What kind of bogus election audit is this?

It’s bad enough that our ballots are being pawed through by a bunch of amateurs who don’t know what they’re doing.

Bad enough that the Senate’s nowinfamous audit of the 2020 election is being run not by independent elections professionals but by a Trump supporter who promoted conspiracy theories that the election was stolen

Bad enough that media has been locked out and until late Tuesday could not report on what they are doing with Maricopa County’s 2.1 million ballots or the Dominion Voting Systems machinery that was used to count them or voter registration files containing information on every voter in the county

Now Senate Republicans and their auditors want to prevent you from knowing what procedures they are using to determine whether Arizona really elected Joe Biden and Mark Kelly.

If this is a joke, Senate President Karen Fann, Arizona is not laughing.

The Senate and its auditor, Cyber Ninjas, are now asking a judge to allow this audit to continue on, shrouded in secrecy, and even to close the public out of a court hearing to determine whether the counting should continue.

The Arizona Democratic Party sued the Senate on Friday to stop the recount, contending state laws are being trampled as ballots and voting machines are put into the hands of untrained private auditors with no real safeguards to ensure they are protected.

A judge ordered Cyber Ninjas to turn over its game plan, presumably detailing how it will count the ballots and keep them and the county’s election machinery tamper free. But the company is asking the judge to keep the records secret, arguing that telling the public what it is doing would expose “trade secrets” and compromise the security of the recount.

“It is no secret that this audit is an emotional issue,” Cyber Ninjas’ attorney Alexander Kolodin wrote. “There exists a subset of individuals that might utilize such documents as a roadmap to breach the audit’s security and thereby cause the very harms (Democrats) ostensibly seek to prevent.”

Meanwhile, the Senate asked that the lawsuit be thrown out, contending that august body cannot be sued. Ah yes, legislative immunity, that favorite dodge that lawmakers use to avoid arrest when they get picked up by the cops while the Legislature is in session.

“This command is categorical, unqualified and pellucid: members of the Legislature may not be sued while the Legislature is in session. Period, attorney Thomas Basile wrote in document

filed on Sunday.

Credit for the use of the word “pellucid.” Galling that Senate Republicans would try to hide behind immunity in order to hide what they are doing.

Reassuring that the judge told the Senate to pound sand on the legislative immunity issue.

“The Arizona Senate has the constitutional authority to conduct the audit…,” Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Martin said in a hearing on Tuesday.

“However, the manner in which that audit is conducted must be balanced against the constitutional rights of the voters in Maricopa County, including the right to (ballot) secrecy and confidentiality.”

He’ll hold a hearing on Wednesday on whether to call a temporary halt to the audit, noting that he is “not yet persuaded … that the rights of Maricopa County voters have been protected.”

Good call, given that there already is evidence, from what little the public can glean, that these auditors don’t know what they are doing.

Exhibit A: The fact that the counting teams were armed with blue pens until an Arizona Republic reporter called them on it while working a six-hour shift as an “observer on Friday.

It was left to Republic reporter Jen Fifield to explain to Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan that blue ink can be read by the tabulation machines and thus be used to tamper with ballots.

And this is the guy running the audit. No wonder the Trump ninjas and Senate Republicans want to keep secrets and keep reporters far, far away from Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

This recount is not a search for truth. It’s a search for something, anything that can be used to call into question whether President Joe Biden and Sen. Mark Kelly really were elected.

It’s a witch hunt disguised as an audit, unleashed by Senate Republicans who spent months screaming fraud, without any evidence to back it up, and now proclaim they are on a mission to “restore integrity” to Arizona’s elections.

By shutting out the public from what should be an intensely public examination of our most fundamental right, our vote.

Over the weekend, the Senate’s liaison to the audit, Ken Bennett, announced he would do no more media briefings until the lawsuit was over. But he did a live video chat on Saturday with Trump supporters on Telegram, the social media network that is home to QAnon and other far-right extremists.

And on Monday, he did an interview with Gateway Pundit, a far-right gossip site that peddles conspiracy theories.

But no time until faced with legal action to answer legitimate media questions about how our ballots are being handled.

Though they have done their best to shut us out, we see what’s going on here.

In fact, it’s the only thing about this audit that is transparent.