The 2020 election audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, is set to proceed on Friday after Democrats refused to pay a $1 million bond to halt the Republican Senate-led effort temporarily.
In accordance with a judge’s ruling, the plaintiffs who filed the suit to stop the endeavor on Thursday, including the Arizona Democratic Party and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, were required to provide a $1 million bond by 5 p.m. local time to protect the audit team, including Cyber Ninjas, from financial losses.
This would have put the review of voting machines, 2.1 million ballots, and other election materials, which has the backing of former President Donald Trump, on hold at 5 p.m. local time until Monday at noon.
But before the 5 p.m. deadline, the Democrats announced they would not put up the “laughable” $1 million bond, citing a “lack of transparency” about the cost of the audit.
“The Arizona Democratic Party will not risk our supporters’ hard-earned dollars to pay off the Cyber Ninjas for a procedure they are billing Arizona taxpayers to the tune of $150,000,” Arizona Democratic Party Chairwoman Raquel Teran said in a statement Friday evening.
The Democrats also called on Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich to “put an end” to the audit, claiming it was pertinent to defending “our election systems from conspiracy theorists.”
Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, declared the audit will continue over the weekend “uninterrupted.”
? ? ? ALERT ? ? ?- This just in: Arizona Democratic Party declined to put up a $1 million bond that the Maricopa judge requested for the halt. #FullForensicAudit to continue this weekend uninterrupted. @ArizonaAudit
— Dr. Kelli Ward ?? (@kelliwardaz) April 23, 2021
In making his ruling earlier in the day, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury noted, in part, local reporting that raised security concerns about the venue for the audit, which is the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, where election materials were transported this week.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs cited that reporting in asking the Arizona attorney general to investigate whether there were any violations of state law.
How secure is the location of Arizona’s election audit? Not very…
Watch our story tonight @10. But here’s a peak: #azfamily pic.twitter.com/7dXRhBmz4e— Morgan Loew (@morganloewcbs5) April 23, 2021
The judge said the audit must comply fully in all respects with Arizona law, ordering the Republican-led Senate and Cyber Ninjas, an cybersecurity firm, to present their procedures over the 2020 election audit over the weekend.
“I do not want to micromanage and it is not the posture of this court to micromanage or even to manage the process by which another branch of government, the Legislature, the Arizona state senate proceeds,” the judge added.
Roopali Desai, a lawyer for Gallardo and the Democratic Party, said during the hearing Friday on the plaintiff’s motion for a temporary injunction that blue pens were distributed to workers inside the facility because the audit firms said blue marks could not be read by ballot processing machines.
Blue and black ink is a permissible way to mark a ballot when voting, but the state’s election procedures manual requires only red pens to be used during audits to ensure ballots are not tampered with or manipulated. The presence of blue pens at the facility was reported by a journalist for the Arizona Republic, who was observing the audit on Friday. The reporter, Jen Fifield, said the blue pens were replaced by green and red pens after she informed Cyber Ninjas owner Doug Logan that the voting machines read blue and black ink.
The Arizona Republican Party announced Wednesday observers for the audit process will be “non-partisan for full transparency,” adding that One America News Network, a right-wing media outlet, will be livestreaming the audit.
Kory Langhofer, an attorney for the defense, said the Arizona Senate has legislative immunity and argued that the separation of powers prevents the courts from halting the recount, and told the AZ Mirror that the GOP-led Senate still plans to appeal. Logan has said the $150,000 provided by the Arizona Senate won’t cover the audit but would not disclose the full cost or who is providing donations, according to the Associated Press.
Logan, who reportedly was an active promoter of unsubstantiated “Stop the Steal” claims alleging widespread election fraud in the general election last year, has insisted that his personal views are irrelevant to the audit. “I look forward to showing the media that this process is fully accountable and will yield results the public can have confidence in,” he said. according to a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Democratic state Sen. Martin Quezada posted to Twitter, saying Republican Senate President Karen Fann, who is leading the audit efforts and is a defendant in the lawsuit, should call off the recount.
“We are venturing into dangerous ground here,” he said.
Trump released a statement praising the “brave and patriotic” Senate Republicans for pursuing the audit, an endeavor that was buffeted by his claims of 2020 election fraud.
“Why are the Democrats so desperate to stop this Election Fraud from being revealed? That answer is obvious!” he said.
Democrats argue that the results from two previous audits, conducted for the GOP-majority Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, showed no irregularities in the county’s 2020 election, calling it a “dangerous fishing expedition” that could do damage to the sanctity of the secret ballot.
President Joe Biden won the county by just over 2% of the popular vote, and also won the state of Arizona in the 2020 election. Democrat Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, also won a special election for a U.S. Senate seat from Arizona against Republican incumbent Martha McSally.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Desai but did not immediately receive a response.
