The Ongoing 2020 Election: Maricopa County Recount

[Edge-]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...rump-decertify

After multiple delays, the Senate’s lawyer told the Arizona Republic on Sept. 1 it would be “at least two weeks” before Cyber Ninjas delivered any of its reports on the audit and that one of the reports hadn’t even been written yet.

"The dog ate our audit report" doesn't seem like it will fly here.

Do we need any more evidence?

Asked State Sen. Wendy Rogers, having already come to a conclusion without any evidence to begin with.

[Flarelaine]

Can't stop smirking at the fact that the President of Arizona's Senate, pushing for this sham recount, is a Karen.

[Breccia]

So the chair of the Arizona Senate Government Committee, AZ (state) Sen. Ugenti-Rita, has formally and publicly withdrawn support of the recount.

"Not exactly the first, but why?"

Probably has something to do with the Trump supporter death threats.

Can't stop smirking at the fact that the President of Arizona's Senate, pushing for this sham recount, is a Karen.

Oddly enough, Karen is probably coming around as well.

Differences of opinion should not lead to a breakdown in civility," she wrote. "I will always follow through on my commitment to ensure the safety of our Members and their families.

Funny, it's all fun and games to support Trump until the violent insurrection has your name on the lynch list.

Sing it with me, you know the words!

99 bottles of beer on the wall,
99 bottles of beer,
"I never thought Trump would turn on me"
98 bottles of beer on the wall

Honestly it's been a slow week for the Maricopa recount, probably because (a) 9/11 and (b) COVID and (c) Cyber Ninjas having nothing isn't news anymore. I did my usual "did I miss anything?" timed Google search and found mostly unrelated info, some news sources that play fast and loose with article posting dates (an article from March posted under today's headlines? shame) and a teacher accused of hitting on a student which got my professional hackles up.

It does look like Wisconsin is trying the same thing in a more effective way, i.e. under the radar and run by competent people. Again, the intent seems to be "make a loud enough investigation to make enough noise to give the GOP a reason to change election laws even before any results of nothing are found".

[Breccia]

The report is supposed to come in tomorrow or Thursday.

A reminder, Cyber Ninjas said Aug 16 they were writing the report up and then the handover was delayed because COVID...funny, I thought Arizona had functioning mail and internet, but whatever. They made as-of-now baseless claims, such as 173,000 missing votes, that have yet to be presented.

The next step, the Republican-controlled AZ Senate will review the report in private, then decide what to release. I'm just going to guess the subcommittee that gets to read the report will, what a coincidence, be 100% Republican, and they will decide to release the headline "WE FOUND FRAUD" and literally nothing else.

[Edge-]

The report is supposed to come in tomorrow or Thursday.

A reminder, Cyber Ninjas said Aug 16 they were writing the report up and then the handover was delayed because COVID...funny, I thought Arizona had functioning mail and internet, but whatever. They made as-of-now baseless claims, such as 173,000 missing votes, that have yet to be presented.

The next step, the Republican-controlled AZ Senate will review the report in private, then decide what to release. I'm just going to guess the subcommittee that gets to read the report will, what a coincidence, be 100% Republican, and they will decide to release the headline "WE FOUND FRAUD" and literally nothing else.

"This report concluded that the lack of evidence supporting claims of widespread fraud is itself evidence that there is widespread fraud, and we now need more money and time to conduct further investigations to uncover said fraud that we have no evidence of."

Calling it.

[Breccia]

"This report concluded that the lack of evidence supporting claims of widespread fraud is itself evidence that there is widespread fraud, and we now need more money and time to conduct further investigations to uncover said fraud that we have no evidence of."

Maybe in a vaccum, but they already claimed they found stuff. To then say they didn't find stuff would just give more AZ Republians reason to jump ship, which they can't afford. Well, by "afford" I don't need money, they still have unknown shadow backers, I meant "their report will not be taken seriously and won't be used to make changes to suppress votes".

[postman1782]

"This report concluded that the lack of evidence supporting claims of widespread fraud is itself evidence that there is widespread fraud, and we now need more money and time to conduct further investigations to uncover said fraud that we have no evidence of."

Calling it.

They are also going to claim that they cannot make a full report, because they didn't get the routers that don't hold any information on them for more than a millisecond.

[Fugus]

"This report concluded that the lack of evidence supporting claims of widespread fraud is itself evidence that there is widespread fraud, and we now need more money and time to conduct further investigations to uncover said fraud that we have no evidence of."

Calling it.

Even if they tried that, couldn't the federal government then get that report themselves as it is relevant to the federal election results? Thereby forcing their hands.

And if they lied on the outcome of that report to have the full report go full Bill Barr, how would they handle that?

[Edge-]

Even if they tried that, couldn't the federal government then get that report themselves as it is relevant to the federal election results? Thereby forcing their hands.

And if they lied on the outcome of that report to have the full report go full Bill Barr, how would they handle that?

Haven't the foggiest clue, but if precedent is anything to go by there will be no consequences even if they do lie.

[Fugus]

Haven't the foggiest clue, but if precedent is anything to go by there will be no consequences even if they do lie.

Yeah, true, but if they get caught outright trying to lie about fraud, they COULD be found liable for stuff if the Democrats ever reach in their pants and find their own balls at which point the Supreme Court would lose all credibility siding against them and giving an even bigger push to pack the courts.

But unfortunately that requires the Democrats to actually be something other than weak.

[Edge-]

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...ds/8341092002/

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the state Senate's bid to keep records from Cyber Ninjas and other contractors working on the election audit out of public view.

After the decision was announced, Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, said she was preparing to comply with an order from a lower court to release the documents.

The Senate had refused to turn over records from the audit that are in the possession of its contractor, Cyber Ninjas, and other subcontractors, even after two Maricopa County Superior Court judges in separate cases and the Appeals Court all ruled they are public documents.

After the Appeals Court's ruling, the Senate asked the Supreme Court to weigh in. The justices discussed the matter in a private conference Tuesday and decided not to take it up.

The Supreme Court also "dissolved" a stay it had issued that allowed the Senate to continue withholding the records pending the case's outcome. The stay had paused a lower court order for the Senate to produce the records.

AZ Supreme Court told the Senate/Cyber Ninjas that they had to release all their audit records, rejecting a request from the Senate/Cyber Ninjas to keep those documents secret. This was appealed to the SCOTUS who decided not to take it up, leaving the AZ Supreme Court's order in place.

Senator Fann is very unhappy -

"What concerns me more is the fact that this ruling could open up a whole new precedent of two private companies having to divulge private communications between themselves and anyone that asks under a (public records) request," Fann said in a text message to The Arizona Republic.

Because she's a stupid idiot who doesn't understand that a private company working on behalf of a government body to audit a state-run election is not engaged in "private" activity and that, since it's dealing with elections and public records, that it's subject to public records laws.

I look forward to the dog eating these documents right before they're released. Or the Cyber Ninjas guys getting covid...again I think, delaying the release.

[Breccia]

Because she's a stupid idiot who doesn't understand that a private company working on behalf of a government body to audit a state-run election is not engaged in "private" activity and that, since it's dealing with elections and public records, that it's subject to public records laws.

This is my take as well. You know all the issues PMCs have, because they're not soldiers? Yeah, let's keep that out of local affairs.

Cyber Ninjas have a real problem on their hands, and I couldn't be happier.
1) They already announced fraud.
2) They don't have any evidence.
3) They can't withhold their methods.
4) They're running out of excuses.
5) They can't just not give a report at all. Not anymore. Since they have to show all their work anyhow, they might as well turn in the answers they wrote down.
6) Their shadow backers are likely running out of patience and not funding them anymore. I say "likely" because Cyber Ninjas has yet to disclose who's paying them.
7) And arguably most importantly, if they admit they found nothing, then the rabid fanbase might literally kill them.

I really don't know what legit reasons could exist to keep it all secret. If they found, say, "turns out you can change votes by hitting Alt-Tab" yeah that'd suck, but that'd need to be fixed instantly. Can anyone here think of an honest, acceptable reason why Cyber Ninjas' result should stay hidden? I'm honestly at a loss, and that voice in my head that normally helps with this is being extra quiet today.

[Edge-]

I really don't know what legit reasons could exist to keep it all secret.

"Proprietary methods and technologies were used in this audit of state voting records and we cannot share this information publicly."

"But why were you using proprietary methods rather than standard recount protocols?"

"So we wouldn't have to share any of the information and could claim whatever we want without having to provide evidence."

"That seems fairly shady..."

"Yes."

[Breccia]

"Proprietary methods and technologies were used in this audit of state voting records and we cannot share this information publicly."

I spent the last ten minutes looking for the post I could have sworn I cited, where Cyber Ninjas were told they couldn't use door-to-door surveying and were told this by the Department of Justice -- that's voter intimidiation. Back in the summer, they agreed, but apparenlty just, you know, did it anyhow.

I swear I had it.

Not to worry, rather than blame routers or COVID I just found another article. Why yes, that is the Washington Examiner, and even they don't buy this bullshit.

A woman behind a "grassroots canvass report" into the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona, released her findings Wednesday alleging multiple problems with the contest, which County Recorder Stephen Richer insisted are "easily debunked."

The report, authored by former Arizona state legislative candidate and realtor Liz Harris, deems the contest "uncertifiable" and claims to uncover an estimated 173,104 lost votes and 96,389 "ghost votes." Volunteers went "door to door verifying registration and voting information" to establish the findings, reporting data on 4,570 registered voters, the report said.

Votes considered "lost" were cast but not counted and have "no record" with the county. The report noted organizers used extrapolation from the 330 registered voters who said they voted but whom the county said did not vote. From this, Harris estimated more than 173,000 people voted but did not count.

And this is where we need to see legal action taken.

First of all, if someone says "I voted" to a complete rando on the street, it means nothing. I could tell everyone here "I voted for Pat Buchanan twice" and it means nothing to anything remotely official. Ever. Also I voted for him three times. And I'm six-foot-ten and rich, unless you ask my driver's licence or tax returns. Which, um, the dog ate.

Second of all, in such a partisan situation, extrapolating from such a small sample is really open to bias. Never do this. Biased data is worse than useless. Even if you want to intentionally lie (cough points at thread cough) as soon as your intentionally biased results are exposed, you lose everything. The already tiring AZ Republicans would almost certainly call that out, rather than be lumped in with such blatant objective public fraud. Courts would kill the rest. The public shame will take care of the rest.

And it's not like 330 is a great sample size anyhow.

Thirdly, again, they were told they can't do this.

Finally, let's pretend that, somehow, 173,000 people voted and their votes were actually lost. Okay. How are we just now finding out about that? There were multiple local gov recounts. Oh, they were in on the conspiracy, you say? The same goverment that...is hiring Cyber Ninjas? Yeah, no. 173,000 is a lot of votes to go missing and somehow survive the first rounds of official recounts.

Anyhow my point is, if these "proprietary measures" takes this illegal-ass canvassing as work product, then that's mass voter intimidation -- and suddenly, it's a criminal offence. And yes, that's the federal DOJ, and Biden's gotta be sick of this shit.

[PhaelixWW]

I spent the last ten minutes looking for the post I could have sworn I cited, where Cyber Ninjas were told they couldn't use door-to-door surveying and were told this by the Department of Justice -- that's voter intimidiation. Back in the summer, they agreed, but apparenlty just, you know, did it anyhow.

I swear I had it.

Man, your searching game is weak!

Also, I got you, fam:

Local sources report that Cyber Ninjas is now planning to go door-to-door, asking people who they voted for. You know what that sounds like to me? Stalling. Which you said they were going to do.

Of course, I'm going to add that Cyber Ninjas wants to go door-to-door and ask people how they voted -- a question that they know ahead of time that nobody's going to answer. Well the cultists will, but most won't. None of these people asked have any legal reason to answer, or to answer honestly. I'll also point out that the Republican plan to counter what I've seen described as Biden's door-to-door vaccination goons is...exactly the same thing. Lie, slam the door, say you have the legal right to refuse to answer, etc.

And I'm pretty sure "we will go door-to-door" wasn't part of the original contract. The "shadowy dark conspiracy Deep State" of the Arizona Senate will just say "no" again in broad daylight.

Aaaaand from the source linked:

In May, after the Department of Justice warned that directly contacting voters could amount to illegal voter intimidation, the Senate put the door-canvassing plan on hold but proposed a method for doing it if necessary.

[Breccia]

Man, your searching game is weak!

No, the article I was talking about I read far more recently.

[PhaelixWW]

No, the article I was talking about I read far more recently.

Well, then, I've got nothing. Search your browser history for "door", maybe.

[Breccia]

Well, then, I've got nothing. Search your browser history for "door", maybe.

I think I might have just not cited it. And I can't find it in my own browser, either. Again, doesn't matter, I found the info just not the first article that had it, and remembered enough to help find a parallel.

[Masark]

Cyber Ninjas have a real problem on their hands, and I couldn't be happier.

7) And arguably most importantly, if they admit they found nothing, then the rabid fanbase might literally kill them.

Are we sure that isn't really a solution rather than a problem?

[Breccia]

Are we sure that isn't really a solution rather than a problem?

Well, from their point of view, no.