Republican audit of Arizona election results gets off to chaotic start as journalists denied access

Reporter signs up to volunteer and works six-hour shift as observer to get access to recount

Officials unlock a truck prior to unloading election equipment into the Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the state fairgrounds, Wednesday, April 21, 2021, in Phoenix. (AP)

A Republican audit of Arizona’s 2020 election results is off to a chaotic start with disputes over procedure, lawsuits and journalists being denied access to report on the effort.

The audit, which is being enthusiastically cheered on by Donald Trump, was launched in response to bogus claims of election fraud promoted by the former president and his supporters.

The state senate’s audit team tried to stop multiple reporters from attending the press conference because they hadn’t requested permission, the Arizona Mirror reported.

Reporters invited to the news conference by a Florida-based PR firm was allowed into the briefing, but those notified about the event by the state senate’s audit liaison, former Republican Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, were blocked at the door.

All the reporters were later allowed to attend the briefing, but the mood was contentious.

Mr Bennett said: “We want everyone down here observing and not reporting. Arguing and asking me about it is not going to change anything about it.”

It was announced on Wednesday that reporters would have to sign up as observers and work 30 hours to cover the audit. That was later changed to a single six-hour shift, but reporters were not allowed to bring notepads or take pictures. Mr Bennett argued that the arena where the audit is taking place doesn’t have enough space to hold reporters as well. The arena has 14,870 seats.

“We had hours of conversation about how are we going to keep cameras from zooming in on ballots and all kinds of stuff. We just came to the conclusion the best way to allow reporters is to let them be in the observer corps and write your story right afterwards,” Mr Bennett said, according to Pinal Central.

He said they would hold press briefings each afternoon. At county election offices, reporters are allowed in to take photographs and document the process.

News outlets have joined together in an effort to get access to report on the process after being shut out. Attorney David Bodney wrote a letter to Mr Bennett and senate president Karen Fann on behalf of the media outlets, saying: “Requiring journalists to become active participants in the events on which they seek to report is as unprecedented as it is untenable in a representative democracy.

“It also violates the First Amendment, which compels that members of the press be allowed access to report on these public proceedings.”

The hand count of all 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County got off to a poor start on Friday morning with procedures for the recount appearing to be settled on the spot, The Republic reported, with some important changes being made during the day at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

The changes include what colour of ink pens are allowed in the audit space, as blue ink could be used to change a ballot. How the ballots are tracked after being removed from the secure storage area was also changed, which could mean an update in the chain of custody. The way counters and observes communicated throughout the process was also altered.

The recount was sought by Arizona state senate Republicans to examine uncorroborated claims of voter fraud or errors. Election officials and the courts have found no reason to give these claims any merit, The Washington Post reported.

The start of the count on Friday was slowed by checks of computer software and making sure participants were trained.

Counters had made it through 150 ballots by 1pm, and they were still on their first box. Megan Gilbertson, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections Department, told The Republic that there are 1,691 boxes of ballots to get through, although some boxes do not contain ballots.

The Arizona Senate has only rented the recount space until 14 May, and auditors are not only counting ballots. They are also checking voting machines and trying to verify voter information.

Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit late on Thursday night trying to stop the recount.

The judge ordered a pause over the weekend, but the count went ahead after Democrats declined to pay the $1m to cover the delay.

Mr Bennett said on the floor of the audit that he saw ways to make improvements, but added that he was not in charge. He said that Cyber Ninjas, a group hired by the senate, would decide how the audit was to be performed, along with their contractors.

On Friday, Roopali Desai, a lawyer for the Democratic Party told the judge: “The Senate has told us that they’re running this so-called audit. They have abdicated their duty entirely to rogue actors who are making a mockery, with all due respect, of our election laws and procedures and there are no safeguards in place. There's no proper training. No procedures. No rules.”

The Senate has taken control of the ballots and voting machines after a fight with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors lasting months. Multiple audits of the ballots in the county have already been completed, none of which appeared to show any issues.

A problem that appeared during the day was that the Senate’s contractors had programmed their software believing they would be dealing with a steady number of ballots in each box, but Ms Gilbertson said that only early votes are sent in batches, not election day ballots, and the number of votes in each batch is different.

Arizona state election law says that ballot counters cannot bring black or blue pens, but blue and red pens were on each counter’s spot as they got to the counting location on Friday.

Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan removed the blue pens after being questioned by The Arizona Republic.

Mr Logan said before the audit that they had not made sure that each counting board had bipartisan representation, as is the practice with Maricopa County hand counts run by the political parties.

Each vote was reviewed by three people. Sometimes they said out loud who they were marking a vote for and at times they compared how many ballots they had counted.

State law says that counts should be done independently and shouldn’t be compared until the end of each batch.

Mr Bennett also took issue with how ballot boxes were being tracked after leaving their holding area. He said there should be someone to sign off on a box as it reaches a table, and at every step of the counting. Final decisions on the changes made were unclear.

Some observers were told to leave and while the group was informed that they should be at the premises by 7:30am, they weren’t allowed in until after 8am.

The Republic reported that people manning the gates to the counting location said that the observer sign-up software was disabled by Google, leading them to lose some of the names of those who had volunteered.