It appears that Democrat candidates won most of the Arizona midterm political contests, and that is a fact we should all accept. However, many citizens have doubts about the elections (justified or not), and those doubts will not be resolved without analysis, testing and transparent reporting. Standard ballot recounts will not suffice. Therefore, Kari Lake, Blake Masters, and Mark Finchem should consider taking the following actions, to the extent possible and legal:
1. Request an independent signature test of a sample of mail-in ballot envelopes
With regard to the 2020 Presidential election, a signature test was performed in January 2022, and the results were shocking. To perform the test, a panel of six judges was assembled by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, an MIT-trained engineer who was working on behalf of the Arizona State Senate. Three of the six judges were forensic document examiners and three were novices. Each judge analyzed the signatures on 499 scientifically-selected early voting mail-in ballot envelopes. ALL SIX agreed that 60 of the tested ballot envelopes had signatures that did not match the corresponding signatures in verified records. In other words, 12 percent may have been phonies.
Think about it: Three expert forensic document examiners and three other reviewers unanimously agreed that 12 percent of the signatures could not be matched to registration records. If we apply that percentage to the entire mail-in voting population of Maricopa County, it means there may have been as many as 204,000 phony ballots in the 2020 election, in just one Arizona county. That is almost twenty times Biden’s winning margin!
Let’s play devil’s advocate. Maricopa County would claim that most of the questionable ballots might be “curable.” However, that might be subterfuge, given the standard curing process used in Maricopa. “If the voter returns our [text] messages and confirms the ballot and signature is valid, staff stamp the envelope with ‘Verified and Approved MCTEC’ stamp...” (pg. 78). Where does the County send the text message requesting confirmation? It is sent to the cell phone number put on the ballot application by the voter— or the fraudster.
2. Confirm the UOCAVA vote
The Uniform Overseas Civilian Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) applies to voting by uniformed services personnel, their families, and U.S. citizens living abroad.
At an Arizona Senate Committee hearing on January 24, 2022, it was revealed that 95 percent of 2020 Maricopa UOCAVA personnel voted for Joe Biden. That is an amazing (i.e., impossible) percentage, given that the overall county-wide vote was fairly even between Biden and Trump.
The findings were presented by Paul Harris (@1:53 in video), a corporate executive who had been asked to conduct the review during the Maricopa County Cyber Ninjas audit. Harris appeared to be almost angry as he noted that all of the ballots were simply print-outs of (presumably) emails or faxes on standard copy paper, and there were unusual aspects to the ballots:
· There was no documentation to indicate the source of these “ballots” (sheets of paper).
· There were no chain-of-custody records. Harris couldn’t determine who processed the ballots, and when.
· The number of ballots was surprising. Paul Harris said that, in the 2016 election, there were only 1,600 UOCAVA ballots, but in 2020 the number jumped to 9,600.
· Harris personally tabulated the votes, and 95 percent went for one candidate. He estimated that it added at least 8,000 votes (net) to Joe Biden, who had (ostensibly) won the State by only a bit over 10,000 votes.
Harris analyzed just one county in Arizona, but there were also lots of UOCAVA votes elsewhere. A witness named Kathleen Alby testified (at a Committee hearing on November 30, 2020) that “thousands” of “military faxes” were being processed in Pima County. “At one point that’s all that they were processing were the faxed ones.” And, as in Maricopa County, it appeared there was no chain-of-custody documentation, according to Alby.
3. Make sure there are signed chain-of-custody documents for all ballots
A group calling itself “Verity Vote,” performed an analysis of drop box chain-of-custody records from the 2020 election in Maricopa County. The methods used are credible, and the findings in the Verity Vote report are stunning. If they are verified, the report would, in my opinion, justify decertification of the election for the entire state.
Here is a description of the process used by Verity Vote. Arizona requires that an “Early Voting Ballot Transport Statement” (Figure 1) be completed every time there is retrieval from a ballot drop box. Verity Vote submitted several Arizona Public Record Requests to obtain all available EVBTs forms, and it verified that it had been given all of them— a total of 1895 forms. However, more than 80 percent of the forms (1514 of 1895) lacked ballot counts, a clear violation of the “Elections Procedures Manual” (EPM). In addition, 48 of the forms lacked one or both of the required signatures, which should represent people with at least two different party preferences. Compliance with the EPM is mandatory under Arizona ARS Title 16-452.
Figure 1: An EVBTS with no ballot count and only 1 signature
Image courtesy of Verity Vote
This failure to comply with the EPM, required by law, means that anyone could have added a few hundred or even several thousand extra ballots in the 2020 Arizona election, which was decided by only 10,400 votes.
To estimate that 740,000 ballots had no chain-of-custody documentation, Verity performed these steps:
· It examined all early voting ballot transport forms and added up quantities on the form, no matter where the quantities were written, and regardless of defects on the form. That number is 183,406.
· Verity subtracted the results from Maricopa County’s report of total Early Voting ballots accepted at vote centers or drop boxes. That quantity is 923,000.
· Verity calculated the difference between the two numbers to be 740,000. That is the number of ballots without chain-of-custody documentation.
4. Most importantly, knock on doors
Maricopa and other counties may refuse to provide the records needed for testing signatures, UOCAVA voting, and chain-of-custody records. However, they probably cannot prevent you from conducting a door-to-door canvassing operation, and it is one of the very best tests you can perform. The canvassing must be completed soon, while recollections are fresh.
Here is how you do it: Obtain county voter registration lists and select a statistically representative sample of residences in various precincts. Using high-quality and totally independent professional canvassers (e.g., a CPA auditing firm), contact the people on the registration list, and ask whether they voted, and by what means (mail or in-person). The answers they give should jibe with county records. In some cases the results may not reconcile, and the reason may relate to aggressive (i.e., illegal) ballot “harvesting.”
This canvassing work could be very useful, should it be necessary to sue in court. A large, private canvass operation was conducted by Liz Harris (a candidate for state representative) after the 2020 election. Ms. Harris is not a professional statistician or pollster, but her report includes credible and troubling findings.
Summary and conclusion
A simple recounting of ballots is probably the only “auditing” that Arizona counties will perform. That is not enough. If there was fraud in this election, it probably won’t be detected by a simple recount.
Real audits should be designed to determine the validity of the ballots that were cast. Opposing forces will attempt to block you, but this is what you need:
1. Have a signature test performed, with an emphasis on ballots received shortly before and after the election.
2. Confirm the UOCAVA voting. In a secure manner, have auditors contact a statistically representative sample of overseas voters.
3. Confirm that there are fully-completed and properly-signed chain-of-custody records for every single ballot. If you are given records that appear to be complete, but were prepared days or weeks after the election, be very suspicious. If there are several ballots that are not supported with chain-of-custody documentation, the election should not be certified.
4. Canvass voters at their homes, and compare responses to county records. You may find people who did not vote, yet are listed by the county as having voted. And the converse may be true. If the canvassing is done by qualified and independent professionals, it may be strong evidence in a lawsuit.
Until we restore election integrity by requiring hard forms of identification to accompany all mail-in ballots (not just signatures), post-election auditing will have to be expanded and strengthened. There will be much opposition to these audit procedures, and some may be blocked; however, it is essential. Without it, the public will be skeptical of election results, and with very good reason.
Joe Fried is an Ohio-based CPA who has performed and reviewed hundreds of certified financial audits. He is the author of the new book, Debunked? An auditor reviews the 2020 election— and the lessons learned (Republic Book Publishers, 2022). It provides a comprehensive overview of irregularities that affected the 2020 election.