Maricopa County officials have had enough.
On Monday, Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers – a Republican – defied a subpoena from the Arizona state Senate that sought computer routers and internal logs related to the 2020 presidential election. The latest request represents yet another shifting of the goalposts; the inexperienced auditors have blown past their deadline and have steadily expanded the list of election related materials they say is necessary to complete their examination of the vote (which has already been scrutinized – Joe Biden won).
“It is now August of 2021. The election of November 2020 is over. If you haven’t figured out that the election in Maricopa County was free, fair, and accurate yet, I’m not sure you ever will,” Sellers (R) wrote in a letter to the Senate on Monday.
Sellers attacked the competence of Cyber Ninjas, the firm Senate Republicans picked to lead the audit despite their scant expertise. Doug Logan, the head of Cyber Ninjas, is also an outspoken Stop the Steal advocate. “The reason you haven’t finished your ‘audit’ is because you hired people who have no experience and little understanding of how professional elections are run,” Sellers wrote.
“The Board has real work to do and little time to entertain this adventure in never-never land. Please finish whatever it is that you are doing and release whatever it is you are going to release,” he added.
The Arizona auditors have pursued outlandish conspiracy theories – including searching for traces of bamboo on ballots, an apparent indication that votes were shipped in from Asia. Sellers lambasted these misguided efforts in his letter, writing “I am confident that our staff and volunteers ran the election as prescribed by federal and state law. There was no fraud, there wasn’t an injection of ballots from Asia nor was there a satellite that beamed votes into our election equipment.”
Sellers alluded to a potential lawsuit: “It’s time for all elected officials to tell the truth and stop encouraging conspiracies. Please release your report and be prepared to defend any accusations of misdeeds in court. It’s time to move on.”
Last week, the Department of Justice also threatened legal action, writing in a memo, “Election audits are exceedingly rare. But the Department is concerned that some jurisdictions conducting them may be using, or proposing to use, procedures that risk violating the Civil Rights Act.”
Meanwhile, Sellers isn’t the only Republican who’s lost faith in the audit. From NBC News:
Two Republican state senators have said the audit was “botched,” including Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who advocated for tightening the state’s election laws in the wake of Trump’s loss. Democrats, who are in the minority in the Senate, have opposed the audit from the start.
“I wanted to review our election processes and see what, if anything, could be improved,” Ugenti-Rita wrote July 24 on Twitter. “Sadly, it’s now become clear that the audit has been botched.”