'Staggeringly ignorant': Maricopa County rebuts Cyber Ninjas' charge that mail-in ballots should not have been sent

Voters drop their ballots off at the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Phoenix Tuesday, October 20, 2020. Volunteers assist voters. The nation's second largest voting jurisdiction, Arizona's Maricopa County is a constant stream of cars that drive in and out of the lot to drop off ballots at the drop-off location. Ross D. Franklin/AP
The Arizona Secretary of State states that voters can request mail-in ballots to be sent to a temporary address.

When they cast their vote, it will be tied to their previous residence.

Cyber Ninjas falsely suggests that such votes are illegal.

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Republican-led Maricopa County refuted claims by Arizona's controversial, partisan electoral review that more than 23,000 ballots were not eligible for casting during the 2020 election.

Cyber Ninjas' long-awaited report did not contain any evidence of votes being altered or ballots made from Chinese bamboo. The company, whose founder Doug Logan had claimed that the election was "rigged", appears to have tried and saved face with its right-wing supporters by suggesting that there were still wrongdoings.

Cyber Ninjas "critical finding" was that 233.344 postal ballots were cast by voters who did not reside at the address they had on file. The company claimed that these voters "shouldn't have received their ballots via mail because they had changed residences," suggesting that they were wrongly forwarded at the new address. This claim was amplified by a spokesperson for former President Donald Trump.

However, this is false.

The office of Maricopa County Recordser Stephen Richer stated that a Republican was elected to November 2020. "As required under law, all election materials such as ballots are marked "Do Not Forward – Return Service Requested." Returning ballots will initiate the process to remove the person from the voter rolls.

Sometimes people move within weeks of an election. They can request that their ballots be sent to a temporary address. Maricopa County reports that 20,933 voters did this in 2020.

What about the rest? For those who were once residents of Maricopa County and are currently serving overseas, or other Americans who have previously called the Phoenix metropolitan area home, they must list their "address" to be eligible to vote in a federal election. According to the Federal Voting Assistance Program "Your voting residence" is your address in that state immediately before you leave the United States.

The county wrote on its official Twitter account that "Cyber Ninjas still do not understand this is legal according to federal election law." It is either deliberately misleading or shockingly ignorant to label it a critical concern.

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