“Stop the Steal” Advocate Performs Arizona Election Recount

The U.S. Department of Justice is concerned about the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate's unprecedented private recount of TWO million ballots from Maricopa County by hand from the 2020 presidential election.

The Arizona Republican-controlled state Senate used subpoenas last month to obtain copies of the 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County during the election, as well as voting machines and private and public voter records. This right-wing action is the result of GOP conspiracy theories and the misinformation rhetoric that instigated the “Stop the Steal” hysteria.

The Arizona Senate hired private contractors, including right-wing Cyber Ninjas, to perform the audit currently underway in Phoenix. The audit will include a recount of all ballots and a study of voting machines and voter records to look for signs of possible fraud. Cyber Ninjas a company of dubious partisan conviction whose vocal CEO preached “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theories before the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Cyber Ninja’s radical right-wing stance has motivated the Arizona Democrats Party and Maricopa County and civil rights organizations to petition the Department of Justice to intervene in the audit. The audit rules lacked transparency and clear safeguarding procedures for ballots.

The U.S. Department of Justice is concerned about reports that voting machines, ballots, and voter information are not safe and is at risk of being “missing, stolen, changed, hacked, or destroyed. Those concerns were sent in a letter by the DOJ to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R).

In addition, the DOJ is concern about the practice of the contracted auditing firm personally contact voters to request information which can lead to possible unethical voter coercion, said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pamela S. Karlan.

Karlan stated…

“Past experience with similar investigative efforts around the country has raised concerns that they can be directed at minority voters, which potentially can implicate the anti-intimidation prohibitions of the Voting Rights Act,” “Such investigative efforts can have a significant intimidating effect on qualified voters that can deter them from seeking to vote in the future.”

Karlan wants Fann to outline the Senate’s and its contractors’ procedures for ensuring compliance with federal laws.

She cited news reports indicating inadequate security at the former basketball arena where votes are being manually tallied.

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation, a registered in-house manufacturer of proprietary software and sells electronic voting machine hardware, said in a statement Tuesday that Cyber Ninjas was not eligible to perform a recount and was “operating with a baseless, pre-determined conclusion” that votes were tampered with in the first place.

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After the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and other far-oriented QAnon advocates publicized the fiction that Dominion Systems had been “taken over” by the left-wing saboteurs, resulting in millions of votes shifting to Biden. This accusation has been disproven, but their contention that the election was stolen, and millions of right-wing loyalists, has lead to the January 6 Capitol insurrection and this travesty to the United States voting system of an extreme right-wing partisan recount.  

A court order agreement reached Wednesday requires the Senate and its contractor, Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, to adhere to state election privacy laws.

Any breaches of the agreement will be enforceable by a court order. Additionally, the court order allows for three observers inside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on the state fairgrounds under the direction of Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

                     US Justice Department worried about Arizona Senate recount