Donald Trump made his third public appearance since his presidency at a rally held in Phoenix. He repeated the lie that 2020 was stolen from him, and played hype man for the transparently kooky Arizona electoral audit, which appears to be poised to do the same.Trump's visit came at a time when the audit was unraveling in stunning fashion. The incident began before Trump's comments. On Friday, the Arizona Senate point person for the audit, the former Republican Secretary-of-State Senate Ken Bennett was barred from visiting his audit site. The protest continued into the weekend as other supporters of the audit spoke out against it, and Bennett considered quitting.AdvertisementThe audit of Maricopa countyArizona's largest and most important county, and one that helped Joe Biden win in Arizona, is being done on behalf of Senator President Karen Fann. Fann initiated the process in spring and pushed for it for months, over the objections from local Republican officials, and even some members of her legislative conference. This was after the state's results had been certified by the Republican governor of the state and prior partial audits had accurately matched the original count. Cyber Ninjas is conducting the audit. It is being done by an outside unaccredited group called Cyber Ninjas. Cyber Ninjas is run by Doug Logan, a Florida man who has supported 2020 election conspiracy theories. The audit was also funded by Stop the Steal conspiracists.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBennett was selected by Fann to manage this operation for Senate. The audit team refused to allow him into the building on Friday. On Monday, he was leaking tea about the areas of Logan's audit that were kept secret by Cyber Ninjas. He threatened to quit his job and even confirmed that Logan's audit had produced a fake result. On Monday, it was reported Randy Pullen, assistant audit liaison, was still trying to ban him from the facility.It is best to begin Friday's article in the Arizona Republic titled The Arizona Republic Senate Liaison Ken Bennett prevented from entering Arizona Election Audit as tensions boil overAdvertisementThe Republic reported Bennett was denied entry to the building at state fairgrounds, where the audit is being conducted. This came a day after Bennett shared data from an ongoing ballot count with outside critics.According to the Republic:Bennett's data to Larry Moore and Benny White showed that the machine count results are very similar to the county tally. Fann stated that Cyber Ninjas' count was not comparable to the counties if this trend continues.AdvertisementBennett, a local conservative talk-show host, confirmed Monday that he gave the data to Moore and White. He also said that it wasn't the first time that he was blocked from the site. Fann had previously convinced him to stay on the job.AdvertisementBennett stated that I'm so close to being able to step down as the liaison because I can't be part of an audit that keeps me out of crucial aspects that will make it legitimate and ensure integrity when we produce our final report. Unfortunately, there have been far too many.He said that the tip of the Iceberg was when I was denied access last Friday to the audit.Bennett stated that he was not in control of the actual additions and that he was denied any information about the audit's plans to validate its findings.Bennett said, "I'm the liaison." This has not been true and I will just give you some examples to show why Im here at the edge.AdvertisementAdvertisementBennett continued to detail the times when he was not allowed to participate in critical audit procedures. This is a necessary explanation given the complex, unusual, and unpredicted nature of audit practices.Cyber Ninjas, in one instance, refused to provide Bennett with information about their ability reconcile ballots that were duplicated. This included spoiled ballots and ballots from overseas military voters.Bennett replied that the auditors had not yet provided a complete reconciliation.Another case involved the complex audits process of tallying votes. This involved three counters speed reading ballots from a lazy susan and marking their totals before sending them across to Bennett to be reconciled.AdvertisementBennett stated that there were serious problems in the aggregation sheet when the tally sheets were carried over to the end and entered into the spreadsheet. There were huge problems with this for the first few weeks of the audit.Bennett claimed that he was informed that the problems with the lazy susan spreadsheet dance were resolved. He apparently accepted the Cyber Ninjas word on it for a while, but then told the auditors that he would like it explained to him. Bennett said, "Well, when you get to the stage where I can show you, I want to examine that spreadsheet and ensure that we can show public that each one of these tally sheet is correctly reflected elsewhere where it can be added up, and come up with the totals," Bennett continued. A week later, I was told by auditors that these people were told to not share any information with Secretary Bennett.AdvertisementAdvertisementBennett was not allowed to see the final audits tally, which Fann confirmed earlier in the month would differ from official count even though it was completed weeks before. As I predicted in May these numbers will be far off.Bennett stated that the Senate suddenly began talking about a third count. This count would just verify the number ballots present.Bennett stated that he would insist on a third count being conducted by an independent third party, but Cyber Ninjas insisted on conducting it and preventing Bennett from having access to it. Bennett concluded that Cyber Ninjas could alter the numbers to match the new count.AdvertisementBennett stated that we must make sure that they aren't force-balancing to their numbers or giving them something too soon that would allow them force balance back to us. I asked Mr. Pullen about the procedures to make this third count, so that we could ensure that we are independent of the second. He refused to answer me. It was shocking to me that I was concerned about force balancing.AdvertisementAdvertisementLocal Republican election officials who had been debunking the counts lies for several weeks celebrated Bennetts departure from the audit.AdvertisementStephen Richer, Republican Maricopa County Recorder, tweeted that the only person in audit had any previous involvement with election administration. The adult has now left the room.Bennett's remarkable turnaround is notable given that he was part of the clown car full of lies that is Arizona audit. He falsely denied to me that there were any procedures being performed on the floor of the audit and sat by Doug Logans side while he spread misinformation at multiple Senate briefings.He is willing to lie in order to spread the conspiracy, and I am disappointed that he is a mild-mannered enoughthis kind of doughy salesmanthat people fall for him because he is polite. This was Adrian Fontes, former Democratic Maricopa County Recorder and current candidate to be secretary of state. He is lying. This is a flat-out lie.AdvertisementBennett watched as Logan claimed that 74,000 of the mail-in ballots had never been sent to voters. Bennett was actually there just two weeks before. This claim was immediately refuted by fact-checkers. The missing votes were almost certain votes from early voting centres. However, that didn't stop Trump, who repeated it several times during Saturday's rally to claim victory in Arizona.Bennett and Logan have both retracted the lie about 74,000 ballots, which is still being repeated daily by Trump. However, Bennett and Logan also defended the audit, and he spoke with Harris last week to deny any inaccuracy or confusion.Bennett stated that all you hear from the secretary-of-states office and mainstream media is confusion and inaccuracy. It could not be further from truth.AdvertisementBennett now says that he is concerned about inaccuracy and that he was confused throughout the audit as to the procedures used to validate the numbers. This is exactly one week after the incident. The Republics Jen Fifield reported Monday that Bennett was banned permanently from the audit site at the Arizona Senates behest, but that he would still be able to manage the audit in the building. Fifield did not get any comment from Bennett.Maricopa County's Republican supervisors knew weeks ago that it was time to end this sham. Bennett is forbidden from attending. Maybe he should get a clue?
