- The Washington Times - Monday, August 2, 2021

Both Maricopa County and Dominion Voting Systems have rebuffed subpoenas from the Arizona state Senate related to the Republican-led chamber’s audit of the 2020 presidential election.

The county was asked for routers, machine passwords and voter registration records while the same passwords were sought from Dominion. The Senate’s contractor, Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, wanted to check whether they had been connected to the internet on Election Day.

All the information was to have been turned over by Monday, but both parties declined, citing security and legal issues.

In its letter, according to reports in Axios and the Arizona Republic, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors said it already had provided Cyber Ninjas with the information needed but could not turn over the routers.

This would put “sensitive, confidential data belonging to Maricopa County citizens — including Social Security numbers and protected health information — at risk,” wrote Thomas Liddy, civil division chief for the county attorney’s office.

Mr. Liddy also said that the Maricopa County Sheriff “has explained that the production of the routers would render MCSO internal law enforcement communication infrastructure extremely vulnerable to hackers.”

Dominion noted in its letter that the U.S. Justice Department had warned states that election audits could violate federal law.

It also said the request “exceeds the Legislature’s constitutional and statutory authority” because it is a public company.

Jack Sellers, chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors, ridiculed the audit and  contractors, saying in a statement that if they “haven’t figured out that the election in Maricopa County was free, fair and accurate yet, I’m not sure you ever will.”

“The board has real work to do and little time to entertain this adventure in never-never land,” he said.

Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, called it “unfortunate the noncompliance by the County and Dominion continues to delay the results and breeds distrust.”

 

• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.

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