Arizona audit: Maricopa County and State Senate reach agreement after months of fighting over 2020 election audit

The Republican-controlled state Senate has battled with Maricopa County officials who failed to comply with subpoenas to disclose certain information relating to its voting system after the presidential election.

Fueled by former President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, Republicans in the Arizona State Senate have demanded an election audit that began in April on the results in County of Maricopa.

Florida-based company Cyber ​​Ninjas, head of election auditing, has no election auditing experience, and its chief executive has promoted Trump’s election conspiracy theories on media. social.

The regulations “essentially keep county routers and other sensitive materials out of the hands of Senate contractor Cyber ​​Ninjas,” the board said in a press release Friday. “The deal also protects taxpayers and ends a legal dispute over the Senate’s current election review by bringing the county into full compliance with outstanding subpoenas.”

“Cyber ​​Ninjas will never be able to touch routers or access our data,” Maricopa County Board Chairman Jack Sellers said in a written statement. “An independent third party can confirm what we have always said: Election equipment was not connected to the Internet and no vote switching took place.”

Council hands were tied when Arizona attorney general imposed a Sept. 27 deadline to meet state Senate subpoena requirements or risk losing $ 676 million in shared sales tax revenue by the state, the council said in the statement.

“Under threat of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue sharing, Maricopa County settled today with the State Senate, a victory for the integrity of the elections and the taxpayer of the Arizona, “State Senate President Karen Fann said in a statement.

Fann, a Republican, added the county will cover Shadegg’s costs for conducting the review. Shadegg can hire one to three computer experts to answer questions from the state Senate, depending on the agreement.

Additionally, the agreement limits Arizona Senate questions to county routers and splunk logs related to the November general election.

The Arizona Senate had issued subpoenas asking Maricopa County for a plethora of information, including documents, passwords, security information, changes to voter registration records, envelopes or signed ballot images, documents related to any violation of the electoral system, information on changes to voting records. , county routers and IP addresses and computer logs from two months before and three months after the election.

But the county refused to share some documents due to security concerns.

“The Senate will finally get the answers to the questions posed in the subpoenas issued to the county months ago,” Fann said.