azaudit/org
By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
Observers sent by the Arizona Secretary of State’s office to the Senate’s audit of the Maricopa County election shared concerns with reporters Wednesday saying that auditors are making up procedures as they go and that security issues continue to be a concern.
“It’s bad for election security, it’s bad for voters, it’s bad for our democracy,” Joanna Lydgate, CEO of States United Democracy Center, said about the audit. “This is about casting doubt on our election process because you didn’t like the outcome.”
The observers with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office have raised concerns before about what they have seen, but on Wednesday they emphasized their concerns about the precedent the audit will set going forward.
“What we are seeing happen is not an audit, it is a fundraising stunt,” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said, adding that more elected officials should be “standing up” to the audit. She praised Maricopa County Recorder Republican Stephen Richer, who railed against the auditors during a 45-minute-long special meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors earlier this week.
Hobbs and the observers are concerned that the audit will expand its scope to other counties and are already concerned about other states that have begun to look into following the Arizona Senate’s lead. Advocates for an audit in New Hampshire are pushing for conspiracy theorist Jovan Hutton Pulitzer to lead it. Pulitzer and his unproven technology are already a part of Arizona’s audit.
But the observers’ real concerns lie with what they witnessed while on the floor of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
