Assessing the Election ‘Audit’ in Arizona and Threats to American Democracy
Chairwoman Maloney's Opening Statement [PDF]
On Thursday, October 7, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. ET, The Committee on Oversight and Reform will hold a hearing to assess the election “audit” in Maricopa County, Arizona, conducted by Cyber Ninjas, Inc., and how this and similar audits undermine public confidence in elections and threaten our democracy.
In April 2021, the Arizona State Senate hired Cyber Ninjas to conduct an audit of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County, Arizona, even though the company had no prior federal election audit experience. Since then, significant questions have been raised regarding the “dark money” organizations funding the audit, the impartiality of the company, and the mismanagement and insecure audit practices that have jeopardized the integrity of ballots and voting machines.
After six months and nearly seven million dollars spent, Cyber Ninjas’ final audit report failed to find any fraud, contrary to the conspiracy theories from the audit’s backers.
The hearing will examine how, despite failing to find any fraud, Cyber Ninjas’ audit has already inflicted grave damage to our democracy. The audit has threatened the integrity of Arizona’s elections, inspired similar hyper-partisan audits in other states, and been used to justify dangerous state election subversion laws.
At the hearing the Committee will hear from two elected Republican officials from Maricopa County, Arizona, who refused to accept the “Big Lie” and are speaking out about the dangers of this partisan audit.
The Committee also invited the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, Doug Logan, to testify. Mr. Logan informed the Committee less than two days before the hearing that he was unwilling to testify, declining the opportunity to defend his company’s highly questionable, partisan audit under oath.
WITNESSES
Mr. David Becker
Executive Director and Founder, Center for Election Innovation and Research
Mr. Ken Bennett
Senate Audit Liaison, Former Secretary of State, Arizona
Mr. Bill Gates
Vice Chairman, Board of Supervisors, on behalf of Maricopa County, Arizona
Ms. Gowri Ramachandran
Senior Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice
Mr. Jack Sellers
Chairman, Board of Supervisors, on behalf of Maricopa County, Arizona
DOCUMENTS
- Notice
- Hearing Memo
- HHRG-117-GO00-20211007-MbrRoster.pdf
- Biggs UC #1 Arizona Republic Article
- Biggs UC #2 Glenn Greenwald tweet
- Biggs UC #3 Letter to Gowdy Jan 29 2018
- Biggs UC #4 Maloney Letter to Gowdy
- Biggs UC #5 Rep. Jamie Raskin 'not seeing' Electoral College challenge for Trump - Baltimore Sun
- Biggs UC #6 State legislatures need to restore election procedures _ Washington Examiner
- QFR Responses from Ramachandran
- QFR Responses from Bennett
- HHRG-117-GO00-Transcript-20211007.pdf