by Bill Bachenberg

This audit has been the most comprehensive and complex election audit conducted in this nation, however the audit has NOT been completed as of the date of this summary. Maricopa County intentionally withheld critical infrastructure and documentation and refused to answer crucial questions, in direct defiance of Arizona Senate‐issued subpoenas. Because of Maricopa County’s hostile defiance, the audit raises additional legitimate issues of concern, beyond those already uncovered, which remain unanswered to date.  

Below is a list of what Maricopa County failed to provide to the Auditors that remains critical to completing an audit:

  • ICX (electronic voting machines) units.
  • The Credentials to validate the ICP (ballot scanners) configuration or admin settings – unable to audit their wireless or LAN connections.
  • Certain passwords.
  • The Network Routers & Switches and their related configuration and log files.
  • Poll Worker Laptops (used to validate the voters).
  • Other Network connected devices.
  • Review of a Tabulator configuration – Hardware tokens never provided.
  • Systems accessing voter rolls never provided by County.
  • Provisional and Undeliverable Ballots never provided by County.
  • Canvasses to confirm voter rolls (removed from Scope of Work by the Senate)
  • Standard Operating Procedures (“SOP”) for signature validations.
  • Rejected Provisional Ballots and Uncured Mail Ballots.
  • Ballots returned to the County as undeliverable.
  • Responsive explanations as to why there are anomalies.
  • Responsive explanation as to why voting data was deleted.
  • Responsive explanation as to why voting data was apparently tampered with.
  • Responsive explanation as to why voting data (essential for a complete audit) was not kept for 22 months as required by law.

Even without this critical infrastructure and information, what the audit uncovered is disturbing, and may well be criminal. There was NO ACCOUNTABILITY for anyone accessing the election systems, security was essentially non‐existent. The systems had unsecure remote access. There was no security compliancy. There was unsecure Internet access. The voting results database was deleted and voting data in hundreds of thousands of files and security access records was destroyed. 

As you read through the following findings, bear in mind that Biden’s margin of victory over President Trump in the entire state of Arizona was only 10,457 votes. There are over 200,000 ballots in just this one county that appear to have legitimacy issues! These include fabricated ballots, ballots with errors, ballots that appear to be from illegal voters, and ballots that are problematic for multiple other reasons. There was massive destruction of voting data including the Election Management System’s complete vote database. If even a fraction of these potentially illegitimate ballots had been voided, that would have changed the result of the election.  Again, this audit was for only one of fifteen counties in Arizona – Maricopa.  

The confirmed anomalies and problems reported to date in this still incomplete audit call into question the integrity of the entire 2020 vote in Arizona. Audits of the other 14 counties should be undertaken.   

The Senate has provided the audit report to the Arizona Attorney General. Beyond investigating the potential criminal actions revealed to date, a full canvas of voters should be undertaken by the AG in order to validate the audit’s voter findings.

Lessons learned in this first‐ever audit of its kind in this nation’s history are being compiled to make any subsequent audit in Arizona, or in any other state, much easier and less expensive to complete. Election audits should probably become standard practice after major elections. There is nothing more important to this country’s future than ensuring that voters can trust the outcome of an election. No jurisdiction should fear an audit, unless they know it will reveal purposeful manipulation of the election results.  

(Download rest of 8 page High‐Level Review of the September 24, 2021 AZ Senate Audit Report)

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