76 Out of 77 Claims Made By Cyber Ninjas in Arizona Audit Were Wrong, Maricopa County Officials Find

Cyber Ninjas, the questionably ninja-like firm that didn’t show Donald Trump’s bullshit claims that he misplaced the state of Arizona throughout the 2020 elections because of voter fraud in Maricopa County, might have consigned itself to the dustbin of historical past for now. But earlier than you overlook about it totally, the county’s election officers released a lengthy report this week savaging the agency for its breathtaking incompetence.

For these whose reminiscence wants a jog, the Cyber Ninjas state of affairs was thus: Republicans within the Arizona Senate, desirous to win favor from Trump, commissioned an “audit” of the state’s vote over the opposition of Maricopa County election officers who had already verified the integrity of the vote (and who themselves are largely Republicans). As there was no respectable purpose to suspect any sort of mass voter fraud within the county—however voters there have been crucial to Joe Biden’s victory within the state—it was clear from the beginning that stated audit can be little greater than an train in delegitimizing the result. Notably, the 2020 vote had already been licensed by state officers, which means it couldn’t be retroactively modified below any circumstances.

Senate Republicans didn’t do themselves any favors by contracting Cyber Ninjas, a little-known political agency run by QAnon aficionado Doug Logan, to tug off the audit. Cyber Ninjas initially tried to maintain their course of for the audit secret, and it was very obvious why: It concerned major security lapses, use of untrained and partisan volunteers to scan for nonexistent UV watermarks, racist boogeymen like allegedly bamboo-tainted ballots from China, invocation of questionable science about “kinematic markers” on ballots, and each bitter bouts with native election officers and internal infighting. After months of losing everybody’s time and blowing a reported $9 million in funds, Cyber Ninjas finally launched a report mainly affirming the consequence of the vote. (However, it continued to combat in courtroom to withhold records on the method used to write down it.)

The 93-page Maricopa County rebuttal makes clear that Cyber Ninjas’s closing findings remained riddled with flaws. According to CNN, within the presentation to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday, native election officers stated that the audit had revealed one real screwup: Some 50 ballots had been double-counted by a temp employee. But Cyber Ninjas superior some 76 different claims within the report—amongst different issues, discovering that roughly 53,000 ballots out of two.1 million solid had been suspect in some method, together with over 23,000 ballots the agency stated had been from individuals who had modified addresses.

Of these 76 different claims, the report by Maricopa County election officers states, 22 had been deceptive, 41 had been inaccurate, and 13 had been “demonstrably false and can be proven false using materials provided to the Senate.” For instance, to give you the 23,000 determine, officers stated that Cyber Ninjas merely ignored that some residents of Arizona have the identical title and start date.

G/O Media might get a fee

Save $120

Cellular Apple Watch Series 7

Stream music, podcasts, and audiobooks on the go.
Stay related to household and pals with calls, texts, and e mail, even if you don’t have your telephone.

“The County reviewed voters from these seven data sets and found that the methodologies and claims were inaccurate” utilizing extra data like social safety numbers, the rebuttal reads. “The analysis that Cyber Ninjas performed relied on the use of a third-party commercial database. The combination of the use of this commercial database and the soft matching techniques are likely a key reason Cyber Ninjas made incorrect conclusions.”

Election officers wrote that Cyber Ninja’s evaluation relied on “faulty conclusions about voters who moved, early voting files, certified results, voter registration information, the County’s ballot duplication processes, and ballots for military and overseas voters. At the heart of these inaccuracies is a basic misunderstanding or ignorance of election laws and procedures.”

Later, the report assaults methodology launched by Shiva Ayyadurai, a self-proclaimed election fraud skilled who has launched lawsuits (together with one towards former Gizmodo mum or dad firm Gawker Media that was settled for $750,000 in 2016, and a failed one towards TechDirt) towards those that query his declare to be the unique inventor of e mail. Ayyadurai has run for Congress twice, according to the Daily Beast, which reported his campaigns concerned cozying as much as white nationalists and false claims of destroyed ballots. The Cyber Ninjas audit group quietly enlisted his agency, EchoMail, to assist with the hassle.

“EchoMail’s analysis of the early ballot affidavit images is misleading at best,” native election officers wrote. “The ‘anomalies’ EchoMail uncovered are due to a flawed understanding of signature verification laws and practices.”

“EchoMail’s analysis did not consider the signature curing process, which is when a voter corrects a signature issue by contacting the Elections Department,” the report continued. “The thousands of ‘duplicate’ early ballot envelope images that EchoMail claimed were ‘anomalies’ have a simple answer. As voters cure signature issues, the Elections Department takes another image of the envelope. Only one ballot was counted for each envelope.”

Election officers added that EchoMail’s findings included “misleading claims” about the best way county officers confirm signatures on ballots, “which has been proven accurate in court,” and are based mostly on misunderstandings of Arizona election legal guidelines.

“It’s been debunked and it was written by people who are not experts in the field,” Bill Gates, the chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, advised CNN. “We’re done. This is the end of the 2020 election. We have addressed the issues; we have debunked them.”

CNN wrote that representatives for Doug Logan didn’t reply to their request for remark, whereas a communications director for Arizona Senate president and key audit backer Karen Fann stated she hadn’t but watched the presentation.

While this could function an enormous embarrassment to all events concerned, Republican legislators in Arizona in all probability aren’t sweating it a lot. According to the Phoenix New Times, redrawn state electoral maps for the following decade have the GOP set to dominate the state legislature and U.S. House of Representatives delegation, drawing accusations of gerrymandering.