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AZ Audit Next Steps: Former Top Fed Elections Official Says What Must Be Investigated Based on Findings

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UPDATE, Feburary 3, 2022: This article quoted Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, a Ph.D. in systems engineering, as saying there were 34,448 ballot envelopes from just 17,126 unique voters. These were not ballots but images of ballots. This was all a part of the resolution process, and it is possible these were not counted twice. Maricopa County tweeted on Sept. 24, 2021, “Re: duplicated ballots. Every time a voter has a questioned signature or a blank envelope, we work with that voter to cure the signature. That’s our staff doing their job to contact voters with questioned signatures or blank ballots. Only one ballot is counted.” It should be noted that Dr. Ayyadurai did not claim that there was fraud. He merely claimed there was a need for further investigation.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, says the discrepancies found in the audit of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 general election must now be further investigated to determine if illegal and/or result-changing conduct occurred.

“This audit is just the start of what needs to be done in Maricopa County,” von Spakovsky, now an election law expert with The Heritage Foundation, told Newsmax the day the audit’s findings were released last month.

Newsmax host Heather Childers highlighted some of the potentially problematic issues reportedly uncovered by auditors, including 23,344 mail-in ballots sent from a prior address, 10,342 potential voters who voted in multiple counties, and 9,041 more ballots returned by voters than received. Then the host asked what stuck out to him.

“What this shows is frankly great sloppiness in Maricopa County in election officials not properly doing their job,” von Spakovsky responded.

He argued that Arizona officials need to investigate whether these findings are accurate and whether they involve mistakes or intentional wrongful conduct.

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“If they find, for example, that there were individuals who were registered in more than one county and voted twice, those people need to be referred to law enforcement for investigation and possible prosecution,” von Spakovsky said.

“The county needs to go in and find out: ‘Are these two different people or are they the same person?'” he added. “Because that’s the only way to figure out whether there were enough votes there, enough fraudulent votes to actually make a difference if not in the presidential election, in other elections.”

Childers followed up asking how officials can distinguish between sloppiness and fraud.

Do you think significant fraud occurred in the Arizona general election?

Von Spakovsky replied it would depend on the circumstances, but pointed to the instance of individuals being found to have voted in two different counties.

“It’s hard to put that down as anything other than intentional, if they voted twice,” he said.

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, an expert hired by the Arizona Senate to audit the mail-in ballot envelope images from November’s election, testified to Senate leadership last month that his team’s review found thousands of duplicate ballots, suggesting people voted more than once.

Ayyadurai, who holds a Ph.D. in systems engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there were 34,448 ballot envelopes from just 17,126 unique voters.

By the official count, President Joe Biden won Arizona over former President Donald Trump by 10,457 votes, or 0.03 percent.

Related:
Official Election Data Drops 2020 Bombshell: Thousands of Ballots May Have Been Illegally Cast

Last week, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office sent a letter to Maricopa County officials directing them to preserve all relevant information related to the 2020 general election.

The letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright, came just days after the release of draft reports of the Maricopa audit, which was commissioned by the Arizona state Senate.

“The Arizona Senate’s report that was released on Friday raises some serious questions regarding the 2020 election,” Brnovich said in a news release following the letter’s delivery. “Arizonans can be assured our office will conduct a thorough review of the information we receive.”

In a separate letter to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, the attorney general requested unredacted copies of all reports created by the auditors, including supporting evidence of Ayyadurai’s findings.

In a statement last week, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers promised to “provide factual responses” to the issues raised by the auditors.

“The opinions that came out of Friday’s hearing were conjecture without proof and were twisted to fit the narrative that something went wrong,” Sellers said.

He added, “The fact is, the elections department ran accurate, secure and transparent elections in 2020.”

In January 2019, The Arizona Republic reported that the board, which is Republican-controlled, voted unanimously to look at taking greater responsibility for election oversight following what the paper described as a “chaotic” 2018 midterms.

That election cycle, as well as 2020, was overseen directly by then-County Recorder Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who narrowly lost his re-election bid in November.

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Randy DeSoto has written more than 2,000 articles for The Western Journal since he joined the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths" and screenwriter of the political documentary "I Want Your Money."
Randy DeSoto is the senior staff writer for The Western Journal. He wrote and was the assistant producer of the documentary film "I Want Your Money" about the perils of Big Government, comparing the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Randy is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths," which addresses how leaders have appealed to beliefs found in the Declaration of Independence at defining moments in our nation's history. He has been published in several political sites and newspapers.

Randy graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a BS in political science and Regent University School of Law with a juris doctorate.
Birthplace
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Nationality
American
Honors/Awards
Graduated dean's list from West Point
Education
United States Military Academy at West Point, Regent University School of Law
Books Written
We Hold These Truths
Professional Memberships
Virginia and Pennsylvania state bars
Location
Phoenix, Arizona
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics, Entertainment, Faith




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