From the Maricopa County Forensic Election Audit Volume I: Executive Summary & Recommendations
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The preamble to our Constitution reminds us that our nation is always pursuing greater perfection, seeking to establish “... a more perfect Union” so that we can “...secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Nothing is more essential in preserving liberty than free and fair elections. To that end, Cyber Ninjas was engaged by the Arizona Senate to audit the 2020 General Election and determine in what areas legislative reform may enhance our current process so that our elections may continue to get better, becoming “more perfect.” In doing so, it was our goal to improve confidence in American elections by identifying areas where legislation could resolve any identified issues.
This audit has been the most comprehensive and complex election audit ever conducted. It involved the hand counting of 2.1 million ballots, a forensic paper inspection of all ballots, a forensic review of the voting machines, and an in-depth analysis of the voter rolls and the 2020 General Election final files.
What has been found is both encouraging and revealing. On the positive side there were no substantial differences between the hand count of the ballots provided and the official election canvass results for Maricopa County. This is an important finding because the paper ballots are the best evidence of voter intent and there is no reliable evidence that the paper ballots were altered to any material degree.
Based on our other findings, however, we recommend that the Legislature tighten up the election process to provide additional certainty going forward, and that several specific findings of our audit be further reviewed by the Arizona Attorney General for a possible investigation. Such other findings include the following:
• None of the various systems related to elections had numbers that would balance and agree with each other. In some cases, these differences were significant.
• There appears to be many 27, 807 ballots cast from individuals who had moved prior to the election.
• Files were missing from the Election Management System (EMS) Server.
• Ballot images 284,412 on the EMS were corrupt or missing.
• Logs appeared to be intentionally rolled over, and all the data in the database related to the 2020 General Election had been fully cleared.
• On the ballot side, batches were not always clearly delineated, duplicated ballots were missing the required serial numbers, originals were duplicated more than once, and the Auditors were never provided Chain-of- Custody documentation for the ballots for the time-period prior to the ballot’s movement into the Auditors’ care. This all increased the complexity and difficulty in properly auditing the results; and added ambiguity into the final conclusions.
• Maricopa County failed to follow basic cyber security best practices and guidelines from CISA
• Software and patch protocols were not followed
• Credential management was flawed: unique usernames and passwords were not allocated
• Lack of baseline for host and network activity for approved programs, communications protocols and communications devices for voting systems
