Audit keeps public in the dark
Minimal transparency on cost and who is involved
Arizona Republican lawmakers call it “America’s Audit.” They say recounting 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County is not about overturning the 2020 presidential election but making the next one better.
Senate President Karen Fann maintains she launched the audit as a way to identify flaws and restore confidence in the voting system.
Jump forward more than two months and what has emerged is a process with little public accountability. Records about finances, the businesses involved and methods they use are mostly being kept from the public.
Want to know how much the audit will cost? You can’t.
Want to know who’s paying for it? They won’t say.
Interested in which lawmakers are working behind the scenes? Who is getting paid? Who is running the audit’s social media pages? Who is doing the ballot counting?
The lawmakers who bankrolled the audit with $150,000 of taxpayer money say they don’t know.
That is not an accident. The audit, which began April 23 and is in its final stages at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, is being run through private companies.
Senate Republicans say in court filings that they can’t make audit information public because they don’t have it. In other words, the information is in the hands of the contractors hired by the
Senate, so lawmakers have no ability — or responsibility — to release it.
The contractor hired by the Senate to lead the audit is Cyber Ninjas, a small Florida company with almost no track record of conducting election audits. Its CEO Doug Logan is a Trump supporter and has promoted election fraud theories.
Cameras capture the audit, and journalists are permitted to observe from a distance. But important questions go unanswered.
The Arizona Republic and other media and watchdog groups have sought records and correspondence through public records requests, and one group has filed a lawsuit challenging the Senate’s limited response as a violation of the Arizona Public Records Law.
The Republic first requested documents from the Senate on April 22.
“Any argument that you are not the proper custodian, or that you simply don’t have the records in your possession, flies in the face of Arizona statutes and previous court rulings,” The Republic wrote in a May 27 demand letter to Fann and the Senate’s attorney.
Greg Burton, The Republic’s executive editor, said, “The press has a unique and express role under the Constitution to be a check on all branches of government, and no function of government is more important in a democracy than the orderly and transparent transfer of power.
“Yet the operations of this Arizona recount have been carried out in secret by hired, not elected, parties acting like government officials.”
American Oversight, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., accused the Senate in a May lawsuit of trying to thwart the law. The suit names Fann, RPrescott, Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, and the Senate at large as defendants.
“It took litigation to uncover the most basic procedures used to conduct the Audit and, unfortunately, it took this litigation to test the Senate Defendants’ remarkable positions,” its lawyers wrote in a June 23 motion.
American Oversight formed in 2017 to investigate potential fraud in former President Donald Trump’s administration. Executive Director Austin Evers said the public has a right to the documents.
“Senator Fann promised a transparent process, but she’s fighting in court to keep even basic information about the audit out of the public’s hands,” Evers said in an email statement.
Among the key details the Senate won’t divulge about the audit are:
How much the audit is costing
There has been little public disclosure on the overall expense of the audit. Fann launched the audit with $150,000 of taxpayer money. But costs for hiring private contractors, leasing the coliseum, buying equipment, paying workers, hiring security and paying legal costs are expected to add up to millions of dollars.
Fann won’t detail payments or agreements with Cyber Ninjas the Florida company hired to lead the audit or any agreements made with subcontractors. Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, a Trump supporter, has promoted election fraud theories.
Where funds being raised for the audit are going
Private contractors handling the ballot review have encouraged followers on conservative social media to pour money into three fundraising sites run by former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and One America News Network personality Christina Bobb.
Byrne’s nonprofit is tasked with vetting and doing background checks on volunteers for the ballot review. OAN controls the livestream footage from Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
But there’s no official account of where the money is going. Byrne sought to raise $2.8 million, and in May his nonprofit reported taking in $1.8 million.
Voices and Votes, the group run by Bobb and OAN host Chanel Rion, has paid for legislators from other states to visit the audit.
The audit also has been a boon to the Arizona GOP.
What lawmakers are saying in emails and texts
The Senate won’t say who lawmakers are communicating with when it comes to the audit.
The Senate has withheld texts and emails between elected officials and Logan.
It has so far declined to disclose texts from Republican Party officials, including those who promoted election conspiracy theories and who have touted the audit, toured the Coliseum and have been given special access to those working at the audit.
The Senate also has not disclosed communications lawmakers might have had with Trump and his one-time lawyer Rudy Giuliani. It’s clear there were some. Fann, in response to American Oversight’s lawsuit, released emails this month in which she boasted of her frequent talks with Giuliani.
“I have the full support of him and a personal call from President Trump thanking us for pushing to prove any fraud,” Fann wrote in a Dec. 28 email.
Who is posting on audit’s social media
The Arizona Audit has its own Twitter account, @ArizonaAudit. It has for months lashed out against Democrats and members of the media while praising members of the GOP.
Who is running the account remains a secret. Neither Fann nor audit spokesman Ken Bennett will identify who is behind it. The account bills itself as the “Official Account of the Senate Liaison for the Maricopa County 2020 Election Audit” and had 85,000 followers on June 25.
Tweets range from progress of the ballot review to behind-the-scenes views of the ballot counting operation. And it’s not the only social media account publishing insider information.
A Telegram site called Arizona Audit Live Feeds has become a virtual hub for right-wing audit watchers. Fann and other audit officials won’t say who runs Arizona Audit Live Feeds.
Administrators on the site use handles rather than names. One of the key operators, who goes by “Eyes on Jesus Always,” has pushed election conspiracy fears, encouraged donations through audit fundraising sites and has booted detractors from the platform.
The site offers real-time updates with detailed insider information about the count. It also pushed a campaign to stop the Senate from undertaking a second digital audit that would check the accuracy of Cyber Ninjas’ ballot count.
Which companies have been hired
Fann and other audit organizers won’t say which companies have been hired to help with the count, who has access to the county’s ballot information or who is paying them for the work.
Fann selected Cyber Ninjas, which doesn’t have any known experience running an election audit, without going through a formal bidding process. She has declined to say why she selected the small, relatively unknown Florida company over audit firms with more experience.
Cyber Ninjas has hired several subcontractors to work different parts of the audit but won’t name all of them. Nor will it say specifically what they are doing.
Logan’s company initially fought to keep private its methods for running the audit. A judge in April ordered Cyber Ninjas to produce policies and procedures to ensure the integrity of Maricopa County’s ballots and election equipment.
Randy Pullen, an audit spokesperson and former state GOP chair, has indicated officials have hired someone to conduct a Braille ballot review and a forensic document expert, but he declined to name them.
“It took litigation to uncover the most basic procedures used to conduct the Audit and, unfortunately, it took this litigation to test the Senate Defendants’ remarkable positions.”
American Oversight In a legal filing
How workers have been recruited
How ballot counters were chosen to work at the audit also remains murky.
Cyber Ninjas promised at the outset to hire nonpartisan counters. However, recruitment efforts appeared largely targeted conservative groups, including Republican Party officials, military veterans and retired police officers. Some of the recruiters themselves have farright political ties.
Republican lawmakers running the audit won’t talk about the selection process for counters, who initially were paid $15 per hour before being reclassified as volunteers.
One recruiter was a retired police officer who works as an investigator for an extremist right-wing group warning of “the growing threat of the Marxist and the Islamic movement in America.”
Another used her brief stint as the county Republican Party chairwoman to try to “get Trump back in office” by protesting the results of a county election audit.
One person selected as a counter was Anthony Kern, a former state lawmaker who supported Stop the Steal conspiracies alleging the election was rigged and was at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Kern, whose name also appeared on the 2020 ballots he was counting, was removed days after a Republic reporter photographed him working on the audit floor.