Maricopa County votes to spend $2.8 million to replace election equipment subpoenaed for audit

“Under the amended contract with Dominion Voting Systems, the County will acquire 385 new precinct tabulators and 9 new central counters as well as the election management hardware required to run them,” read a statement from Maricopa County.

The new equipment purchase will raise the cost of the contract from $6.1 million to $9 million, the county statement added.

ARIZONA SENATE PRESIDENT SAYS 2020 ELECTION AUDIT’S BALLOT COUNT DIFFERS FROM MARICOPA TALLY

“The frustrating thing is, those were perfectly good machines which passed all of our accuracy tests from the time we first got them in 2019,” said Jack Sellers, the Board of Supervisors chairman. “When Senate leadership chose novices to conduct their audit rather than reputable, certified companies, they wasted an expensive investment that had served Maricopa County voters well in 2019 and 2020.”

County Supervisor Bill Gates pinned blame on Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, saying, “It is fundamentally unfair for taxpayers of Maricopa County to be footing this bill,” according to Brahm Resnik, a reporter for 12 News.

Fann signed an agreement before the Senate received machines and ballots, which consented to protect the county from expenses that arise as a result of the audit.

The agreement covers equipment that is “damaged, altered or otherwise compromised while in the Senate’s custody and control” and specifies there’s no limit to the expense the county can claim “associated with procuring new equipment.”

Gates signaled he wanted the Senate to pay for the costs to replace the machines, but the county will, for now, cover the $2.8 million replacement. The lone Democrat on the Board of Supervisors, Steve Gallardo, suggested the Arizona Senate should pay up.

“The Senate should be financially liable for replacing these voting machines because they and they alone are at fault for insisting on an unnecessary audit and then hiring an illegitimate company to conduct it,” Gallardo told the Washington Examiner in a statement.

Hobbs sent a letter to audit liaison Ken Bennett on May 5 outlining “significant security lapses” within the audit procedure and urged Maricopa County officials the machines were “compromised.”

Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel said in a June 28 letter that the “county will not use the subpoenaed equipment in any future elections,” speaking on behalf of the Republican-led Board of Supervisors and in response to Hobbs’s concerns.

Fann said in a Tuesday interview on KTAR that an audit tally of ballots differed from the count by Maricopa County officials but did not provide evidence or a size discrepancy, noting that the auditors “haven’t released a number yet.”

A report of the audit’s findings is expected later this summer.

President Joe Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes out of more than 3.3 million cast across the state. His lead was due partly to his advantage in Maricopa County, where the Democrat scored nearly 45,000 more votes than former President Donald Trump.

Critics of the Senate’s audit say the results from two previous election machine audits conducted for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors showed no irregularities in the county’s 2020 election. There was also a recount of a sample of ballots that did not turn up any problems.

Trump and his allies claim the 2020 contest was stolen, even though election officials have denied seeing evidence of widespread fraud and have heralded the Maricopa County audit as a means to back up their allegations after courts around the country rejected lawsuits challenging the results.

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The Washington Examiner contacted the Arizona Senate but did not immediately receive a response.