their duty
under federal law to retain and preserve ballots cast in a federal
election," the specialists wrote. "They also risk compromising the
integrity of the ballots themselves, using materials and technologies
that will cause the ballot paper and marks to deteriorate."
The aforementioned GQP chair, exercising authority only existing in her fevered brain, orders the federal government to stay away from Arizona:
Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward lashed out at
the request Friday on YouTube, saying it was a Democratic Party-led
effort to derail the audit and wrest control of the election from state
officials.
"Arizona is off limits to the
federal government trampling on our constitutional rights and our
sovereignty," Ward said. "When it comes to managing our own election, we
believe in the U.S. Constitution."
Ward,
who has promoted baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential
election was rigged against former president Donald Trump, has
championed the audit as a way to ensure election integrity in Arizona.
We're absolutely certain that will scare the feds away, Kelli, you lump.
The letter to the DOJ referenced above contains this warning that the GQP and their tinfoil hat canvassers would do well to heed:
We are very concerned that the auditors are engaged in ongoing and imminent violations of federal voting and election laws. Specifically, we believe that the senate and its agents, including Cyber Ninjas, are 1) violating their duty under federal law to retain and preserve ballots cast in a federal election, which are and have been in danger of being stolen, defaced, or irretrievably damaged, and 2) preparing to engage in conduct which will constitute unlawful voter intimidation in violation of the Voting Rights Act and other federal laws.
Should these cranks, in furtherance of the Big Lie, engage in any of the activities noted above (and it appears from reports they may have already), the full weight of the federal judicial system should come down on their tinfoil- covered heads.
(Photo: Of course, one of the ballot "auditors" is former state Rep. Anthony Kern, who was at the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Seems legit.)
