The National Archives reported on May 5 that after a lengthy lawsuit, the Arizona Democratic Party came up short of a victory in stopping Arizona’s audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 ballots, finally reaching a settlement agreement with the firm involved in the audit and with Senate Republicans. Under the settlement, the audit firm, Cyber Ninjas, and the hired auditors, cannot match signatures on mailed ballot envelopes to records in voter registration files.
The defendant Senate, assured and stated, “They are not doing so at this time and would notify the plaintiff Democratic Party within 48 hours and give the plaintiff 48 hours to respond if they decided to do a signature comparison. If the parties cannot resolve the issue with a settlement, the plaintiffs can seek an emergency injunction in court to seek compliance with the law.”
With only nine days left until the estimated completion of the audit, it is unclear how many signatures have been compared and verified. The settlement agreement did not prevent Cyber Ninja from disclosing its findings on ballot signature matching.
The National Archives was unable to obtain a response from the Arizona Republican Party or the Arizona senator responsible for the audit. But Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward recently released a video that makes clear that most of the Democrats’ demands, including many mentioned in the settlement, are already in place.
Ms. Ward stated, “It was a simple process, but it had to be run in a professional, safe manner to ensure it was done correctly.”
In response to security concerns raised by Democrats, Ms. Ward added, “There are not only nine cameras in the arena, there are actually dozens and dozens of private security cameras watching the auditing tables, the counters, the ballot boxes, and the machine evaluation areas. There’s simply no room for error.”
In addition to terminating signature matches, some members of the media and observers from the office of Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs were allowed to enter the auditing facility and observe. Members of the media were allowed to use red or green pens to take notes and could take photos and video of the audit, but were not allowed to take images of a specific ballot.
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