Arizona Senator: State Lawmakers Prepared To Act On Findings From Election Audit

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Arizona legislature is ready to take action if the election audit taking place in the state’s largest county uncovers irregularities, a state senator said.

“It’ll be our duty to act in whatever way is appropriate,” Arizona Sen. Wendy Rogers, a Republican who has been closely tracking the audit in Maricopa County, told The Epoch Times.

Auditors, led by Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, started reviewing ballots from the 2020 election at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix last month, along with machines used in the contest and other election materials. Auditors expect to finish their work by the end of this month. They will then produce a report outlining what they found.

Contractors working for Cyber Ninjas, who was hired by the Arizona State Senate, work during a 2020 election audit at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Ariz. on May 1, 2021. (Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images)

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican who authorized the audit, said last month that she thinks some irregularities will be uncovered.

“I hope we don’t find anything serious. I think we’ll find irregularities that is going to say, you know what, there’s this many dead people voted, or this many who may have voted that don’t live here anymore. We’re going to find those,” she said.

Alexander Kolodin, who formerly represented Cyber Ninjas and remains a lawyer for the Arizona GOP, said in a recent interview that the audit “is going to show that something went wrong, because something goes wrong in every election.”

“I think even Maricopa County would probably admit that the question is, to what degree did it go wrong? Okay, that’s question one. But even that doesn’t tell you so much. It went wrong, and someone caused it to go wrong. The next question is, does the audit tell you who caused it to go wrong?” he said on NTD’s “Wide Angle.”

“If the audit illuminates that there’s [sic] vulnerabilities in X, Y, and Z parts of our election system, state legislatures can target those with a laser beam and fix X, Y, and Z parts of our election system,” he added.

Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 general election are examined and recounted by contractors working for Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas, at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Ariz., on May 6, 2021. (Matt York/AP Photo/Pool)

If the audit reveals fraud, then there would be a referral to law enforcement authorities, according to Fann. The Arizona Senate would focus on closing any loopholes in the election system.

Speaking just hours after spokespersons for the audit shot down rumors that hundreds of thousands of ballots were found missing, Rogers said she’s not sure what auditors will uncover.

“As of now we do not know what the results will be,” she said.

The first-term state senator, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot, has been keeping close tabs on the audit. She has been a regular presence at the coliseum, consulting with Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and helping lead tours for legislators from other states who want to see what’s happening.

Delegations from over a dozen states, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, have visited the audit in recent weeks.

“They want to come in to see what a gold standard forensic audit is and this is a real deep dive into not only counting the ballots, but looking at the machines and interestingly, examining very closely, microscopically if you will, the ballots themselves,” she said. “They have been blown away.”

Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican who toured the coliseum, told The Epoch Times last week that he was impressed by what he saw. He recommended lawmakers from battleground states go to Arizona to tour the facility. Pennsylvania Republicans are pushing for a similar audit in their state, but leadership has not yet decided on whether to order one.

Rogers wanted people to know that Arizonans “are resolute” and “will never quit” on election integrity efforts.

“We will get to the bottom of the truth, not only for truth’s sake, but also to restore election integrity for 2022,” she said.