Topline
More than a month into the bizarre process, it’s still unclear who is funding the recount of the 2020 election results in Arizona’s Maricopa County, with even the Republican lawmakers behind the controversial effort unable to answer questions about hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed private donations.
Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 general election are examined and recounted by contractors ... [+]
Key Facts
The state’s Republican-controlled Senate—which launched the recount in Arizona’s largest county based on former President Donald Trump’s false voter fraud claims—has contributed $150,000, a sum that’s expected to cover just a portion of the cost of hand-checking 2.1 million ballots.
“We are paying for some of the security and the cost of the Coliseum [where the ballots are being checked],” Arizona Senate President Karen Fann told CNN on Monday, adding that “anything over and above is being covered by others” and she does “not know who they are.”
Though Arizona law requires state bodies to disclose and account for any public or private funding received, these regulations have been sidestepped in the audit as fundraising money is being sent straight to Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based consulting firm that’s leading the vote analysis.
Multiple Trump-related figures who previously pushed his voter fraud conspiracies have either promoted or claim to have contributed to major fundraising drives for the audit.
Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne has raised over $1.7 million of a $2.8 million goal through a website created by his non-profit, The America Project, which did not respond to questions from Forbes about how the money is being used.
Other fundraisers include pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood, who claims to have donated $50,000 of his own money to the effort, and One America News reporters Christina Bobb and Chanel Rion, who are running a website for donations called Voices and Votes.
Chief Critic
“There are some people that are making a lot of money on this—and unfortunately, it’s coming at the cost of our election,” Steven Slugocki, the former chairman of the Maricopa Democratic Party through the 2020 election, told ABC News in a recent interview. “They’re looking for ways to engage the people who believe this election was stolen, and they’re raising money off it.”
Crucial Quote
Ken Bennett, the Arizona Senate’s audit liaison, has said private funding is being relied on “to save taxpayer money, not hide where the funding came from,” claiming the sources of the funding don’t affect the work of the audit. He said it’s up to Cyber Ninjas to disclose how much in funds it is receiving and from where, though the company has not responded to questions from multiple news outlets, including Forbes, on the subject.
Surprising Fact
Though Bennett has sought to emphasize the Senate’s separation from the private fundraising efforts, an official Twitter account run by the legislative body last month tweeted out a link to Byrne’s fundraising website, urging followers to “join the tens of thousands of Americans who are helping fund this audit.” When asked about the tweet by Arizona Central, Bennett said it shouldn’t have been promoted on the Senate Twitter feed. The tweet has not since been deleted.
Key Background
Cyber Ninjas has no election experience and the company’s CEO, Doug Logan, has spread the thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that a company tied to deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez rigged voting machines against Trump during the election. Stretching into its second month this week, the bizarre audit has already featured a slew of blunders from the company—leading to a warning from the Department of Justice of a potential violation of federal laws—and the entertaining of increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the scanning of ballots for bamboo fibers, which supposedly would be evidence that they were planted by China to turn the election for Biden. Local election officials have condemned the recount, deeming it detrimental to democracy. Two prior publicly funded audits of Maricopa County found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state. which Trump lost by the narrow margin of 10,457 votes.
Further Reading
“The Exclusive Inside Story Of The Fall Of Overstock’s Mad King, Patrick Byrne” (Forbes)
