After a contractor hired by state Senate Republicans to look into the results of the 2020 Arizona election provided an update on its finding
More blatant lies from Donald Trump:
"The Arizona Senate hearing 'showed 168,000 fraudulent ballots printed on illegal paper (unofficial ballots).'"
"In Maricopa County there were '74,000 mail in ballots received that were never mailed (magically appearing ballots).'"
"'All the access logs to the machines were wiped, and the election server was hacked during the election. ... the voting system was breached or hacked (by who?).'"
Every one of these claims is false. #SharpieGate has been debunked repeatedly. The 74,000 figure is based on data that ignores all requests for ballots made less than eleven days before the election; in reality, Maricopa County received 2,364,426 requests for mail-in ballots, of which 1,918,024 were returned. No access logs were wiped, and although there was a data breach it was completely unrelated to the county's Election Management System, which isn't even connected to the Internet.
Even Doug Logan--fervent Trump supporter and CEO of the firm Cyber Ninjas, which the GOP hired to conduct this audit even though it had absolutely no prior experience auditing elections (and lied about it)--couldn't point to one single instance of actual voter fraud, but only speculated about things that he claimed "could" have happened and demanded further auditing.
Trump also screamed: "11,000 voters were added to the voter rolls AFTER the election and still voted." This is true. It is also perfectly legal and happens in literally every election: voters cast provisional ballots that get counted only if their eligibility is verified. If they registered after the deadline, then their votes are not counted, but they are still added to the voter rolls.
"In Maricopa County, for example, thousands of provisional ballots were not counted because the person had not registered to vote or had not registered before the deadline."
The company was found in contempt of court on Thursday, after refusing to release records related to the election audit.
Cyber Ninjas, you'll recall, is the firm that Arizona Senate Republicans retained to "audit" the results of the 2020 election in Maricopa County for supposed voter fraud. Cyber Ninjas had "zero election experience prior to this year," but its CEO, Doug Logan, is a rabid Trump supporter who repeatedly spread baseless lies and conspiracy theories (the only qualifications Arizona Republicans needed).
Cyber Ninjas incurred $2 million in debt as a result of the "audit." Despite this massive expense--and despite its obvious bias--ultimately the firm was unable to identify even one single instance of actual voter fraud. It contented itself with an "audit" report criticizing Maricopa County's practices anyway, replete with claims that were "either misleading, inaccurate or false."
Cyber Ninjas has refused to release records relating to its "audit," and the newspaper The Arizona Republic took the firm to court over it. On August 24, 2021, Cyber Ninjas lost, and the court ordered it to release its documents and communications to The Arizona Republic. It continued to fight instead, so on January 6, 2022, the court held the firm in contempt and ordered it to pay daily fines of $50,000 until it complied with court orders.
Instead of complying, the very next day Cyber Ninjas shut down entirely. "All employees, including CEO Doug Logan, have been let go." Cyber Ninjas claims that its decision to shut down "was made well before the judge's ruling"--an allegation that is just as credible as the rest of its "audit" report.
The state Senate president letter drew the attention of former President Trump, who blasted it out through his Save America PAC and called h
When the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate ordered yet another audit of the 2020 election results from Maricopa County--despite that another audit "will not change the results of the election"--it hired the previously unknown Cyber Ninjas to take charge. The firm's CEO, Doug Logan, is an avid Trump supporter who has "promoted debunked election fraud theories." Seems perfectly reasonable.
Just like multiple prior state audits, Cyber Ninjas has found no evidence of widespread fraud or other issues of concern. Naturally, that hasn't kept it (and Trump) from continuing to publicize its unsupported suspicions as if they were facts. Among other things:
Cyber Ninjas claimed that the County had "refused to provide passwords," which was false.
Cyber Ninjas claimed that "bags of ballots were not sealed," which was also false.
Cyber Ninjas falsely claimed that the County had deleted election data. After the County denied it, a different firm working on the audit confirmed that they had the data.
Cyber Ninjas falsely claimed that there were a "significant number of instances" in which there were discrepancies regarding the number of ballots. The County reminded Cyber Ninjas that it had already provided documentation explaining the numbers--which were not discrepancies--at which point Cyber Ninjas falsely claimed that it didn't have that documentation.
Cyber Ninjas even falsified its own credentials, insisting that it "was part of election audits in Michigan and in Georgia." Officials in both states confirmed that Cyber Ninjas wasn't involved in any audits carried out by election officials.
At this point, even Republicans have had enough of the ongoing lies and incompetence from Cyber Ninjas. Two months ago, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors--which is mostly Republicans--unanimously called for an end to the "sham" audit.
"They [the auditors] are led by the Cyber Ninjas, a company nobody has ever heard of with a CEO who has indulged even the craziest election conspiracy theories. Cyber Ninjas has zero election experience prior to this year, and they are joined by other companies with zero election experience prior to this year."
Arizona Senate Republicans chose to disregard the Board's position, and the audit continues.
On Thursday, Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based cybersecurity firm that conducted the controversial partisan "audit" of votes in Maricopa County, Arizona, announced that it was laying off all of its employees, including CEO Doug Logan, and shutting down.
This comes shortly after a report from the Associated Press that the company was held in contempt by an Arizona judge for blocking access to records over its practices during the audit, and faces a fine of $50,000 per day for every day that it fails to turn over the documents.
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Ultimately, the investigation failed to find any evidence the election had been stolen, and actually found more votes for President Joe Biden that had not been counted.
Cyber Ninjas, the firm that conducted the faux "audit" in Maricopa County, Arizona, will shut down.
The premiere of “The Deep Rig” doubled as a party for Republican activists in the state who had pushed lawmakers to organize the audit.
The premiere of “The Deep Rig” doubled as a party for Republican activists in the state who had pushed lawmakers to organize the audit.
PHOENIX—The head of Arizona Republicans’ controversial “audit” of 2020 presidential ballots was revealed Saturday as the anonymous star of a new movie claiming the election was stolen, raising questions about how credible any upcoming report from the supposed audit could be.
The revelation of Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan’s involvement in the conspiracy theory movie The Deep Rig came at the film’s premiere in a church on the outskirts of Phoenix, as Arizona Republicans gathered to celebrate the count’s end.
Cyber Ninjas, the company running Arizona Senate's controversial election 'audit,' is one man - Doug Logan - whose spouting of debunked conspiracy theories about 2020 election fraud may bring him more such 'audits' in other states.
“He’s a lovely person. He’s just nuts now.”
Meet Doug Logan, the man who founded Florida-based cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas. He seemed to be on a good career track, his company receiving positive reviews from his clients in the private sector since 2014.
At no point before the rise of The Big Lie had he taken part in an election audit, let alone headed one. Then he got his brain wobbled by QAnon and fed all of that previous goodwill to the shredder to place himself at the center of the latest GOP attempt to delegitimize the American system for fun and profit.
But of course, when I say “meet Doug Logan”, who we’re really meeting in the linked article are the people he’s known all his life, because he isn’t exactly making himself available to the media. Unless you count the One America Network “talent” who helped raise the money for his “auditing” paycheck. Which I certainly don’t.
Just as concerning is what happens when you try to contact the Cyber Ninjas office:
On recent calls to the company's automated answer line, pressing "3" for sales led to the answering message for Logan. So did pressing "4" for human resources. And pressing "5" for purchasing. And "6" for the general mailbox. Go to the address for Cyber Ninjas' Legal Department, listed on its audit contract with the Arizona Senate, and you'll wind up at a rented mailbox in a UPS Store in Sarasota, Florida. The company's business address registered with Florida's Secretary of State, also in Sarasota, was sold last December, and now sits empty. [...]
Logan declined interview requests from CNN. An emailed statement from his spokesman, Rod Thomson, stated that "Mr. Logan recognizes President Biden's results were certified and accepted in accordance with the Constitution. Mr. Logan remains committed to restoring integrity and trust into our election system, which he is demonstrating through the work he is performing here in Maricopa County."
But that's a tough sell, even to Logan's friends.
"It's hard to say anything bad about the guy. He's a lovely person. He's just nuts now," said Tony Summerlin, who has been friends with Logan for 15 years, and said he helped him win a cybersecurity contract with the Federal Communications Commission five years ago. "It's scary; because if someone like him can turn into this, who can't turn into this?"
Summerlin said that in all the years he'd known Logan, before the Arizona audit, "we never, never had a single political conversation; that's what stunned me about this... He said, 'there's definitely something there.' I said, 'based on what?' He said, 'it'll come.' I said, 'you sound like the My Pillow guy.'"
Another friend of Logan, who asked not to be named because she works with both Republicans and Democrats in Washington, DC, and feared blowback from being linked to him, described him as very smart, very competent in cybersecurity, and politically naïve. "Doug may not have thought it all the way through," she said.
The efforts have been inspired by an audit of the votes in Arizona’s Maricopa County, an elaborate exercise engineered by the GOP-led state Senate.
Kate Brumback and Nicholas Riccardi at AP, via HuffPost:
ATLANTA (AP) — Six months after Donald Trump’s loss, conspiracy theorists and Trump backers are continuing their push for repeated examinations of ballots and finding limited successes.
A Georgia judge last week awarded a group the chance to review mail ballots in a large Georgia county that includes Atlanta. Officials in a rural Michigan county have expressed interest in a review of their voting machines. A similar debate has caused sharp divisions in a New Hampshire town. In some cases, the efforts have been inspired by an audit of the votes in Arizona’s Maricopa County, an elaborate exercise engineered by the GOP-led state Senate.
The efforts are unlikely to yield any new revelations about President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. The votes have been counted — and often recounted — and certified by local officials. Still, the lingering debate and legal wrangling have propelled suspicions and advanced debunked theories. And their sometimes misleading conclusions have been amplified by Trump, whose false allegations of election fraud sparked the push.
The profusion of audits alarms election experts, who note that the Arizona audit has set a troubling new precedent of third-party, partisan review of the ballots, long after elections are over.
“This is bad enough to see it happen once,” said Eddie Perez, an expert on voting systems at the OSET Institute, said of Arizona, but seeing it elsewhere in the country is “dangerous for democracy.’”
The audits are serving a clear political purpose in firing up the Republican Party’s base. At a rally outside Phoenix last week featuring GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, references to the Arizona audit drew much more enthusiastic applause than even immigration, normally the top hot-button issue on the right in the border state.
In a statement Monday night, Trump criticized Republican Party leaders for not doing more about “what went on” in November. He cited the ballot reviews underway and promised “more to follow.”
The Arizona audit has been cited as a template for the others, although each is distinct. In Arizona, the Republican-controlled state Senate subpoenaed more than 2 million ballots and voting machines from Arizona’s most populous county, which includes Phoenix, and gave control of the review to a small cybersecurity firm whose founder, Doug Logan, had tweeted pro-Trump election conspiracies.
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But the biggest new entry into the audit field is in Georgia’s Fulton County, where a judge on Friday ruled that plaintiffs could inspect 147,000 mail ballots as part of their lawsuit alleging fraud in the most populous county in the state.
The lawsuit was spearheaded by Garland Favorito, a longtime skeptic of Georgia’s voting systems who has embraced conspiracy theories about 9/11, Clinton-era scandal and Supreme Court justices. Favorito says he voted for Don Blankenship, the U.S. Constitution Party candidate, last year.
Far-right Trumpists are still hell-bent on continuing efforts to overturn Joe Biden's valid win by pushing biased Arizona-style "audits" to other states like Georgia.
An OAN personality is the founder of a dark money group that is supposed to support the farcical Arizona election “audit” while also having unique access to cover the event itself.
Sarah Mimms at BuzzFeed News:
Two reporters at One America News, a far-right TV station, are running a dark money organization that they say is helping fund a counter-reality “audit” that former president Donald Trump and his supporters believe will overturn Arizona’s 2020 election results in his favor.
What’s more, one of those reporters, Christina Bobb, is the network’s most visible correspondent covering the very “audit” that she is helping scare up money for on OAN’s airwaves, while she and the network enjoy unique access to the process where private contractors and volunteers are searching for fraud and have examined ballots for nonexistent watermarks and “bamboo fibers.” OAN has a deal as the exclusive livestream partner for the audit.
Bobb has not made a secret of her work to keep that audit going. On April 9, she tweeted that she’d founded a group called Voices and Votes to help the Republican-led Arizona Senate complete its audit of the vote in Maricopa County. The group reached its $150,000 fundraising goal that same day, according to Bobb, and she’s continued soliciting money for the audit since, both on Twitter and on air.
According to its website, Voices and Votes is run by Bobb as the CEO and president, as well as OAN’s White House correspondent Chanel Rion, who is listed as the chief marketing officer, and Courtland Sykes, Rion’s fiancé, who is listed as the group’s chief operations officer. The group’s website also says that Voices and Votes is registered as a 501(c)(4) organization, meaning its donors will never be made public.
That also means that the group will never have to give an accounting of how much money it has raised or where that money actually went. Bobb did not respond when BuzzFeed News asked how much Voices and Votes has brought in, but insisted that all of the money raised “has gone to the auditors.” Cyber Ninjas, the firm leading the audit, and its CEO did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether it had received money from Voices and Votes.
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Bobb and OAN are getting access to the audit that no other news outlets have, reporters on the ground say. While reporters at other Arizona and national media outlets have had to rotate through a few select spots to cover the audit, Bobb and a writer with the Gateway Pundit, another pro-Trump outlet, are exempted from that pool. She reported live from the coliseum where the audit is taking place every day last week.
Bobb disputed that she and OAN had received any “special treatment” in an email to BuzzFeed News on behalf of Voices and Votes. While she acknowledged that she had different access than members of the Arizona press corps, she said her access to cover the audit depended on “availability.” “I have been denied access at certain times and had to go on different days or at different times,” she wrote. “I am not permitted to attend whenever I want.”
Bobb also noted that OAN is not “in any way” affiliated with her fundraising group “other than allowing me to mention my efforts on air” and said the network “has not received anything as a result of Voices and Votes' donations.”
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The audit itself has so far been a farce, enough so that one of the Republican state senators who voted for it told the New York Times that in practice the audit is “ridiculous” and “makes us look like idiots.” At one point, workers were checking for any traces of bamboo in the ballot paper in a frankly stupid and racist attempt to test a conspiracy theory that thousands of illegal ballots were shipped in from Asia. They were shining UV lights on ballots for reasons that weren’t really explained by officials at the time but seemed to line up with a QAnon-adjacent theory that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security had watermarked real ballots so the Democrats’ fraudulent ones could be easily found. That prompted the Maricopa County Elections Department to publicly post a fact check: “There are NO watermarks on Maricopa County ballots.”
Then there’s the firm that the Arizona Senate hired to run the whole thing, Cyber Ninjas, owned by Doug Logan. As the Arizona Mirror reported, Logan repeatedly posted conspiracies about the election being stolen and falsehoods about Dominion Voting Systems on his since-deleted Twitter account. Logan is also the author of a three-page document of “election fraud facts” posted to former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s website intended for senators to use in explaining why they would object to the election results and try to give the White House back to Trump, the Mirror also reported. Logan, it's worth noting, stood behind the document in a statement to the Mirror.
His firm and three others are now paying contractors $15 an hour and bringing in volunteers to examine the ballots — among them was a former state representative who lost his 2020 race and was also filmed on the Capitol steps during the Jan. 6 insurrection. With the process taking way longer than expected, a big bill is coming and it’s unclear who is paying it.
Pro-Trump propaganda outfit OANN is allowing its reporters to raise money to conduct a bogus elections "audit" in Arizona. Christina Bobb and Chanel Rion are the ones spearheading the effort.
