Arizona Senate President Karen Fann wrote a letter hoping to get a cooperative response from Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for answers regarding the discrepancies found by the election audit. The reason they are not complying by turning over routers, passwords and other requested information is plain… it will incriminate them in the mishandling of ballots and possible illegal activity of wiping databases that must remain available for review for 22 months.
Who did it? Who unsealed the ballots, cut the tags off batches and left them in the containers unsecured? Forensics must go back to the basics by checking for literal fingerprints and any other evidence that will point out the perpetrators.
The reticence to comply with the valid subpoenas
The reticence to comply with the valid subpoenas is not coming just from the board of supervisors. Their legal champion is throwing down a silk glove (as opposed to a steel gauntlet) in the guise of Dominion Voting Systems, the provider of the county’s voting machines.
The argument that Dominion has made, that releasing passwords and allowing access to routers and other information used to authenticate and tally ballots in the 2020 election would violate their proprietary “intellectual property,” is toothless.
That the management of the voting apparatus and data relating to it, and thus a public election, were evidently under the control of the machine operators (the machines were supposedly owned by the county) dissolves the argument of protecting independent property. Due to the circumstance that Dominion occupies such a position of control makes them a quasi-governmental agency, placing the operation of the machines fully under the authority of state election oversight, i.e. the state legislature. Whatever organization is chosen to conduct the audit by the state legislature, the company that provided the service by contract is also subject to review.
Dominion’s statement said this:
“Releasing Dominion’s intellectual property to an unaccredited, biased, and plainly unreliable actor such as Cyber Ninjas would be reckless, causing irreparable damage to the commercial interests of the company and the election security interests of the country… No company should be compelled to participate in such an irresponsible act.”
It’s time to ante up
(As an aside, considering the controversy in Windham, New Hampshire where the auditors selected by the election officers were challenged as unreliable and biased by the constituents, the board of selectmen contracted their choice and any and all information regarding the administration of the election required by the auditors is not up for debate. Arizona has a similar situation and Dominion is compelled to comply with the full legal force of the subpoena.)
There is no proprietary intellectual property when it comes to conducting an open and, by law, reviewable commission such as a public election. Engaging in the service to the point of retaining control of access to the hardware, operating systems, software and data makes Dominion liable, along with individual operators, for any misconduct, malfeasance, misappropriation or, in this instance, probable disappearance of data.
It’s incomprehensible that Dominion expects to be able to develop a legal stance that their service, contracted and paid for, is exempt from performing its whole duty as the custodian of the passwords, hardware, software and data. Their duty is to allow complete access to all aspects of the election process over which the company and its operators or employees had supervision or responsibility.
It’s time to ante up.
Former newspaper publisher, A. Dru Kristenev, grew up in the publishing industry working every angle of a paper, from ad composition and sales, to personnel management, copy writing, and overseeing all editorial content. During her tenure as a news professional, Kristenev traveled internationally as a representative of the paper and, on separate occasions, non-profit organizations. Since 2007, Kristenev has authored five fact-filled political suspense novels, the Baron Series, and two non-fiction books, all available on Amazon. Carrying an M.S. degree and having taught at premier northwest universities, she is the trustee of Scribes’ College of Journalism, which mission is to train a new generation of journalists in biblical standards of reporting. More information about the college and how to support it can be obtained by contacting Kristenev at cw.o@earthlink.net.
ChangingWind (changingwind.org) is a solutions-centered Christian ministry.
