Feds step in: DOJ asks Senate to respond to audit concerns.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is asking Arizona Senate President Karen Fann to respond to concerns the department has about the security of ballots and potential voter intimidation as the Senate’s contractors perform an audit of November’s presidential election in Maricopa County.

In a letter sent to Fann on Wednesday, Pamela S. Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the division, asked for Fann’s response to its concerns with an explanation of “the steps that the Arizona Senate will take to ensure that violations of federal law do not occur” during the audit.

The department’s concerns may have been prompted in part by a letter it received Thursday from three organizations, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, asking the department to dispatch federal monitors to oversee the audit. That letter raised the same concerns that the department said it has, regarding the security of ballots and potential voter intimidation.

The Arizona Senate got the county’s 2.1 million ballots, voting machines and private and public voter information last month after issuing subpoenas to the county that a court ultimately upheld.

The Senate then handed over the ballots, machines and information to private contractors to perform the audit, which began at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix on April 23 and is ongoing.

The audit has three aspects:

● Attempting to recount all ballots cast in the election.

● Examining the voting machines to see whether votes were counted correctly.

● Reviewing voter information for potential voter fraud.

The Arizona Democratic Party and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo filed a lawsuit to stop the audit, amid growing concerns over the lack of clear procedures for safeguarding the ballots and regarding the transparency around the audit.

Karlan wrote that the department had reviewed “news reports and complaints regarding the procedures being used for this audit” and was first concerned by a number of reports suggesting the ballots, machines and voter information are no longer under the control of state and local elections officials, aren’t being kept secure, and are at risk of “being lost, stolen, altered, compromised or destroyed.”

The department’s second main concern, Karlan wrote, involves the contractors’ plan for how it will attempt to verify voter information and who voted in the election.

Cyber Ninjas, the Senate’s main contractor, said in its work plan to the Senate that it would be reaching out to voters through a “combination of phone calls and physical canvassing.”

This raises concerns of voter intimidation,Karlan wrote.

Fann told The Republic the Senate’s attorney is preparing a response.