After the results of the Arizona 2020 election audit in Maricopa County were released Friday, multiple issues have been pointed out including duplicate ballots, deleted data, and bad signatures.
At the Senate hearing, Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai reported on the matter after he and his Echomail team investigated the mail-in ballot envelopes. He discussed pattern recognition and issues related to ballot signature cards.
Ayyadurai noted that 587 ballots were labeled with “bad signatures”. The more important finding from his report is that more than 17,000 duplicate ballots were identified. This means ballots from individuals who voted more than once in the election.
Maricopa County did not report the duplicate ballots in the results.
Ayyadurai also pointed out that some stamped certified signatures were found to be behind the arrow print on the ballots.
The county claims that Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cybersecurity company, did not account for the fact that many people in Arizona share the same name.
Maricopa County created a Twitter thread where they supposedly disputed the majority of issues brought up in the audit.
Another claim comes from Ben Cotton, founder of the firm CyFIR. Cotton said there is evidence to show the election results were purged right before the audit started.
Cotton also pointed out that the county did not provide access to computer routers during the audit, which Maricopa said was a security risk. They tweeted that their tabulation equipment was never connected to the internet. Arizona Senator Wendy Rogers shared a photo of the report showing evidence of internet connection.
These are just a few of the major issues found within the audit report. Legislators around the country have begun calling for a nationwide audit with potential decertifications.
