Maricopa County Disputes Video Footage Revealing That Voting Tabulators Were Not Properly Tested

Rachel Alexander

A video that has gone viral allegedly showing Maricopa County Elections failing to properly test voting tabulators prior to 2022’s election has prompted a defensive response from the county. The state Election Procedures Manual (EPM) requires that statutorily mandated Logic & Accuracy tests be completed after any modifications are made, such as adding new reprogrammed memory cards, which the video claims was not done. Violating the EPM is a class 2 misdemeanor.

On Tuesday, the Maricopa County Twitter account slapped the label “false claim” over a shot of the video in an unsigned tweet. “Have you seen this viral video?” the account stated. “The people sharing it are lying to you. So here we go, defusing a new election ‘bombshell’ that’s a lot like the old ‘bombshells.’”

A follow-up tweet added, “Claim: ‘Maricopa County did secret testing of tabulation equipment. Just look at this video!’ Facts: If it was a secret, why did we livestream it? That’s the opposite of secret. People interested in the facts can find those in our May 10 court filing.”

The county said, “Bottom line: The video shows the installation of new memory cards which happens in each election. A judge already considered this supposedly ‘new’ evidence in Ms. Lake’s election contest and found it unconvincing.”

The video accused the county, “Maricopa County’s legal response on Logic & Accuracy testing attempts to discredit the facts & mislead the public.” It went through a timeline of events, including screenshots and video of election workers and relevant pleadings, that appeared to show that the county modified the voting tabulators’ software after the tests had been run. The Kari Lake campaign, which is still challenging her gubernatorial loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs in court, said it believes the county discovered the tabulator problems after it claimed the Logic & Accuracy tests were all finished, yet still proceeded into the election knowing there were problems.

The short video showed county employees breaking the seals on voting tabulators, removing the memory cards, and replacing them with new ones. As they are testing the equipment, some of the machines jam. Between October 4-10, 2022, the county said all vote center tabulators were tested. On October 10, 2022, the county said the tabulators were reprogrammed due to an error that was found.

On October 11, 2022, the county claimed it passed all the equipment’s legally required Logic & Accuracy tests. The next day, the county began mailing early ballots.

Maricopa County Elections co-director Scott Jarrett testified in a declaration regarding the reprogramming, “This reprogramming occurred on October 10, prior to the statutorily required Logic and Accuracy test.” Yet he also said, “Beginning on October 14 and occurring through October 18, Maricopa County installed the new memory cards that had the certified Election Program.” Consequently, all the tabulators were reprogrammed during that period.

In one of its responses to Lake’s lawsuit, the county said she “falsely alleges that the County conducted ‘secret’ testing of the vote center tabulators used on Election Day on October 14, 17 and 18, and that 260 of the 446 tabulators failed this secret testing.”

However, the video then showed a worker testing one of the machines with a date stamp of October 14, 2022 and encountering a jam attempting to feed the ballot, similar to what occurred all over the county at vote centers on Election Day. Other workers are seen appearing to test multiple machines.

Another pleading from the county stated that there was no secret testing done on the voting machine tabulators. “This was not done in secret; it was not ‘testing;’ and it was not misconduct,” the county asserted. However, screenshots are displayed of workers testing machines on October 17, and the video responded, “No political observers, no media & no public oversight.”

It went on, “The Logic and Accuracy testing records say otherwise,” referring to two checklists “received for all 446 tabulators.” The two checklists were displayed, with the first dated October 4-8, and the second dated October 14-18.

The video contended that the voting tabulators were tested between October 4 and 8, not even through October 10, so they “were tested using an incorrect program file not used on Election Day.” The video reports that while there were five checklists recording tests on voting tabulators dated October 10, known as “Pre-LAT Checklist records,” they were “labeled as ‘spare’ and they are not deployed for use on Election Day.” Those “spare” tabulators were the only ones “tested during the statutorily required testing on October 11,” the video asserted.

The video said it isn’t known which election program was used on the spare tabulators. It could have been the “incorrect” version tested on the rest of the tabulators and not used on Election Day that failed; it could have been the version used on Election Day 2022 or some other version, the video speculated.

For that October 11 test, the county was supposed to run 13,837 early and Election Day ballots through tabulators from the vote centers and the central location, the video asserted. Instead, the county ran only 45 Election Day ballots through the spare tabulators.

Similarly, the Arizona Secretary of State was required to run 1,186 ballots through similar tabulators, but instead only ran 93 Election Day 2022 ballots through the spare tabulators, the video stated. Furthermore, “The system log file information is not available for these tabulators because they are not assigned or attributed to a voting center.”

The EPM requires the county to log when the tabulators are sealed after the memory cards are reprogrammed and inserted, but the video said workers failed to do so. The video said the procedures also violated the Dominion voting machine user manual instructions.

After the memory cards were reprogrammed on October 14-18, 2022, the video said the Election Day 2022 vote center tabulators underwent a test of five to eight ballots, but the results of the test were “NOT uploaded, reported, or verified to be accurate upon completion.”

The Kari Lake War Room Twitter account responded to the county’s tweet, “You guys simply can’t stop lying. We have your system log files. It’s done. You’re caught.”

Another tweet stated, “For those of you questioning the authenticity of this video. We have the system log files from Maricopa County’s own machines. Additionally, we have recordings of every single bit of activity that happened in this room. We have much more than that too…”

Kevin Moncla, who assisted with uncovering the scandal, warned the county to preserve records since a litigation threat was coming. He also said, “Everything stated in the video is fact. We used your (@maricopacounty‘s) own records.” He urged the county to issue a retraction, adding, “We stand behind our work and every statement made. Govern yourselves accordingly.”

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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Maricopa County Vote Counting Process” by Kari Lake War Room.

 

 

 

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