Here is a question. If the state legislature oversees all elections in the states, can the legislature take away the operation of an election from a county if they refuse to answer to the legislature about the conduct of their election management?

txags92 said:

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Here is a question. If the state legislature oversees all elections in the states, can the legislature take away the operation of an election from a county if they refuse to answer to the legislature about the conduct of their election management?

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Actually, yes. In another more frightening thought, so can the feds and have done so in the past.

Bill Gates weighs in...

Read the letter. We didn’t delete a database. Their auditors just can’t find it. All of the ballots are there. They just don’t know how our elections work. https://t.co/ADLiEM7K9w

— Bill Gates (@billgatesaz) May 17, 2021

Since when is Bill Gates an AZ resident?

Also, why would the db be so hard to find? And if so, why dont they just tell them where it is.

So item one in the letter is the "deleted" database issue. After you get past all the inflammatory name calling, the defense seems to be that there is a difference between "can't find" and "deleted". That's it. So where is the data? Let's just take your word for it that the tech is a complete idiot. Produce the data then. That is what is subpoenaed.

It is also noteworthy how the letter qualifies very precisely the comment referring to deleting files:

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At no point was any data deleted when shutting down the server and packing up the equipment.

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Okay, how about before that?

chjoak said:

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Since when is Bill Gates an AZ resident?

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Different Bill Gates.

ETA:

Why I think the Arizona Senate’s audit is eating at the foundation of our democracy. See my interview with @jennymedina https://t.co/O0xwYpjYw6

— Bill Gates (@billgatesaz) May 12, 2021

chjoak said:

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Since when is Bill Gates an AZ resident?

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Yet farmland assets aren't the sole component of the Gateses' landholdings. In 2017, Cascade Investment bought a "significant stake" in 24,800 acres of transitional land on the western edge of Phoenix, the most populous city in Arizona and the 10th largest metropolitan area in the country. The acreage sits off Interstate 10, and it is poised to be accessible by Interstate 11, a proposed highway that would traverse 5 miles of the 40-square-mile holding. At buildout, the Belmont development will create a brand-new metropolis, one similar in size to the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, home to Arizona State University and almost 200,000 residents. According to The Arizona Republic, Belmont is projected to include up to 80,000 homes; 3,800 acres of industrial, office, and retail space; 3,400 acres of open space; and 470 acres for public schools.

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Link

Not a resident but a sizeable landowner.

ETA: Pic from same article.

The response for the second question seems to be a misdirection. Was not the request for chain-of-custody regarding handling of ballots prior to the beginning of the audit? The response only address the chain-of-custody in regards to the audit. I would want to know who handled or possessed the ballots from the moment they left the possession of the voter all the way to the delivery for the audit.

American Hardwood said:

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The response for the second question seems to be a misdirection. Was not the request for chain-of-custody regarding handling of ballots prior to the beginning of the audit? The response only address the chain-of-custody in regards to the audit. I would want to know who handled or possessed the ballots from the moment they left the possession of the voter all the way to the delivery for the audit.

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Yes. They know that but when they refused the court ordered access to them in their own location, they deliberately manufactured a reason to object later on.

I listened to most of that drivel today. Some freakin' idiot board member was crying about the HS graduations being allowed within the same complex where ballots had been moved for safekeeping during the graduations.

"There will 6000 people within a few hundred feet of those ballots! That's not secured!" Yeah, f***knot, and they are all armed and ready to shoot, 24-7. But you were fine with the carnies hanging out even closer to the ballots before??

What a joke.

TRM said:

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chjoak said:

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Since when is Bill Gates an AZ resident?

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Different Bill Gates.

ETA:

Why I think the Arizona Senate’s audit is eating at the foundation of our democracy. See my interview with @jennymedina https://t.co/O0xwYpjYw6

— Bill Gates (@billgatesaz) May 12, 2021

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Covering his rearend !

American Hardwood said:

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So item one in the letter is the "deleted" database issue. After you get past all the inflammatory name calling, the defense seems to be that there is a difference between "can't find" and "deleted". That's it. So where is the data? Let's just take your word for it that the tech is a complete idiot. Produce the data then. That is what is subpoenaed.

It is also noteworthy how the letter qualifies very precisely the comment referring to deleting files:

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At no point was any data deleted when shutting down the server and packing up the equipment.

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Okay, how about before that?

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Exactly. This is taking "we defied the subpoena and refused to give you all of the files that were requested" and glossing over it with "you said we deleted it...we didn't delete it". Doesn't matter. It wasn't there, which means you defied the subpoena. Go get the files and give them to the audit team or go straight to jail without passing go.

chjoak said:

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Also, why would the db be so hard to find? And if so, why dont they just tell them where it is.

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Good question. MCBOS won't answer that either.

It's an audit!!! Of course they want to see the main database on the ELECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.

The one that has ELECTION RESULTS, TABULATION!!!

You know...actual real supposed vote totals.

ETA: Correct my own post. FIFM. Fixed it for me.

I'm at the point now that I wouldn't even object if a militia group kidnapped some of the key figures and waterboarded them with the threat of execution unless they give of the whole nuts and bolts and players in this fraud.

will25u said:

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BREAKING In 13-page letter, Maricopa County Board calls on Senate President Karen Fann to end the audit: ‘It is time to end this for the good of the country.’ pic.twitter.com/HP6I0hgqn7

— Brahm Resnik (@brahmresnik) May 17, 2021

Sellers says he won’t answer the lawful subpoena from the AZ State Senate. This is willful #contempt of a subpoena. What will the Senate do to ensure accountability? Which group will be next to ignore legislative authority? Is this a #LawAndOrder state or is this anarchy? 🤔

— Dr. Kelli Ward 🇺🇸 (@kelliwardaz) May 17, 2021

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From the letter:

• "Regardless of your intentions when you decided to subpoena our equipment and ballots"

Tells me everything, it isn't your equipment nor your ballots, they are the property of the people who in this case are for the audit and accountability.

From the letter:

• "It is inevitable they will arrive at questionable conclusions"

Already made your mind up and are setting up talking points before any evidence from he audit is presented.

These people should be fired immediately, are recalls allowed in Arizona?

will25u said:

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Just wondering.: Did the BOS give a copy of the letter to the media? They haven’t sent it to the Senate so maybe you can share your copy ? https://t.co/FpR8WV4qrM

— Karen Fann (@FannKfann) May 17, 2021

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That reeks of desperation and desperation is a stinky cologne.

Just in: Senate President Karen Fann tells me via text that she will respond Maricopa County’s call for ending the audit tomorrow at a 1pm during meeting that will be live streamed. Her full response below #azfamily pic.twitter.com/hMP475s2VT

— Dennis Welch (@dennis_welch) May 18, 2021

First major hearing to discuss Arizona election audit later today. Maricopa County officials take preemptive strike against Senate contractors | Just The News https://t.co/gzwtTwmWd6

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) May 18, 2021

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The board said the accusations were "false, defamatory, and beneath the dignity of the Senate." Members said they had provided proper chain-of-custody documentation to the state Senate's liaison, former Republican Secretary of State Ken Bennett. They also said that each box was sealed with tamper evident tape or "standard clear sturdy packing tape" and that the supposed batch discrepancies stemmed from a misunderstanding of how election tabulation works.

Board members challenged the claim of database deletion, charging that no data was deleted on April 12.

In the letter, they reiterated that they could not produce passwords to access administrative functions of Dominion Voting Systems machines because Dominion does not give them such passwords. Dominion said last week it would not give auditors the passwords. Dominion did give the passwords to two firms that conducted an audit for the county earlier this year because both are accredited by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, the county said.

County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, told members in a meeting on Monday that he witnessed the transference of all election databases to the Senate and that the Dominion passwords are not needed to run any operations, including elections.

"This is like how you can run Microsoft Windows on your computer without having access to Microsoft Windows source code," he said.

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Say what again? "Passwords are not needed to run any operations, including elections?" I can only assume that statement includes ballot adjudication? Anyone could adjudicate ballots without password protected authority???

Link

aggiehawg said:

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The board said the accusations were "false, defamatory, and beneath the dignity of the Senate." Members said they had provided proper chain-of-custody documentation to the state Senate's liaison, former Republican Secretary of State Ken Bennett. They also said that each box was sealed with tamper evident tape or "standard clear sturdy packing tape" and that the supposed batch discrepancies stemmed from a misunderstanding of how election tabulation works.

Board members challenged the claim of database deletion, charging that no data was deleted on April 12.

In the letter, they reiterated that they could not produce passwords to access administrative functions of Dominion Voting Systems machines because Dominion does not give them such passwords. Dominion said last week it would not give auditors the passwords. Dominion did give the passwords to two firms that conducted an audit for the county earlier this year because both are accredited by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, the county said.

County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, told members in a meeting on Monday that he witnessed the transference of all election databases to the Senate and that the Dominion passwords are not needed to run any operations, including elections.

"This is like how you can run Microsoft Windows on your computer without having access to Microsoft Windows source code," he said.

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Say what again? "Passwords are not needed to run any operations, including elections?" I can only assume that statement includes ballot adjudication? Anyone could adjudicate ballots without password protected authority???

Link

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More misdirection. This doesn't have anything to do with running operations. They want to look at the source code to see if it had been modified in any way to perform cheating. These responses are getting increasingly dodgy.

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This is the 81 million vote question. The path to proving that the election was totally clean is to provide everything to the auditors and full cooperation. If there are innocent mistakes made by either election officials or the auditors, provide the explanations and the corrections in an open and cooperative manner. Then all of this would go away.

But the reaction of election officials is exactly the opposite. They are acting and speaking very much like people with something to hide. The animosity they are showing towards a large percentage of the Arizona citizens who just want to have some confidence that the election was conducted properly is really quite shocking.

Additionally, they have entered the very predictable phase of attacking the credibility of the auditors. This is the kind of tactic you take when the facts are not going to line up in your favor.

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And they end saying something very stupid, instead of a concise, targeted and clear refutation of the allegations.

But Senator Fann was asking questions. Questions that should be easily answered and demonstrated by MCBOS. So the tally sheets don't match the # of ballots contained therein. Why?

But the response is only they don't understand how Arizona conducts their elections. That's it. No further explanation of why a tally sheet is even created if it does not accurately represent the number of ballots in that batch.

The router issue is still a puzzlement to me. The cover story of having law enforcement information, voters' health information and SS#? On a router? Laughable. You'd think they could come up with something better than that.

Although I have largely lost faith in our judiciary, the judge who ruled the subpoenas enforceable should issue a minute order, sua sponte to call MCBOS into court to show (under seal) that such info is in fact on those routers and when it was placed there.

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More misdirection. This doesn't have anything to do with running operations. They want to look at the source code to see if it had been modified in any way to perform cheating. These responses are getting increasingly dodgy.

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My understanding is that root passwords are not the same as the source code for all of the software.

Root passwords are used to set up the machines for the upcoming election software particular to that location, i.e. the names and offices on the ballots.

That's what I understood from the Dominion manuals. Is that incorrect?

All this fighting to stop what the Senate had every right to do sure does make them look scared and guilty before any results have even come out. Why? All because the state senate chose an independent auditor instead of the incestuous conflict of interest filled auditor the county wanted them to choose? They're going to fight, disagree, and spin any negative results anyway, and they're going to have mainstream media and big tech platform monopolies running cover for them anyway, so they might as well let it finish and see what the results are in the final audit report.

Side note: I was once the chief audit executive at a very large public company. I had teams of operational, financial, IT, and forensic auditors that reported to me. If a business unit, location, department, process owner, etc. on our radar did not want us to audit them, it was a sure-fire red flag and triggered a guaranteed audit. Hell, the board (my bosses - those charged with governance and in this case the people of Arizona) and the executives (my administrative bosses and in this case the state Senate) would be upset if I didn't audit them. Another thing - if the auditee really pissed us off - by being defiant, combatant, limiting scope by hiding or not producing required evidence or support, disrespecting my staff who were just doing their job, etc., then you better believe we were going to keep digging until we found some ***** Their best approach was to just cooperate. If there are findings, help come up with solutions to fix them going forward, and say "thank you" for helping to bring some deficiencies to light and recommending the appropriate controls to prevent or detect them in the future. Afterall, isn't that what this is really about? If the process is broken, or had holes in it, the people should know about it and the state should fix it.

the administrator password on a Windows server is "Administrator"
the administrator password on a Linux or Unix server is "root"

the administrator (IT guy who has/knows those passwords) can set up other accounts with administrator privileges, but those are the "delivered" admin accounts. The passwords should have (and were) changed from the delivered/default when originally set up.

the county is saying you don't need to know the root password or you don't need to be able to "su to root" (a term in Unix or Linux operating systems for adminstering) to run the dominion software, which might be true. ...just like an end user logging into their computer, opening or connecting to an app, and using the application. You're not the IT guy, you don't need to be an Admin to run the software. You have rights/privileges within the application to do what you need to do for your job.

however, the auditors, CyberNinja, want the root passwords so they can fully examine all the files and directories on these servers. ...and they are not being provided and the county says they don't have / don't know them and the auditors shouldn't need them and Dominion won't provide them. This is a red flag scope limitation preventing a full and proper audit. What are they afraid of?

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Question: The bags in which the ballots were stored are not sealed, although the audit team has found at the bottom of many boxes cut seals of the type that would have sealed a ballot bag. Why were these seals placed at the bottom of the boxes?

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Answer: The bags in which Election Day ballots were stored were sealed, and the seals you found in the bottom of boxes containing Election Day ballots came off these bags. Pursuant to law (A.R.S 16-608 and Chapter 9 of Elections Procedures Manual), all Election Day ballots are transported by bi-partisan teams from vote centers to MCTEC in tamper evident sealed black canvas bags. After the Statewide Canvass and the subsequent five-day contest period concludes, teams of bi-partisan employees transfer the contents of the black canvas bags, along with the tamper evident seals that were affixed on the bag, to the long-term ballot storage boxes. Below are examples of the canvas bags and seals (they made be red, green or blue) used during transport and short-term storage.

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Here is another answer that doesn't answer the question followed by a bunch of extraneous BS to fluff up the word count and make it look like a detailed answer. You know, the kind of thing a kid in Jr. High kid might do when he can't or won't answer a question.

The question was, "Why are the seals broken and at the bottom of the box?". The question wasn't if the seals were at one time on the bags. There is no explanation given to explain the cut seals.

Edit: I think I misread that answer. The answer suggests that the ballots are taken out of the bags and put in boxes. Is that correct? Why would they not just put the bags, still sealed, in the boxes? The question suggests that the ballots are still in bags in the boxes, so now I am confused. Still, the answer doesn't clearly state why the bags would ever be opened.

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If there are findings, help come up with solutions to fix them going forward, and say "thank you" for helping to bring some deficiencies to light and recommending the appropriate controls to prevent or detect them in the future. Afterall, isn't that what this is really about? If the process is broken, or had holes in it, the people should know about it and the state should fix it.

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Thank you for your insight. I agree. It is curious to me how tone deaf Dominion has been from an optics standpoint this whole time. MCBOS appear to only know what Dominion wants them to know and that's damn little.

The actions of Dominion thus far has not lent any credibility to the security and integrity of their systems. Just the opposite. Filing defamation lawsuits doesn't not an explanation make. I have read their contract with Georgia and must assume their contract with Arizona is much the same as far as duties to cooperate with the state entity upon their reasonable request. There are even precipitating events wherein the actual full source can be demanded by the state entity from an entity that holds the source code in escrow in the Georgia contract.

They cooperated with Raffensperger in Georgia before the election, even providing machines and other materials for the plaintiffs' experts to inspect (albeit in a very dilatory manner). Provided Coomer (Dominion) and Cobb (Pro V&V) as witnesses in court. FTR: their credibility was shredded by plaintiffs' counsel.

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however, the auditors, CyberNinja, want the root passwords so they can fully examine all the files and directories on these servers. ...and they are not being provided and the county says they don't have / don't know them and the auditors shouldn't need them and Dominion won't provide them. This is a red flag scope limitation preventing a full and proper audit. What are they afraid of?

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And that is far different from the "source code" correct?