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A questionable review of millions of ballots cast in Arizona’s largest county will be delayed after three members of society involved in the effort contracted COVID-19, according to a senior Republican state lawmaker.
The company, Cyber Ninjas, was due to hand over the findings of its chaotic and widely criticized review of the 2020 presidential ballots in Maricopa County on Monday, but that timeline will be pushed back after a majority of its team has become “quite ill”.
The team expected the full draft to be ready for the Senate today, but unfortunately Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and two other members of the five-person audit team were tested positive for COVID-19 and are quite ill, ”said Karen, president of the Arizona Senate. Fann said in a statement.
Fann said lawmakers had received “part of the draft report” and members of the Arizona Senate legal team would meet on Wednesday to begin the process of reviewing the draft “for accuracy, clarity and evidence of documentation of findings “.
The partisan “audit” has been marred by questions about its competence and validity since March, when the Senate, without a call for tenders, signed Cyber Ninjas, whose chief executive had spread disinformation about the 2020 elections. before being hired.
The Florida-based cybersecurity firm was selected after the company had no previous experience conducting election audits and after an experienced election audit firm offered its services.
Several of the Arizona Republicans who voted to allow the audit came to regret their votes and publicly criticized the process. Additionally, a bipartisan duo of Arizona’s top election administrators have issued scathing condemnations ahead of Cyber Ninjas’ next final report.
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (R), in separate reports, lambasted the inspection itself as deeply flawed – so much so that Hobbs did argue that it did not even deserve the term “audit”.
“Despite frequent references to this review as an audit, the exercise undertaken by Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based Arizona Senate contractor, does not meet industry standards for any credible audit. , let alone for an election audit, “Hobbs’ office wrote. “Senate contractors have demonstrated a lack of understanding of electoral processes and procedures at both state and county level. “
Biden, the first Democrat since former President Clinton to win Arizona’s electoral votes, won the state by just under 11,000 votes, or about three-tenths of a percentage point. He won Maricopa County, home of Phoenix and about two-thirds of the state’s registered voters, by 45,000 votes.
Update at 4:40 p.m.
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