Tag Archive for: BillGates

State Department Funded Foreign Think Tank Working To Censor Americans

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

The U.S. State Department funds and partners with a U.K.-based think tank that collaborates with online platforms to censor perceived mis- and disinformation.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is a British nongovernmental organization that styles itself as a research group working in partnership with several online platforms to combat extremism, hate and disinformation. However, the organization frequently classifies typical conservative discourse and journalism as hate and/or disinformation and has received funding from the U.S. government.

The State Department awarded the organization a grant in September 2021 to “advance the development of promising and innovative technologies against disinformation and propaganda” in Europe and the U.K. after it won the U.S.-Paris Tech Challenge. The event, which was held in collaboration with the “U.S. Embassy Paris, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) [and] the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),” was also won by the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), an organization which reportedly seeks to demonetize conservative news sites.

The State Department confirmed that its Global Engagement Center funded ISD to study Russian disinformation tactics against Wikipedia through a grant to Park Advisors. The department told the Daily Caller News Foundation that it plays no role in content moderation decisions on social media platforms.

“By funding organizations – including foreign organizations, no less – that put their thumbs on the scale of hot-button domestic political debates, the federal government is wading into a dangerous Constitutional minefield,” Michael Chamberlain, director of government watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust, told the DCNF. “The government cannot get around First Amendment restrictions by outsourcing or using surrogates or agents for prohibited activities.”

Additionally, the State Department and ISD partnered to create the Strong Cities Network, a United Nations-affiliated initiative that seeks to combat “hate, polarisation and extremism” abroad; the State Department solicited several grants as part of this arrangement, naming ISD as a sub-awardee.

The organization also lists as funders left-wing billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Group, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with several European government agencies.

ISD maintains several partnerships with platforms to inform their content moderation decisions, largely regarding extremist and terrorism-related content, but also, significantly, what it deems hate and misinformation.

The organization has a special advisory role with Spotify to “curb” misinformation on the audio streaming platform, and is tasked with flagging content for YouTube.

“The State Department’s partnership with the ISD is problematic at best and unconstitutional at worst,” Mike Davis, president of the Internet Accountability Project, told the DCNF. “Taxpayer dollars essentially funding the censorship of conservatives under the guise of ‘misinformation’ shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s followed the Biden administration’s assault on the marketplace of ideas.”

While much of ISD’s work focuses on various forms of extremism such as radical Islam and white supremacy, a significant portion involves “disinformation” and online hate. However, the organization frequently characterizes staples of conservative discourse as hateful and/or as disinformation.

For instance, ISD appears to consider the comparison of abortion to murder as misinformation, admonishing social media platforms for not enforcing their abortion misinformation policies against such claims.

Moreover, in a 2022 report on “climate disinformation,” ISD profiled a form of discourse it labeled “delayism,” which accepts as a premise the existence of climate change but does not, in ISD’s view, advocate strong enough or urgent enough policy solutions. Criticism of particular policies designed to address climate change, such as the promotion of electric vehicles, were also included within the “disinformation” report.

“In contemporary discussions on what actions should be taken, by whom and how fast, proponents of climate delay would argue for minimal action or action taken by others. They focus attention on the negative social effects of climate policies and raise doubt that mitigation is possible,” the report read.

ISD cited as an example a Facebook post from Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw that warned of the “radical obsession with wind and solar as the only clean energy solution” and argued instead for nuclear energy and natural gas with carbon capture technology.

Another example was a meme that compared an electric vehicle to a Flintstones-esque rock car.

“This outlandish form of censorship cannot be allowed to happen in America, such as simple policy preferences related to electric cars being labeled as misinformation,” Davis told the DCNF.

The organization characterized Libs of Tik Tok, a conservative Twitter account that publicizes examples of left-wing pedagogy including Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender ideology, as a “prolific spreader of hate,” and classified conservative journalist Scott Morefield as an individual “known to spread disinformation and amplify hateful right-wing talking points.”

ISD also considered “misgendering” an example of “anti-trans hatred” in a report on social media discourse surrounding the participation of men in women’s sports. ISD concluded by urging platforms to take action against posts that misgender trans individuals.

While ISD’s work is primarily research-oriented, the organization has successfully embedded itself in roles informing content moderation decisions within hugely influential social media and technology companies. Much of ISD’s work with online platforms focuses on terrorism and violent extremism, but the organization’s purview also includes mis- and disinformation.

“Frankly, we need more transparency on the connection between the government and tech in general,” Joel Thayer, president of the Digital Progress Institute, told the DCNF. “The State Department’s with this British organization adds just another very uncomfortable layer.”

ISD is a member of Spotify’s Safety Advisory Council, formed in 2022 as a response to criticism of the audio streaming platform for Joe Rogan’s December 2021 interview with COVID-19 vaccine skeptic Dr. Robert Malone.

The council, though not tasked with directly making content moderation decisions, is nevertheless empowered to “inform” Spotify’s policies and enforcement actions regarding “misinformation.” In ISD’s own words, the group will help Spotify “curb the spread of misinformation” on its platform and “independently keep watch over the platform’s content and safety policies.”

Additionally, ISD is part of YouTube’s “Trusted Flagger program,” an initiative in collaboration with several nongovernmental organizations and government agencies designed to improve YouTube’s enforcement of its guidelines. Trusted Flaggers are able to flag more content than average users, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2014, and receive special treatment from YouTube.

“[O]ur teams prioritize flags from Trusted Flaggers for review,” Google’s description of the program reads.

ISD partnered with Google.org for its Impact Challenge on Safety grant initiative which distributed €10 million to organizations working to “counter hate and extremism” in Europe, and also received a $1.3 million grant from Google in 2017 to counter hate in the U.K.

The organization also boasts partnerships with Microsoft, Amazon’s audiobook platform Audible and Facebook.

“The State Department exists to represent the American public’s interests abroad,” Chamberlain told the DCNF. “If they are interested in countering concerns about weaponizing the government, they could start by not assisting outside groups that target the speech of American citizens.”

ISD did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

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This article was published by The Daily Caller and is reproduced with permission.

Gates Foundation CEO Demands Social Credit Score for ‘Low- and Middle-Income’ Countries

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Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman insisted that there has to be “digital infrastructure” in “low- and middle-income” countries. What does that mean? A social credit score for African, Asian, and South American countries, of course. Nothing like digital imperialism.

This is what Suzman said, in a Dec. 1 press release:

“How we think about infrastructure for development is changing. Beyond roads and bridges, we also need digital public infrastructure (DPI) that can support a range of applications, from mobile banking and social welfare to disease surveillance.”

“Mobile banking” means your financial transactions are tied to your digital profile and thus what the government and tech companies want you to say and buy. Same for social welfare.

Also, Bill Gates was accused of genocide in an international court for pushing the deadly Covid vaccines and has a history of being tied to vaccine scandals in Africa and Asia, so I really don’t think we can trust his foundation on disease surveillance.

“[Suzman:] DPI, which is often based on open-source software, has significant potential for accelerating improvements in health and economic welfare. We saw this during the COVID-19 pandemic—countries with digital infrastructure were able to quickly send stimulus payments to their most vulnerable populations.

But how do we as funders support public and private partnerships that build DPI in a cohesive, scalable way? Germany is among the countries taking the lead in answering this question through its newly launched digital development strategy.”

Germany, which is currently in economic crisis. I don’t think they’re a stellar example of success in anything at the moment.

“At our foundation, we believe that DPI can help countries unlock new opportunities, particularly for women. Today, we are announcing a US$20 million grant to Co-Develop, a new multi-donor fund that will support DPI efforts in low- and middle-income countries.

Multi-donor funds such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have helped bring about transformative advances in global health; with Co-Develop, we can do the same for digital infrastructure. This will help us have a massive impact on the economic mobility of women in low-income countries.”

The press release didn’t explain exactly how increased surveillance and online social credit scores help women, of course. Just trust Suzman and Gates.

I guess Suzman is on the same page as the United Nations, which recently released a report on how Nigerians need to have fewer children. The UN pushed abortion and contraception for Asia and Africa, and the Gates Foundation wants to push digital surveillance on low- and middle-income countries. Neither has any right to do so.

The Gates Foundation, under the leadership of Bill Gates and Suzman, is trying to spread Marxist tyranny around the world.

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This article was published by Pro Deo et Libertate and is reproduced with permission.

Explaining Maricopa County’s Corrupt “Free and Fair” Midterm Elections

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

The future looks grim, with inflation high and the power of rigged elections on the Democrats’ side. Those who dare to speak out are soundly silenced, as America seems to be on an unstoppable train toward a Venezuela-style situation of corruption, poverty, and darkness. And running roughshod over the people are none other than both Republican and Democratic election officials, who seem to be blasting their way down the corruption track.

On Monday, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates, a Republican, followed through with canvassing the county’s election results, fulfilling a “statutory responsibility” despite a “plethora of reports from election workers, poll watchers, and voters, including the county’s admission of widespread printer problems.”

The five-member Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to certify the election despite major grievances aired by an outraged public during a four-hour-long meeting preceding the vote. “Secure and accurate” was the mainstream media’s description of the botched election, though even Chairman Gates acknowledged “this was not a perfect election. There were issues,” adding, “but we were transparent about that.”

On Sunday, Maricopa County’s elections department had responded to portions of a multifaceted request by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office seeking explanations of the problems that marred Election Day voting, including the malfunctioning of tabulators that were unable to read ballots, an issue affecting some 71 vote centers, which represents 31 percent of the 223 centers that were open on November 8.

In its nine-page report, the county defended its actions yet also admitted its errors within a single statement: “While Maricopa County’s printer issue in 2022 impacted more Vote Centers than normal, every voter was afforded the ability to legally and securely cast their ballot.”

During Monday’s review of the issues, Board Chairman Gates promised, “we will do everything we can to make sure this does not happen in future elections.”

Meanwhile, county officials have reported that roughly “one percent of total ballots cast ultimately couldn’t be counted at polling sites by those [faulty] machines but were later tallied at the county’s elections center.” Consider that it took all day to resolve the printer issues and implement setting changes, from 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. There is no question that many voters chose not to wait in the hours-long lines, or that many people who were told to vote at a second polling center didn’t make it to that center to vote.

During public comments at Monday’s meeting, angry citizens pointed out the flaws of the compromised election, with many demanding a redo. A repeated conflict of interest is that Katie Hobbs, the acting secretary of state — who oversees elections — refused to recuse herself from the process, despite running as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Then there is Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, who served as co-chair of the Latinos for Katie Hobbs Coalition, now a member of Hobbs’ transition team.

As The Gateway Pundit exposed in its coverage, the conflict-of-interest list runs long. In addition to the above,

  • Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who oversaw early voting, founded and operated the Pro-Democracy Republicans PAC, a dark-money PAC aimed at eliminating candidates with a MAGA agenda.
  • Maricopa County Chairman Bill Gates, who oversaw the election on Election Day, openly rooted against Trump-Endorsed candidates, calling their win in the primaries a “catastrophe” and saying, “I think they are electable, which is frightening.”
  • Katie Hobbs threatened to sue any county that did not certify this election and hand her the Governorship. She is moving forward with a lawsuit against Cochise County for delaying certification.

“No Choice” but to Certify

Maricopa, along with Arizona’s 14 other counties, had a deadline of Monday to collect their final votes and report the results to Secretary of State Hobbs’ office, which threatened lawsuits and felony charges should a county refuse to certify.

As of Monday morning, two counties — Mohave and Cochise — had delayed certification in protest of the widespread issues that disenfranchised potentially thousands of voters in Maricopa County, whether through mechanical error or a more sinister manipulation of the electorate system. No one really knows what happened that day.

By Monday afternoon, Mohave County’s Board of Supervisors, in a vote of 4-0, chose to canvass the election, with two supervisors telling the press that they felt pressured to certify, that they had “no choice” but to vote yes or face a felony.

Mohave County Supervisor Hildy Angius and Chairman Ron Gould were among the fear-filled and bullied. Angius reportedly spent part of Monday talking with constituents and Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, and felt that between the choice to certify the election or “essentially void the county’s votes in the state canvass,” the latter would “certainly disenfranchise” voters.

“I vote aye under duress,” Gould said at the meeting. “I found out today that I have no choice but to vote aye or I’ll be arrested and charged with a felony. I don’t think that’s what our founders had in mind when they used the democratic process to elect our leaders, our form of self-governance. I find that very disheartening.”

Meanwhile, Cochise County’s Board of Supervisors was less cowardly and thus slapped with two lawsuits, one by the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, which demanded a canvass be completed by Thursday, and another by Secretary Hobbs, who said the three-member board could be charged with serious crimes for violating Arizona’s election laws. The county board is expected to meet Friday to further review the certification of ballot tabulators.

In a letter dated November 21 to the Cochise County board from State Elections Director Kori Lorick, Lorick stated that Hobbs is legally bound to approve the statewide canvass by next week, and that Cochise County’s votes would be void if they were not reported in time. The stakes are high because if those votes are not counted, two reportedly close races, one a U.S. House seat and another for state schools chief, would flip from Republican to Democratic.

Kari Lake: A Fighter the Left Fears

Of all candidates, Kari Lake is the one that the Left cannot let win. An outspoken supporter of election reform, the charismatic former TV host has called for a return to paper ballots and same-day voting. Of her gubernatorial race, which shows Hobbs leading by a thin margin of some 20,000 votes, Lake has vowed to continue to fight “sham elections” and to expose the “botched election, where half of Election-Day voting centers were inoperable,” and “Arizonans were expected to wait in line for two, three, four, even five hours, simply to exercise their sacred right to vote.”

“Maricopa County, where it took two weeks to count votes, is the poster child for broken and botched elections,” said Lake in a statement on Twitter. “But if you bring up any of these issues, you are labeled an ‘election denier’ or a conspiracy theorist.” Indeed, the Democrats don’t want anyone talking about shoddy elections, and they will shut down those who try.

But Lake is fearless, and her message is a plea to Americans to stand up, to speak out about their extraordinary experiences at the polls, and to demand accountability and election reform. For her part, Lake has moved to litigate a case challenging the elections. Having already filed one lawsuit, she hinted at another coming soon.

“You simply can’t make this stuff up,” she exclaimed, explaining that any ethical person would move to investigate and correct the issues. “We the People will not forget. God will not forget. And I will not quit.”

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This article was published by  The New American and is republished with permission.

Attorney General Probes Maricopa County For Potential Violation of Election Law

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Over the weekend, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office advised Maricopa County that it may have violated election law.

According to the attorney general’s office, their Elections Integrity Unit (EIU) received hundreds of substantive complaints concerning Maricopa County’s handling of the election. Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright asked the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to explain the faulty printer settings, issuance of unlawful information regarding voting “check-out” procedures, and the unlawful mixing of “Door 3” non-tabulated with tabulated ballots by next Monday. At least 17,000 voters across 60 voting locations were impacted by Election Day tabulation issues.

“Arizonans deserve a full report and accounting of the myriad problems that occurred in relation to Maricopa County’s administration of the 2022 General Election,” stated Wright.

According to sworn complaints received by the EIU, printer settings were fine during testing the day before Election Day. Wright asked the county to provide the attorney general’s office with a comprehensive report detailing the voting locations that experienced printer or tabulation issues, the specific issues experienced by each voting location, all issues related to the printers and tabulators that contributed to voting location problems, a log of all changes to the printer settings that includes the identification of the individuals who made the changes, the county’s standards for printer settings, the exact time when the county discovered printer settings were the cause of the widespread vote center failures, and the methods used to remedy the printer settings at each voting location.

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates said that the long lines caused by the malfunctioning tabulators weren’t indicative of voter suppression. Rather, Gates said that the long lines were caused by voters’ resistance to dropping off their ballots in “Door 3” slots when the tabulators failed. Gates alluded that Republican Party leadership was to blame for voter aversion to casting a Door 3 ballot.

As the attorney general’s office noted in their letter to the county, Door 3 non-tabulated ballots were unlawfully mixed with tabulated ballots at some voting locations. According to the EIU, at least one election observer witnessed more than 1,700 Door 3 non-tabulated ballots placed in black duffle bags intended to hold tabulated ballots only.

The attorney general’s office added that the law requires the county to reconcile ballots cast against check-ins at voting locations — not at central count. Wright asked the county to provide a statement clarifying whether reconciliation occurred at the voting locations or at central count.

Confusion over whether the county reconciled ballots at voting locations prior to central count likely occurred due to statements by officials. The county made no mention of the reconciliation process when advising voters what happens to Door 3 ballots.

In a later apology to voters, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said that Door 3 ballots were retrieved by election workers at the end of the day and brought to central count. Again, Richer issued this statement without any mention of reconciliation.

Additionally, the attorney general’s office contradicted the county’s assertion that voters could cast a valid ballot after checking into another voting location.

The attorney general’s office asserted that poll workers weren’t trained on executing “check out” procedures — further contradicting county officials’ claims that this was a viable option for voters who desired to cast their ballot at another voting location after checking in to one. EIU reports reflected that voters were required to cast a provisional ballot at the secondary location since “check out” procedures weren’t possible.

The attorney general’s office contended that state law prohibits provisional ballots from being counted when a voter checks in at multiple pollbooks.

The attorney general’s office asked the county to issue a report detailing when and how poll workers were trained in “check out” procedures, the legal basis for “check out” procedures, why the county continued to encourage voters to leave voting locations despite EIU notification that “check out” procedure training wasn’t proper, and all voters provided a provisional ballot due to multiple pollbook check-ins.

The county announced on Sunday that its tabulation efforts are nearly complete. Following this, all 15 counties will complete a canvass of the votes.

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This article was published by AZ Free News and is reproduced with permission.

Maricopa County Made Arizona’s Elections Even More Of A Disaster Than People Realize

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

‘This was a horrible thing to experience. Poll workers conveyed a shocking lack of competence — it actually looked like willful incompetence,’ a Maricopa poll observer said.

 

After it trained upwards of 50,000 poll watchers, poll workers, and other roles for ongoing citizen engagement in the election process over the year leading up to the 2022 midterms, the Election Integrity Network sent out a survey to its on-the-ground volunteers following Election Day to gauge how things went.

The responses from election workers in key battleground districts and states around the country showed a mostly calm election cycle compared to 2020, with one massive and overwhelming exception. In Maricopa County, Arizona, election workers were appalled and aghast at how things had been run there.

“As soon as we sent the survey out, we were flooded with responses showing that they had no confidence in how the election had been run there,” Executive Director of the Election Integrity Network Marshall Yates told The Federalist.

According to Yates, unlike the rest of the country, where survey respondents espoused general confidence in their respective elections, the responses from Arizona were overwhelming, with Maricopa poll watchers and poll workers saying they had “zero” confidence in the election.

Maricopa, which is home to almost 62 percent of Arizona’s 7.2 million people, was already in the news on Election Day for its hours-long lines and broken machines. After its close and contentious 2020 election, Maricopa County officials refused to cooperate with an audit of the election by state senators and dismissed concerns about how it conducts elections. This year, it took the county just under two full weeks to count ballots.

Election Day workers flooded the survey response team with stories of incompetence, chaos, and mismanagement that resulted in the disenfranchisement of voters.

“The printers were not properly calibrated so the tabulators did not read the ballots and were rejected. Many voters left because of the delays and either did not vote or had to go to other vote centers to vote,” one Maricopa poll observer reported. “Some voters did not want to place rejected ballot into misreads box. Some voting centers may have mixed tabulated ballots with misreads.”

“This was a horrible thing to experience. Poll workers conveyed a shocking lack of competence — it actually looked like willful incompetence,” another said.

Unfortunately, these accounts are among many reported incidents of failed election administration seen throughout Maricopa on Election Day and in the days following. From finicky ballot tabulator machines to probable violations of state law, the seemingly endless slew of problems witnessed by Maricopa residents was a clearcut example of how not to run an election.

A County Filled with Chaos

Unlike most states, where citizens vote at their local neighborhood-based precinct, Arizona allows for its counties to adopt a vote center model, where voters are permitted to cast their ballots at any center within their voting jurisdiction, regardless of their address. Upon arriving at one of these centers, Maricopa voters check in by providing their state-approved ID, at which point a ballot-on-demand printer produces a ballot that is filled out by the voter and run through a vote tabulation machine.

As county election officials have admitted, however, this is not the process experienced by thousands of Maricopa voters on Election Day, when printers with misconfigured settings in at least 70 of Maricopa’s 223 voting locations printed ballots that were rejected by many of the center’s vote tabulator machines.

“The vote center model failed most spectacularly because it relies on this ballot-on-demand printer model, and you can’t pre-order paper ballots and have them ready for voters ahead of time,” Gina Swoboda, executive director of the Voter Reference Foundation, told The Federalist. “It’s just a bad system. It does not function well in Maricopa County and leads us to be exposed to a complete failure of the system on Election Day.”

While Maricopa Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates told voters experiencing difficulties that they were permitted to leave and cast their ballot at a different voting center, the unfamiliarity among voters and election workers with the official “check out” procedures led to more pandemonium. According to the Arizona attorney general’s office, many of the voters who left their original vote center without properly checking out were told upon arriving at another location that the county’s e-Pollbook system had marked them as having already voted.

Maricopa voters were furthermore told by Gates and County Recorder Stephen Richer that they had the option of placing their non-tabulated ballot in a bin called “Door 3,” which would be taken to the county’s central counting center after polls closed to be processed. Maricopa election officials, however, allegedly botched segregating, transporting, and tabulating the ballots, leading to a potential violation of state law and some of the estimated 17,000 “Door 3” ballots getting mixed with ballots already tabulated.

How Are Republicans Responding?

On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee (RNC), along with GOP attorney general candidate Abraham Hamadeh, whose close race is headed to a recount, filed a lawsuit in Maricopa’s Superior Court against his Democrat opponent Kris Mayes, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and the county recorders and board of supervisors of Arizona’s 15 counties, alleging that “erroneous” vote counts and misconduct by Maricopa election officials resulted in the disenfranchisement of Arizona voters.

“The [2022] election … was afflicted with certain errors and inaccuracies in the management of some polling place operations, and in the processing and tabulation of some ballots. The cumulative effect of these mistakes is material to the race for Arizona Attorney General, where the candidates are separated by just 510 votes,” the suit reads. “Immediate judicial intervention is necessary to secure the accuracy of the results of the November 8, 2022 general election.”

In their filing, Hamadeh and the RNC asked the court to order Maricopa to “process and tabulate all provisional ballots and early ballots submitted by qualified electors who had ‘checked in’ at a voting center but did not cast a regular ballot” on Election Day. Moreover, the plaintiffs requested that an injunction be issued to prohibit or nullify any attempts to certify the results of the attorney general race.

While speaking with The Federalist, an RNC representative said the group is continuing to work with Hamadeh’s campaign in gathering affidavits and other facts required to hold Maricopa election officials accountable for their mismanagement of the 2022 general election.

The lawsuit comes days after Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright sent a letter to Maricopa election officials demanding they submit a full report answering for their incompetent election administration on or before Nov. 28, when counties must send their official canvass to the secretary of state for certification. The request has since prompted Cochise and Mohave Counties to delay their respective election certifications until the 28th.

Arizona Senate Republicans have requested similar information, with state Sen. Kelly Townsend issuing a subpoena to Maricopa’s board of supervisors on Tuesday, seeking records and explanations over the county’s handling of the 2022 general election.

Arizona’s Election Results Deserve Scrutiny

Coupled with the tendency among Republican voters to cast their ballots on Election Day, the incredible mismanagement by Maricopa election officials potentially disenfranchised enough voters to swing the results of some of Arizona’s most contested elections.

In addition to the attorney general’s race, the gubernatorial contest between Hobbs — who oversaw the conduction of her own election — and Republican Kari Lake was also relatively close, with Hobbs beating Lake by roughly 17,000 votes.

Try as they might to downplay their administrative failures, Gates and Richer can’t hide the effect Maricopa’s abysmal voting problems had on the state’s elections. Even 84 percent of surveyed Maricopa election observers and workers reported they are “not at all confident” that Arizona’s election results are “completely accurate and honest.”

“Printer problems, tabulation errors, three-hour-long lines and even longer, and confusing instructions given by election officials made this Election Day the most chaotic in Arizona’s history,” said Lake in a video recently posted to Twitter. “The 2022 general election in Arizona was botched and broken beyond repair. … This isn’t about Republicans or Democrats. This is about our sacred right to vote; a right that many voters were sadly deprived of on November 8th.”

“I will continue fighting until we restore confidence and faith in our elections,” she added.

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This article is published by The Federalist and is reproduced with permission.

The 2022 Arizona Midterm Election – A Disaster and Glaring Example of a Broken and Rigged Electoral System

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Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

Editors’ Note – Unfortunately, the news about the Arizona 2022 midterm election, especially in Maricopa County, is too voluminous to publish article by article. As a service to our Arizona readers, the following is a listing of this voluminous news and informs the reader of the incompetent and highly questionable behavior of the individuals involved with the election system in Maricopa County. These individuals include Katie Hobbs (yes, the gubernatorial candidate quickly claiming victory in the Governor’s race who is the current Secretary of State and responsible for the state election system!), Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer who is involved with a Democrat PAC working to be ensure Trump-endorsed candidates don’t get elected (and friend of Bill Kristol, a rabid Trump-hating neocon) and Bill Gates, Chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and in the same camp as Stephen Richer.

As the evidence builds up and numerous counties in Arizona declare their intent not to certify the 2022 election until thorough investigations are finished under the current Attorney General, Arizona is seen as the laughing stock of the nation. Incompetence is clearly at play here but many believe it is far beyond simple incompetence. We do not know how this crisis ends or is resolved but The Prickly Pear implores the citizens of Arizona and Maricopa County to demand a critical investigation and repair of our current election system and to hold the above named individuals and others to account for this election cycle fiasco. If the 2022 election flaws, incompetence and irregularities are not addressed and fixed, the 2024 election will likely be compromised to a such a degree that citizens will lose all trust in the electoral system, a fatal blow to our Republic.

 

ALL EYES ARE ON ARIZONA

Marshall: Alabama Withdraws From Democrat Operative-Controlled Voter Registration Database (FYI: Arizona uses ERIC. Hmmm, another method for election fraud?) Marshall: Alabama Withdraws From Democrat Operative-Controlled Voter Registration Database
Alabama’s Secretary of State-elect Wes Allen has announced that he will withdraw the state from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a voter-roll management system with politically compromised ties. “I made a promise that I would withdraw Alabama from ERIC and I am keeping that promise,” Allen said in a statement. “I have informed them, via certified letter, that upon my inauguration on January 16, 2023, Alabama will immediately and permanently cease to transmit any information regarding any citizen in the State of Alabama to their organization and that we will no longer participate in any aspect of the ERIC program.” […] Additionally, per government watchdog Verity Vote, ERIC doesn’t actually clean states’ voter rolls, but rather inflates them. Though member states are allegedly required to clean their voter rolls, nothing happens. A March 2022 audit by Michigan’s auditor general found the state’s Bureau of Elections failed to sufficiently clean its voter rolls, though Michigan had joined ERIC in 2019. Likewise, the District of Columbia (another ERIC member) has also been sued for its failure to clean its rolls. [Note: AZ SOS Katie Hobbs a Democrat did not withdraw from ERIC. Hmmmm.
Read more: https://thefederalist.com/2022/11/21/alabama-withdraws-from-democrat-operative-controlled-voter-registration-database/

Hoft: Is the Arizona Election the Hill to Die On? Without Free and Fair Elections We Have Nothing
The election that took place in Arizona on November 8, 2022 is not certifiable. It was not incompetence. It was blatant corruption to sustain political tyranny by the Globalist Uniparty, an unholy alliance of the Democrat Party, the Republican establishment and the globalists who finance both of them. […] A new Arizona election must be scheduled before the end of the year, one in which only paper ballots and verified voters, voting in person, are allowed. Not doing so will represent a “green light” to permanently embed fraud into the electoral system and perpetuate the tyranny imposed on the American people by the Globalist Uniparty now controlling the U.S. government. […] The attitudes and plans of the Globalist Uniparty are indistinguishable from those of the World Economic Forum and the Chinese Communist Party. […] As Arizona goes, so goes the nation.
Read more: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/arizona-election-hill-die/

(11/21/22) Donovan: BREAKING: Kari Lake Delivers Message To Arizona And All Americans On “Botched And Broken” November 8 Election
Patriot groups in Arizona are rallying to push for a new election on December 6, 2022, and so far 4 counties have said they will hold off on certifying the election results they have been given. Kari Lake recently made a lengthy statement about the status of the election results. […] Kari Lake previously spoke out less than a week after the rigged midterm election, saying, “Arizonans know BS when they see it.” She came out again over the weekend, saying, “I will become Governor.” Then Lake released the following statement: . . .
Read more/ Watch the 2”19 minute Lake video: https://republicbrief.com/breaking-kari-lake-delivers-message-to-arizona-and-all-americans-on-botched-and-broken-november-8-election/

Election Integrity Network
Eyewitness report to election chaos in Maricopa County released.
Read the full report: https://whoscounting.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Data_All_221118.pdf

Election Integrity Network: Maricopa County Election Workers Testify before Maricopa Board of Supervisors 11.16.22
Watch the 8:33 minute video testimony: https://rumble.com/v1vi1tk-maricopa-county-election-workers-testify-before-maricopa-board-of-superviso.html

(Part 1) War Room: Mark Sonnenklar Discusses Report On Maricopa County Polling Location Shortfalls On Election Day
Watch the 8:44 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v1wjn7s-mark-sonnenklar-discusses-report-on-maricopa-county-polling-location-shortf.html

(Part 2) War Room: Mark Sonnenklar Discusses The Lack Of Preparedness Of Maricopa County Poll Workers
Watch the 9:14 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v1wjna0-mark-sonnenklar-discusses-the-lack-of-preparedness-of-maricopa-county-poll-.html

(H/T PC) Alex Jones Show Emergency Report! Arizona Election Certification Could Be Nullified With This Major Breaking Information
Michael Schafer joins host Owen Shroyer on The Alex Jones Show to break down how the Arizona election could be nullified.
Watch the 23 minute interview: https://theinfowar.tv/watch?id=637d62d016261756419b3fd6

War Room: Jake Hoffman: The AZ’s AG Letter Signals That Arizona’s Election “Shouldn’t Be Certified” Under Any Circumstance
Jake Hoffman is a member of the AZ State Legislature.
Watch the 7:30 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v1wjpv4-jake-hoffman.html

War Room: Natalia Mittelstadt: AZ Republicans Observers Found 63% Of Voting Equipment Had “Material Problems”
Natalia is a reporter for Just the News.
Watch the 3:26 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v1wjoss-natalia-mittelstadt-az-republicans-observers-found-63-of-voting-equipment-h.html

Solomon: Arizona GOP nominee sues election officials alleging incompetence impacted outcome of midterms
Arizona’s Republican Attorney General nominee Abe Hamadeh on Tuesday evening sued election officials across the state, alleging that “incompetence and mismanagement” had caused “pervasive errors” in the midterm elections. In a statement, Hamadeh said the Republican National Committee had joined him in filing the 25-page complaint in Maricopa County Superior Court. The suit comes as final unofficial vote tallies showed he lost to Democrat Kris Mayes by about 500 votes. An automatic recount is being launched.
Read more: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/arizona-gop-nominee-sues-state-election-official-alleging-incompetence

War Room: Michael Patrick Leahy: Maricopa County’s Election County Recorder Organized A Democrat PAC
Watch the 6 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v1whreo-michael-patrick-leahy-maricopa-countys-election-county-recorder-organized-a.html

Phillips: Kari Lake Gives Update, Says ‘Whistleblowers Are Coming Forward’
“Attorneys are working diligently to gather information,” said Lake, a former local news anchor who was backed by former President Donald Trump. “Whistleblowers are coming forward and the curtain is being lifted. Whether done accidentally or intentionally. It is clear that this election was a debacle that destroyed any trust in our elections.” Authorities Maricopa County are, according to Lake, “still counting ballots” after “printer problems, tabulation errors, three-hour-long lines and even longer and confusing instructions given by election officials made this election day the most chaotic in Arizona’s history.”
For the past several days, Lake has been posting videos of voters complaining about their experiences during Election Day to her Twitter page. She’s said that Republican voters were disenfranchised when they tried to cast ballots in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county. […] Last week, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state and chief election official, declared victory. Lake has not conceded yet and it appears that she will not do so anytime soon, according to her video.
Read more at The Epoch Times.

Citizen Free Press: Raw video of Maricopa drop boxes…
Watch the 2:23 minute video: https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/raw-video-of-maricopa-drop-boxes/

Alexander: Analyzing the Strange Coincidences in Maricopa County During the 2022 Midterm Election
No one really believes deep down that Arizona rejected four top Republican candidates — three who were leading inalmost every poll, including MSM polls — considering the breakdown of voter registration in the state. Republicans have a four-point voter registration advantage over Democrats in the state as well as within Maricopa County. Republican candidates swept the rest of the races around the state, leading many to believe only those four top races, which featured all Trump-endorsed candidates, were deliberately targeted. Other than those four key races, Arizona Republicans performed exceedingly well . . .
{…] Voters are wondering how incumbent Repubiican State Treasurer Kimberly Yee received more votes than any of the other statewide candidates — about 100,000 more than Kari Lake — even though she had low name recognition, was not endorsed by Trump, didn’t get the base excited, and conducted a relatively quiet, uneventful first term. It’s not because Yee didn’t have a significant opponent; State Sen. Martin Quezada is one of the most well-known and popular Democrats in the state. On the other hand, Lake brought out thousands to huge rallies and was considered a Trumplike sensation across the state, with huge name recognition due to being a longtime popular news anchor in the Phoenix market. One of the main theories going around in Arizona is . . . […] Election fraud experts tell me it’s part of a plan by Democrats to take over states one by one. […] What can we do?
Read more: https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2022/11/21/analyzing-the-strange-coincidences-in-maricopa-county-during-the-2022-midterm-election-n2616183

War Room: Maricopa County’s “Laying The Grounds To Not Certify” Their Results
Caroline Wren is Kari Lake’s senior advisor.
Watch the 11:08 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v1w99d6-maricopa-countys-laying-the-grounds-to-not-certify-their-results.html

Mittlestadt: Bombshell Arizona report: Election Day problems in Maricopa far wider than county admitting
According to an affidavit report by Mark Sonnenklar, a roving attorney with the Republican National Committee’s Election Integrity program in Arizona, he and 10 other RNC roving attorneys reported their observations and those of Republican observers at vote centers on Election Day.
File Aggregated Roving Attorney General Election Report.pdf The 11 attorneys visited 115 out of the 223 vote centers in Maricopa County on Election Day and found that 72 of them (or 62.61%) “had material problems with the tabulators not being able to tabulate ballots,” Sonnenklar reported, “causing voters to either deposit their ballots into box 3, spoil their ballots and re-vote, or get frustrated and leave the vote center without voting.”
Read more: https://justthenews.com/maricopa-county-follies-affidavits-detail-ballot-shenanigans-arizonas-largest-county

Hoft: BREAKING UPDATE: — At Least THREE ARIZONA COUNTIES Delay Certification of the Tainted 2022 Midterm Election – Gila, Conchise, Mohave, and Yavapai
Read more: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/breaking-second-arizona-county-refuses-certify-tainted-2022-midterm-election/

ADI News Services: Counting Of Arizona Votes Complete, Three Automatic Recounts Required
Maricopa County wrapped up its vote counting on Monday, leaving no more votes left to count in the state. Now counties have until Nov. 28 to canvas their elections and send the results to the Secretary of State’s Office. There will be automatic recounts in the Attorney General’s race, Superintendent of Public Instruction race, and the Legislative District 13 (LD13) House race.
Read more: https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2022/11/21/counting-of-arizona-votes-complete-three-automatic-recounts-required/

Arizona’s ‘Election Integrity Unit’ Demands Answers From Maricopa County Over Election Day Problems

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The Arizona Attorney General’s Elections Integrity Unit sent a letter to Maricopa County demanding answers on problems that took place with the election on Nov. 8.

In a letter to Civil Division Chief Thomas Liddy of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright said the AG’s office had “received hundreds of complaints since Election Day,” and the complaints “go beyond pure speculation [and] include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa County’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law.”

According to Maricopa County election officials, at least 60 of 223 voting locations experienced technical problems related to ballot-on-demand (BOD) printers having “non-uniform” printer configuration settings.

These non-uniform settings resulted in some ballots “unable to be read by on-site ballot tabulators.”

County officials estimate the technical problems may have impacted more than 17,000 ballots on Election Day.

“Based on sworn complaints submitted by election workers employed by Maricopa County, the BOD printers were tested on Monday, Nov. 7, without any apparent problems,” Wright said in the letter (pdf).

“Many of those election workers report that despite the successful testing the night before, the tabulators began experiencing problems reading ballots printed by the BOD printers within the first thirty minutes of voting on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.”

The letter said that based on a “plethora of reports from election workers, poll watchers, and voters, including the county’s admission of widespread printer problems,” the Elections Integrity Unit requested:

  • The specific problems at each voting location
  • Any other issues related to BOD printers and/or tabulators that may have contributed to the problems at voting locations
  • A comprehensive log of all changes to the BOD printer configuration settings (to include the identity of individuals making changes)
  • Maricopa County’s standards for the BOD printer configuration settings
  • The precise time the non-uniform printer configuration settings were found to be the root cause of the problem
  • The method used to update or reconfigure the printer configuration settings at each voting location

The Elections Integrity Unit will also look into election day “check-out” procedures in which affected voters received provisional ballots or instructions to go to another polling location…..

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Continue reading at The Epoch Times.

Maricopa Election Officials Launched PAC in 2021 to Stop MAGA Candidates

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It has been revealed that embattled Arizona’s Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Supervisor Chairman Bill Gates in 2021 started a political action committee to stop MAGA candidates.

On November 17, 2021, Meg Cunningham from the Kansas City Beacon tweeted that Richer, “the Maricopa County recorder, is launching a PAC to support Rs running for non-federal AZ offices who ‘acknowledge the validity of the 2020 election and condemn the events of Jan. 6, 2021, as a terrible result of the lies told about the November election”.

Richer retweeted her saying, “Thanks to a few generous donors this is now launching. Join me if you care about traditional Republican ‘stuff’ (free people, free markets, rule of law), but also don’t believe in conspiracies about the 2020 election or that Jan 6 was a tourist event.”

The PAC called Pro Democracy Republicans of Arizona claims on their website that they are “fighting to keep our democratic institutions alive.”

The website is sparse on details aside from how to donate but does have a few sentences on their mission. “The Arizona election wasn’t stolen. We Republicans simply had a presidential candidate who lost, while we had many other candidates who won. It’s time we Republicans accept and acknowledge that fact.”

“Candidates come and go. But our democratic institutions are long-lasting, and peaceful transitions of power are a hallmark of the United States.  We should not abandon this history in favor of conspiracy theorists and demagoguery.”

“To that end, we are launching this PAC to support pro-democracy Arizona Republicans.”…..

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Continue reading this article at PM.

Photo credit: Matthew Casey/KJZZ

4 Keys to Understanding Why This Arizona County Still Has Election Problems

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On Election Day, Cathi Herrod received calls and emails about problems in Arizona’s Maricopa County about voting machines not accepting ballots, ballot tabulators being broken, and other questions regarding paper ballots.

“Voters are skittish in Maricopa County about election integrity,” Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative think tank, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Thursday. “People wonder why it is that Florida is so quick to count votes and it takes Arizona days.”

For the second consecutive election cycle, Maricopa County is in the national spotlight for problems during and after the voting.

In 2020, Joe Biden’s victory in the county helped him to win a narrow victory over Donald Trump for the state’s 11 Electoral College votes.

This year, the stakes include the outcome of the governor’s race between Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat whose office oversees elections, and Republican challenger Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor. Also on the line is the state’s U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly and Republican challenger Blake Masters.

Both contests are too close to call with about 600,000 ballots still not processed statewide, about 340,000 of those in Maricopa County.

With 71% of the vote counted Thursday night, Hobbs had 50.6% in the governor’s race to Lake’s 49.4%, with fewer than 23,000 votes separating them, The Associated Press reported. In the Senate race, Kelly had 51.7% to Masters’ 46.2%, with about 107,000 votes separating them. (A Libertarian candidate had 2%.)

Maricopa, which encompasses Phoenix, is Arizona’s largest and most populous county and the fourth-largest county in the United States.

J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, an elections watchdog group, was in the county Thursday, having traveled there to give a scheduled speech.

“Part of it is just the size,” Adams told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Maricopa County is geographically one of the largest voting jurisdictions in the country. It is gigantic. And a push for mail-in voting just makes it more complicated with delays and glitches.”

Here’s a look at the big problems in Maricopa County’s administration of elections.

1. What Are the Tabulation Machine Issues?

Voting machines in more than 25% of Maricopa County’s polling places experienced significant malfunctions on Election Day, Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates said.

Voters were asked to drop their ballot in “Door 3,” a drop box, to be counted later.

“Some voters didn’t trust Door 3, and that’s why they voted on Election Day,” George Khalaf, president of Data Orbital and managing partner at the Resolute Group, a Phoenix political consulting firm, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

Maricopa County officials said printing problems prevented voting machines from reading about 17,000 ballots—or 7% of all those cast for the 2022 election.

“We understand that for the people who went through it, this was frustrating, inconvenient, and not how they pictured Election Day. We plan to get to the bottom of it,” Gates and Board Vice Chairman Clint Hickman said in a prepared statement. They added:

The printer settings for the Ballot-on-Demand printers at vote centers were the same ones we used in the August primary. The paper was the same thickness. Prior to the general election, the Elections Department test-printed and test-tabulated hundreds of ballots without issues.

The Maricopa County officials did not respond to phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal for this report.

But during a press conference Thursday, Gates said the situation is no different from previous years, but more noticeable when election contests are closer. Gates said he anticipated that 99% of the ballots would be counted by Friday.

“I’m here to tell you that the goal posts have changed,” Gates told reporters. “The reason the goal posts have changed is wonderful news, the great participation we had on Election Day.” 

He said that “no county or state is done with counting right now.”

“We have so many close races that everyone is paying attention to Maricopa County right now,” Gates said. “Other states like Florida, those states were blowouts. Nobody is paying attention [there] anymore.”

The problems should be temporary and all votes should be counted, Public Interest Legal Foundation’s Adams said.

“Tabulators were just spitting out ballots and that can be fixed,” Adams said. “Think of a Coca-Cola machine after you put in a crinkled-up dollar bill.”

What’s frustrating for residents locally—and for officials—is that the same voting machines previously worked, the Center for Arizona Policy’s Herrod said.

“It is a mystery why tabulation machines worked a week before Election Day in a test and then didn’t work at 60 voting centers on Election Day,” Herrod said in the phone interview.

2. What Happens With Mail-In Ballots?

About 8 in 10 Arizona voters cast their ballots earlier than Election Day, either in person or through mail-in voting, according to The Associated Press.

This situation can lead to a lengthy process, as voters’ signatures are checked against registration records to ensure they didn’t already vote through other means. Before attempting to put a ballot through a tabulator, election workers are supposed to physically smooth it out.

Of Maricopa County’s 400,000 uncounted ballots, about 290,000 were mail-in ballots dropped off Tuesday at voting sites. That drop-off number broke the previous record by 70%, Gates told reporters at the Thursday press conference.

“Why is it taking the amount of time it is taking? A lot of people are talking about this,” Gates said. “It’s very standard. This is how things work in Arizona and have for decades. This is due in part to mail-in voting.”

As for the comparison with Florida’s relatively quick count, Gates seemed to take exception.

“Florida does not allow for mail-in ballots to be dropped off at voting locations on Election Day,” he said. “We do. We had 290,000 dropped off here. Also, Florida early voting closes the Sunday before Election Day. In Arizona, we allow for drop off through and on Election Day.”

Election Day problems in the county were real but small compared to those with mail-in ballots, Adams added.

“Elections are complicated, and not making them more complicated is one way to avoid these problems,” he said. “Mail-in voting added steps to the process.”

3. What About Litigation Before Election?

In early October, the Republican National Committee and other GOP-aligned organizations sued Maricopa County after county officials refused to share the partisan makeup of poll workers.

That litigation resulted in the county’s sharing the information, and hiring more Republican election workers.

4. What Were the Problems in 2020?

After the Arizona state Senate authorized a forensic audit of Maricopa’s 2020 ballot counting, county officials acted indigent. Among them were Gates and another Republican official, county Recorder Steve Richer.

The controversial audit, completed in 2021, found problems with the county’s procedures but reaffirmed Biden’s victory there over Trump.

Still, a lot of eyes were on the county, Data Orbital’s Khalaf said in the interview.

“This election needed to go off without a hitch,” Khalaf told The Daily Signal. “This is a Maricopa County thing, not an Arizona thing. All of the other Arizona counties did fine. We need changes to the law to ensure this scenario doesn’t keep happening.”

Though affirming Biden’s 2020 win in the county, the 2021 state Senate audit found:

  • 23,344 “mail-in ballots voted from a prior address.”
  • 9,041 “more ballots [were] returned by voters than [were]  received.”
  •  5,295 “voters [who] potentially voted in multiple counties.”
  • 2,592 “more duplicates than original ballots.”
  •  2,382 “in-person voters who had moved out of Maricopa County.”

The audit also showed that 5,295 voters “potentially voted in multiple counties.”

Objections to the audit were based on hiring Florida-based cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas to conduct the review, because the company had little experience with elections, critics contended.

County officials also complained that Cyber Ninjas’ CEO deleted tweets supporting Trump’s view that the 2020 presidential election was stolen through fraud.

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This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

Arizona’s Election Administration Is An International Embarrassment

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Two days have passed since polls closed in Arizona and unsurprisingly, election officials in the state have failed to provide voters with the final results of numerous highly contested races.

As of this article’s publication, none of Arizona’s contested statewide races have been called for any of their respective candidates. With 70 percent of votes tabulated, Democrat Katie Hobbs leads her Republican rival Kari Lake in the gubernatorial race by fewer than 13,000 votes, while Democrat Mark Kelly leads Republican Blake Masters by a little less than 95,000. The races for Arizona attorney general and secretary of state also remain up in the air, with both still too close to call.

According to the Associated Press, there are approximately 600,000 ballots — roughly a quarter of all those cast — that have yet to be tabulated as of Thursday afternoon, with a large segment of these votes coming from the state’s most populous county, Maricopa. On Wednesday morning, Maricopa officials estimated that there are “more than 400K ballots left to count,” with the locality receiving “275K early ballots on Election Day.”

The chairman of Maricopa’s Board of Supervisors Bill Gates has since told a CNN reporter on Thursday that the county doesn’t expect to have all of their votes finalized until “early next week.”

The delayed counting in Maricopa comes on top of the county’s Election Day fiasco, where vote tabulation machines in roughly 20 percent of Maricopa’s voting locations stopped working due to a “printer issue..” Local officials have since issued a public apology for their gross incompetence, saying in a statement that they are “confident in the work still to be done to count every vote securely and accurately.”

But the problems witnessed throughout Arizona this week are hardly exclusive to the 2022 midterms. Earlier this year, it took two days for election officials to determine that Kari Lake had won her race to become Arizona’s GOP gubernatorial candidate. As described by the New York Post, “[e]arly election results showing only mail ballots received before Election Day” had given the advantage to Lake’s chief opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson. Lake’s victory was only realized after Maricopa County had released results from “thousands of mail ballots” that were dropped off at voting locations on Election Day.

Similar delays in election results were also notable in the 2020 presidential contest between former President Donald Trump and then-candidate Joe Biden. While some outlets such as the Associated Press and Fox News prematurely called the state for Biden, most of the race’s final vote tallies weren’t officially known until a week later.

Arizona’s Elections Are a Joke

While countries with tens of millions of citizens, such as France and Brazil, are able to tabulate nationwide election results within 24 hours, the Grand Canyon State has continued to disrespect its voters by repeatedly leaving them in limbo and turning what’s supposed to be Election Day into “election season.” International election observers have regularly pointed to delayed election results as one of several warning signs of incompetent election administration, and although that doesn’t mean there was impropriety in this year’s Arizona elections, the failure to tabulate votes in a timely and efficient manner does nothing but undermine voters’ confidence in the electoral process.

Much like their counterparts in Washington, D.C., Arizona’s Republican leaders such as Gov. Doug Ducey have had numerous chances over the past two years to resolve delayed vote tabulations; and at every available opportunity, they have simply chosen to ignore it. In Kari Lake, many Arizona Republicans see a leader who tackles challenging issues rather than runs from them. And given what the public has witnessed over the past two years, it sure looks like the state could use one.

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This article was published at The Federalist and is reproduced with permission.