Maricopa election machines had no internet connection

Maricopa County’s vote-counting machines weren’t linked to the web in the course of the 2020 election, an unbiased assessment has discovered, additional undercutting claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the outcomes have been “rigged.”

A trio of know-how specialists overseen by an neutral particular grasp discovered no proof of an web connection, in accordance to outcomes of the assessment launched Wednesday.

That echoes the county’s long-standing place, in addition to the findings of unbiased audits the county performed a yr in the past. It additionally dispels unproven theories from election deniers that the tabulation machines have been hooked as much as the web and due to this fact vulnerable to hacking to throw the election to Joe Biden.

Biden received Maricopa County by 45,109 votes, in accordance with the official outcomes.

In an announcement, Invoice Gates, a Republican who chairs the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, stated “the unanimous conclusions of this knowledgeable panel must be a last stake within the coronary heart of the Senate’s so-called ‘audit.’

“Each time neutral, unbiased and competent individuals have examined the county’s election practices, they’ve discovered no motive to doubt the integrity of these practices. The Board of Supervisors stays dedicated to free and honest elections that conform to federal and state legal guidelines.”

Senate President Karen Fann, a Prescott Republican who helped negotiate a settlement that allowed scrutiny of the county’s routers, stated she had not learn the report as of early Wednesday night and couldn’t remark.

Nonetheless, she famous that this isn’t the ultimate chapter of the Senate’s scrutiny of the 2020 election. The Senate remains to be ready for Legal professional Basic Mark Brnovich’s workplace to complete his investigation, primarily based off the findings of the Senate’s contractor, the Cyber Ninjas.

Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Apache Junction, stated she had not had an opportunity to assessment the report as of Wednesday night and stated she wanted to see the examiners’ particulars.

“I method this report with skepticism,” she stated. Final September, she issued an inventory of six steps she felt the assessment ought to embody to construct confidence of their work. They included videotaping their work and signing statements beneath penalty of perjury that their work was correct.

A deal settles router dispute

The assessment resulted from a settlement final fall between the county and the Senate after months of feuding over the routers.

Former U.S. Rep. John Shadegg was employed because the “particular grasp” to supervise the newest assessment. He, in flip, employed three know-how specialists who examined the tools in mid-February after which every submitted their very own unbiased findings to Shadegg.

The three every reached the identical conclusion: no web connection, Shadegg wrote within the report.

“There is no such thing as a digital connection between the BTC (the county’s poll tabulation heart) and the MCTEC (Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Middle), both wired or by way of a wi-fi protocol,” the report concludes. 

There are not any routers within the tabulation heart, the report states. There have been no Splunk logs to trace web exercise as a result of there was no web connection, and the county’s voter-registration database isn’t despatched electronically to the tabulation heart, because the Arizona Structure has privateness necessities that may bar such transmission.

Whether or not the router assessment concludes the Senate’s examination of the 2020 election is unclear: Earlier this week, Townsend issued a subpoena for county officers to seem earlier than her Senate Authorities Committee on Monday. She is demanding solutions to questions that state Legal professional Basic Mark Brnovich’s workplace posed to the county, however which have gone unanswered.

County officers stated they obtained the questions lower than two weeks earlier and are engaged on a response, noting they may reply inside a “affordable time frame as prescribed by Arizona regulation.”

Report follows Cyber Ninjas assessment

The router report comes six months after the Senate’s contractor for a assessment of two.1 million Maricopa County ballots discovered no fraud within the November 2020 election.

The Cyber Ninjas’ report concluded Biden defeated Trump in Maricopa County by a barely bigger margin than the county’s licensed outcomes. Nonetheless, the Ninjas’ report raised questions on election processes — points that Fann forwarded to Brnovich for an investigation that’s nonetheless underway.

No surprises, however fascinating finds

The report’s findings have been broadly anticipated. However there have been a couple of fascinating discoveries.

For instance, the technical specialists realized they may not assessment the election gadgets the county used within the 2020 election, regardless of a request from the Senate. That is as a result of the tools was sequestered on the legal professional common’s request. These gadgets embody digital ballot books and high-speed scanners.

The Senate’s inquiry was primarily based on the belief that the county’s “election community” was a single entity, the report states.

However in actual fact, the technical specialists realized the community has two elements: the poll tabulation heart, which has no web connectivity, and the Workplace of Enterprise Expertise, which does. That workplace, amongst different issues, shops and maintains voter registration data and has no connection to the tabulation heart. The 2 are bodily separated and haven’t any digital connection, the report acknowledged.

“No poll tabulation data is ever obtained by, despatched to or saved within the OET,” the report stated, utilizing the acronym for the know-how workplace.

As well as, the tabulation heart is walled off from exterior interference because of the truth there isn’t any web connectivity, the system is air-gapped from all exterior methods, entry to the middle is managed by key playing cards and the middle’s operations are repeatedly monitored electronically, the report states.

Attain the reporters at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and ronald.hansen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4493. Observe them on Twitter @maryjpitzl and @ronaldjhansen.