Arizona’s secretary of state, after consulting with election experts, has warned Maricopa County election officials to replace the voting equipment turned over to a private contractor hired by state senate Republicans to conduct a partisan “audit” of 2020 election ballots, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, May 20, 2021. Read story here.
The contractor’s CEO is a rabid Trump supporter who has spread false election conspiracy theories, and the state’s top election official, a Democrat, says she has “grave concerns” about potential tampering with the machines.
She said federal cybersecurity officials “unanimously” advised her that “once election officials lose custody and control over voting systems and components, those devices should not be reused in future elections.”
County officials said, “We will not use any of the returned tabulation equipment unless the county, state and vendor are confident that there is no malicious hardware or software installed on the devices.”
Conducting elections is a governmental function, and private parties normally don’t have access to voting equipment used in elections, for obvious reasons. Maricopa County was forced to hand over its voting machines to Trump supporters by a legislative subpoena.
It might not be a bad idea to take the cost of new voting machines out of their senate salaries. Usually you want vandals to pay for their vandalism.
As for the “audit,” I wouldn’t let these “auditors” anywhere near a Van Gogh painting now that his pictures go for upwards of $50 million, because they’re not good for it if anything happens to it. You should be thinking of our elections the same way.
All that is necessary is for the county is to have the tech come out and wipe the machines and reload the software. Something that should be done before the next election anyway. Are these federal officials alluded to suggesting that there is something fishy with election machines in general? That people can in fact mess with them, and a large box with an opening for ballots on top and live human tabulators are superior?
And should is just a recommendation, county officials may use the tabulators and do what they normally would do when they get them back. The county may or may not have the money to replace them, but they can easily have money for wooden or metal boxes. Some maybe in storage. [This comment has been edited to remove non-factual material.–Ed.]
Since when is letting partisan conspiracy nuts play with voting machines a good idea? Would you use a laptop after it came back from a KGB repair shop?