Arizona Senate President Karen Fann said this week the number of 2020 general election ballots “do not match” the ballot totals documented by Maricopa County. But she also said that she’s uncertain how wide the apparent discrepancy is.
“They haven’t released a number yet, if you will, however, we do know that those numbers do not match with Maricopa County at this point,” Fann, a Republican, told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show.
“I do not know,” she responded when asked how far off she was told the counts are. “They have not told me the number.”
After numerous delays, the results of the audit are expected to be released at the end of July, if not August.
“We are finishing up — the vendor is finishing up what we call the aggregation: double-checking the spreadsheets against the blue tally sheets, against the scans they did on the ballots,” Fann said.
After the possibility of a count discrepancy was suggested, Fann said that’s when lawmakers moved to “get a couple of our own independent machines in, not Dominion’s, separate ones, and do our own independent — and all we’re doing is just counting the number of ballots. It’s a paper-counting machine is all it does.”
“That will help us give like a third check-and-balance to see if those numbers are closer to the vendors’ numbers or Maricopa County’s or they all three could be right on target.”
Dominion has not issued a reaction to Fann’s comments, but the company’s website emphasizes its work with Maricopa County, Arizona, “for more than a decade.” Dominion has a post on its website that reads:
FACT CHECK: More than a thousand independent audits and recounts since Election Day in November 2020 have demonstrated the accuracy and reliability of Dominion systems. Maricopa County has already conducted post-election audits using accredited, independent lab experts and clear, lawful procedures that were observable by bipartisan witnesses and the public.
House Democrats announced Thursday that they would be beginning an investigation into private vote auditing company Cyber Ninjas, according to NBC News. Members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors have also questioned Cyber Ninjas. Fann has been quick to say that Cyber Ninjas hasn’t been alone in analyzing the data.
“I’m confident because it’s not just them,” Fann said, referring to Cyber Ninjas. “Everybody keeps just counting on them when actually they are working with a number of other contractors that have experience in audits and in their expertise in their own fields. … This is a joint effort.”
“Do I think that it’s gone as smoothly as it could have?” the Republican added. “Heck, no. This is the first time in the history of our nation that anybody has done an audit of this magnitude. And so, quite honestly, we are doing a lot of things, triple-checking, just to make sure that this is all correct.”
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