Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Dem elections boss in Ariz. urges replacing audited Maricopa machines as 'safest option'

Arizona's elections chief is calling for the replacement of voting machines under examination in an audit of Maricopa County's 2020 election results ordered by the state Senate, claiming that even an intensive forensic investigation cannot guarantee the integrity of those machines.

Maricopa County itself does not own the machines used in its elections.

Maricopa's voting machine equipment - including several hundred county- and precinct-level ballot tabulators - are actually leased to the county via Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based voting company at the center of months of controversy following the 2020 elections.

Last year, county elections department spokeswoman Megan Gilbertson told media that the county was in the midst of a three-year contract with Dominion in which it was leasing machines from the company rather than buying them outright.

The Secretary of State's office and Dominion Voting Systems failed to respond to queries on the matter, including whether or not any decommissioned machines would be destroyed and/or whether or not Dominion offers any technical support to ensure machine integrity in such cases.

Dominion told media that there were "Real concerns" about the integrity of the machines but that the company would support efforts "To ensure the machines are secure based on federal and state regulations," suggesting that Dominion itself did not view the machines as irreparably compromised.

"If the county needs to spend a few thousand dollars to have Dominion come back in and verify , they could do that easily." Bennett told Just the News on Tuesday that, of the seven reasons for machine decertification listed in the state's elections procedure manual, "None of them has happened" to the Maricopa machines.
 

https://justthenews.com/government/state-houses/az-proposes-decommissioning-audited-machines-county 

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