Arizona Senate President Karen Fann has directed the CEO of the Florida-based Cyber Ninjas to turn over all documents and communications related to the ongoing audit of the Maricopa County election.
Her letter comes just a day after the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an order for the Cyber Ninja documents to be made public as part of a lawsuit. While Arizona’s Public Records Law states that government agencies must provide documents to anyone requesting them, Cyber Ninjas has not made their records available to the Arizona State Senate. Instead, they’ve petitioned unsuccessfully to get a new judge in their case. Maricopa County Superior Judge John Hannah didn’t order Cyber Ninjas to turn over their documents, but simply ensured that they preserve the emails so that the public can review them “once the litigation is settled.” Republicans, however, are still waiting for a preliminary report from the company after its CEO Doug Logan and a handful of others contracted COVID-19.
“For the avoidance of doubt, documents with a substantial nexus to the audit include without limitation all documents and communications relating to the planning and performance or execution of the audit, all policies and procedures used in connection with the audit, all records concerning audit funding or staffing, and all records that are reasonably necessary or appropriate to maintain an accurate knowledge of activities concerning the 2020 Maricopa County election audit,” Fann’s letter states.
The documents related to the audit should be public records as the audit is happening under the direction of the senate. The lawsuit was first brought by American Oversight, a left-leaning political watchdog group that requested the contracts and communications between contractors and audit employees, payment and funding records, and any contracts or agreements with outside groups that helped fund the “audit.” While Cyber Ninjas indicated that the 2020 election results would be tallied by the end of August, that deadline is long gone.
Cyber Ninjas’ lawyer John “Jack” Wilenchik filed an appeal to the order so that they wouldn’t have to produce “thousands” of records by the end of the week. The filing states how that would be “unfair” of the company to subject every state contractor or state employee to being sued for failure to meet the deadlines of collecting a mass amount of private records.
CEO Logan said they did not have the time to comply with the order but could possibly have it done in 30 days. “My staff and I are working diligently to fulfill (Cyber Ninjas’) contract by producing an investigative report to the Senate, and (Cyber Ninjas) is very near the completion of its report,” Logan said.
Another report from the Arizona Republic suggests that the lead contractor’s tally of the 2020 elections results on digital images was sidetracked because some of the “data was corrupted,” with only 60% of the ballot being accessible. Randy Pullen, the Senate review’s spokesman, shared that the corruption has already been done at the county and that they couldn’t do a single thing about it. County officials have contested that claim.
Between corrupted data, a spread of COVID-19 in Cyber Ninjas, and missed deadlines, there’s a lot more going on to the 2020 election results than people are leading on. Democrats continue to call the election audits an “adventure in never-never land” and a “political stunt” even though the excuses get eerier by the day.
