Sham audit, real threats bare Ducey’s convictions

Last week Gov. Doug Ducey ordered Arizona Department of Public Safety protection for Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and her family after she received death threats sparked by the sham audit of election ballots orchestrated by state Senate Republicans.

Hobbs isn’t the first public official to receive such threats.

On Friday, C.J. Karamargin, a spokesperson for Ducey’s office, said, “We take threats of violence very seriously and they are unacceptable.”

Actually, no, the governor does not take them seriously.

And, yes, he does find them acceptable.

Otherwise, Ducey would have long ago condemned the lunatic exercise that’s been going on at the state fairgrounds and the Republicans behind it. But that would take conviction. It would take putting state and country over party. It would take guts.

It’s not just that there are dozens of reasons why the audit is a sleazy partisan exercise with no redeeming value. It’s that there is not a single good reason for doing it in the first place.

Only bad reasons.

For instance, to solicit donations. And to stir up the already stirred up lunatic fringe. (Except it’s becoming clear that Republican lawmakers are the lunatic fringe.)

The county recorder’s office, run by a Republican, already did a hand count of ballots that showed 100% accuracy. All major political parties were present to check.

The office also ordered an independent audit of voting machines. Again, no problems.

Still, Senate Republicans went forward.

They hired a company, Cyber Ninjas, with zero experience in election audits.

The company’s founder is a conspiracy-believing crank who posted unproven allegations about election fraud on Twitter.

Then they tried to keep the press and public out of the counting process. They’ve allowed Trump partisans and at least one insurrection-attending former lawmaker to finger our ballots.

Ducey signed a bill prohibiting outside money in our election process, but he said nothing about the private money (including a big chuck from yet another conspiracy kook) that is funding the audit.

Now the Senate’s conspiracy squad is asking for routers, or digital copies of routers, which Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone called “mindnumbingly reckless and irresponsible,” something Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel said would not only create a security risk for the Sheriff’s Office law enforcement data, but

also “puts sensitive, confidential data belonging to Maricopa County’s citizens — including Social Security numbers and protected health information — at risk as well.”

The Senate’s goons already have gone on screwball searches for secret watermarks and traces of bamboo in ballots.

They’ve exposed the most personal and precious information about Maricopa County voters to who knows what type of security breaches.

And the entire process has led to threats against an elected official trying only to do the job she is sworn to do.

And Ducey has done nothing to stop

it.

Given all that, there is zero reason to believe a Ducey spokesperson who says, “We take threats of violence very seriously and they are unacceptable.”

If he took them seriously he would condemn to process that has initiated them. He would have tried to stop it. He would still be trying to stop it.

So, no, the governor does not take the threats seriously. And, yes, he does find them acceptable.