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Another Arizona Election Audit


TexasEd

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Your chosen “auditors,” the Cyber Ninjas, are certainly many things. But “accredited by the EAC” is not one of them. Regardless, we cannot give you a password that we do not possess any more than we can give you the
formula for Coca Cola. We do not have it; we have no legal right to acquire it; and so, we cannot give it to you.

 

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22 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

They've had too many people moving in to let the Rs have a lock.

It's going to be a lot of fucking around and finding out.

Population density is awesome.

Arizona_population_map.png

 

Why does everyone live in the hottest part of the state?

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4 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

62% of Arizona’s population is in one county.  

And that county went blue, following a trend
2008 - R 54-44 (+10)
2012 - R 52-43 (+9)
2016 - R 46-44 (+2)
2020 - D 50-48 (-2)

If Maricopa is blue, the state is blue. 

Tucson is the other Dem stronghold in the county and getting bluer (54-40 D -> 59-40 D). 

61% of all votes cast were in Maricopa. 76% in Maricopa (Phoenix) and Pima (Tucson).  

Remember, when you look at Georgia and Arizona - 

If 2020 was solely anti-Trump, why did Mark Kelly (+2.4) outrun Biden so hard? 

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3 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Cliff's notes, please. I only have a sub to the Times. 

The audit is run by fucking nutjobs 

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I also observed other auditors working on a “forensic paper audit,” flagging ballots as “suspicious” for a variety of reasons. One was presidential selection: If someone thought the voter’s choice looked as though it was marked by a machine, they flagged it as “anomalous.” Another was “missing security markers.” (It’s virtually impossible for a ballot to be missing its security markers, since voting equipment is designed to reject ballots without them.) The third was paper weight — the forensics tables had scales for weighing ballots, though I never saw anyone use them — and texture. Volunteers scrutinized ballots for, of all things, bamboo fibers. Only later, after the shift, did I learn that this was connected to a conspiracy theory that fake ballots had been flown in from South Korea.

 

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On 5/18/2021 at 7:27 AM, Js1 said:

And that county went blue, following a trend
2008 - R 54-44 (+10)
2012 - R 52-43 (+9)
2016 - R 46-44 (+2)
2020 - D 50-48 (-2)

If Maricopa is blue, the state is blue. 

Tucson is the other Dem stronghold in the county and getting bluer (54-40 D -> 59-40 D). 

61% of all votes cast were in Maricopa. 76% in Maricopa (Phoenix) and Pima (Tucson).  

Remember, when you look at Georgia and Arizona - 

If 2020 was solely anti-Trump, why did Mark Kelly (+2.4) outrun Biden so hard? 

Oh hai

 

Because Mark Kelly is fucking awesome. Whoever convinced him to run should be given a medal.

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"...I expected it to be unconventional. But it was so much worse than that. In more than a decade working on elections, audits and recounts across the country, I’ve never seen one this mismanaged."

"Audits are supposed to make us better. They are supposed to make our elections more secure and transparent — to strengthen the public’s trust in our democratic process. Maricopa County is known for having some of the best election practices in the country: Officials had already undertaken a hand-count audit and a forensic audit of their 2020 ballots and found no evidence of fraud. Now a group with no expertise, improvising procedures as they go, is sowing doubt about the outcome of a well-run election.

This is not an audit, and I don’t see how this can have a good outcome."

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1 minute ago, GopherRock said:

And he's going to be at the top of the bill next fall.

Yep.  He and Katie Hobbs are a pretty good ticket tandem.  Like Abrams and Warnock.  

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6 hours ago, Eljefeweizen said:

"Audits are supposed to make us better. They are supposed to make our elections more secure and transparent — to strengthen the public’s trust in our democratic process.

[Republican] Audits to strengthen the public's trust, you say....hmmm. DOES NOT compute  [Republican]

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If those asshats in the Arizona Senate had any incredulity at all, they would have refused to hire a company calling itself "Cyber Ninjas" to do anything serious with the state's data.

 

That single fact alone throws the whole gotdamn thing into question.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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30 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

If those asshats in the Arizona Senate had any incredulity at all, they would have refused to hire a company calling itself "Cyber Ninjas" to do anything serious with the state's data.

 

That single fact alone throws the whole gotdamn thing into question.

I know, right?  Everyone with any sense knows that they should have sought the services of  "The Audit Assassins," operated by two guys who flunked out of Mankato State but put together a kick-ass website using Geocities-era animated links.

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17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I know, right?  Everyone with any sense knows that they should have sought the services of  "The Audit Assassins," operated by two guys who flunked out of Mankato State but put together a kick-ass website using Geocities-era animated links.

Ahem, I'll have you know that's Minnesota State Mankato, home to the Mighty Mavericks, good sir.

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1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

I still wonder how it's legal for an arm of a state legislature to unilaterally decide to "audit" election ballots.  In my world, it seems this should be driven by the Secretary of State.

As mentioned upthread, this all arose by the AZ Senate issuing a subpoena to the election authorities to deliver up the machines and data.  The various entities objected to the subpoena and a district judge in Arizona sustained the subpoena over the objection.

It's a very good example of how legislative subpoenas, for alleged "oversight," can be abused.

The AZ senate has no authority to conduct an audit from the Arizona legislature or constitution, but it does have "oversight" power.  And while that sounds all good and fine, you realize that, in a lot of situations, "legislative oversight" is a virtually meaningless carte blanche to commit all kinds of fuckery.

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35 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

As mentioned upthread, this all arose by the AZ Senate issuing a subpoena to the election authorities to deliver up the machines and data.  The various entities objected to the subpoena and a district judge in Arizona sustained the subpoena over the objection.

I get that part.  What I don't get is why the judge sustained.  I mean, yeah, politics and all, but it's just not the AZ Senate's role.

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11 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I get that part.  What I don't get is why the judge sustained.  I mean, yeah, politics and all, but it's just not the AZ Senate's role.

Well, aside from politics or something else, I guess he couldn't find anything in Arizona law that constrained the Senate against subpoenaing materials for an audit or other investigation into election integrity, even though that responsibility is allocated elsewhere by the Arizona statutes and constitution.

Under the federal scheme, it would probably be found that the legislature had delegated authority to conduct and audit elections to the SoS and county election boards or bodies and that the oversight power did not extend to re-doing their statutory work.  They could subpoena and question the officials about their work, but not try to redo it.  That's a "separation of powers" argument that is well-developed in federal constitutional law.  Even though most states mimic the three federal branches, they don't have a well-developed separation of powers "doctrine."

It's funny.  I've read quite a bit of California and Arizona case law from their lower courts over the years.  I have almost always found them superficial and lacking analytical rigor.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, aside from politics or something else, I guess he couldn't find anything in Arizona law that constrained the Senate against subpoenaing materials for an audit or other investigation into election integrity, even though that responsibility is allocated elsewhere by the Arizona statutes and constitution.

Wouldn't you say that the ballot trail has been completely corrupted at this point?  Maybe that's a good thing -- it could put the kibosh on any further fucking around.

I know you're not defending, just explaining, but what a can of worms.

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13 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Wouldn't you say that the ballot trail has been completely corrupted at this point?  Maybe that's a good thing -- it could put the kibosh on any further fucking around.

I know you're not defending, just explaining, but what a can of worms.

Well, the good news is that Maricopa County is probably not going to need the ballots anymore as they have already done their duty, twice.  But yeah the whole thing is a complete shitshow.

And I had the same question about how the hell did this come to pass.

Here's the opinion on the subpoenas, by the way.  Completely shitty separation of powers analysis by the judge. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20492775/maricopa-county-v-fann-superior-court-ruling-2-26-21.pdf  Citing almost no authority, he is suckered by the argument that the AZ lege grants the SOS and lower officials their power.  Thus, according to him and them, it must follow that they can usurp that power at will.

Well, no, that's not the way it works.  Once delegated to an executive department, the legislative branch's only role is to determine whether they have done what their statute commissions/orders them to do.  If they want "take-backs,' they need to pass a law.

The question to me is why wasn't this appealed to an ostensibly smarter court.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

If those asshats in the Arizona Senate had any incredulity at all, they would have refused to hire a company calling itself "Cyber Ninjas" to do anything serious with the state's data.

That single fact alone throws the whole gotdamn thing into question.

I don't get it either.

"Cyber Ninjas" makes "The Geek Squad" sound like a Fortune 500 IT services company.

Had to be somebody's nephew.

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Guest Lobo

Although, not one of their best films...almost every Trump shenanigan/crime/insurrection/apocalyptical flirt could end like, "Burn After Reading."  With America asking, "What did we learn Palmer?"  And then somebody answering, "I don't know sir.  It's hard to say."  

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22 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I still wonder how it's legal for an arm of a state legislature to unilaterally decide to "audit" election ballots.  In my world, it seems this should be driven by the Secretary of State.

In a properly functioning republic, you're probably right.  We don't live in a such a fantasy world unfortunately.  We inhabit something more and more like a third world country with first world money.

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