An off-duty Gila County Sheriff’s Office deputy patrols the floor of the Arizona election audit at Veterans Memorial Coliseum. /Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy /Arizona Mirror
By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
Documents released by the Arizona Senate shed new light on agreements between the legislative chamber and the groups providing private security services to the audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results.
Among the documents is a contract requiring the Senate to make a $20,000 “contribution” to the Arizona Rangers, a non-profit law enforcement support agency. Mike Droll, the State Commander for the Arizona Rangers, said he wasn’t sure if the Senate had paid the money and said it was the only agreement between the Rangers and the Senate he was aware of.
The documents were obtained under Arizona public records law and published by American Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog organization.
The Phoenix New Times reported that the Senate has only made one payment in relation to the audit, and it is not to the Arizona Rangers.
“We are out there to donate our services and time to the community,” Droll said to the Arizona Mirror, adding that the agreement “wasn’t contingent on how many hours of service” the organization’s members provided.
The agreement between the Rangers and the Senate is signed by Droll and Senate President Karen Fann, and strikes out the word “compensation” and replaces it with the hand-written word “contribution.”
