Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan testifies to the Senate on July 15, 2021.
By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
The team that has worked since April reviewing the 2020 general election in Maricopa County submitted a partial draft report to the Arizona Senate on Monday, but the full report will be delayed because several members of the team — including Cyber Ninjas head Doug Logan — have tested positive for COVID-19.
Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, announced that Logan and two other members of the five-person audit team have COVID “and are quite sick.” One of the three — not Logan — is hospitalized with pneumonia, Fann told the Arizona Mirror.
It’s unclear who besides Logan is on the five-person “audit analysis team,” and Fann told KJZZ’s Ben Giles that she doesn’t know who comprises the team. Likewise, Senate “audit” liaison Ken Bennett told Giles he didn’t know, either — and thought there were actually nine people, not five.
The Senate’s legal team will begin reviewing the partial draft report on Wednesday. Once it receives the remainder of the report, the team will finish checking the report for accuracy, clarity, and proof of documentation for its findings. After that process is complete, Fann said the report will be given to the Senate Judiciary Committee and its findings will be released to the public.
Matt Masterson, a former election cybersecurity official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said it’s not unusual for a post-election audit report to undergo a review before it’s released. And it’s not out of the norm that Fann would have a chance to review it, he said. But it’s unusual that the entity whose election is being audited to not have a role in reviewing the report.
