Finally! Forensic Election Audit in Maricopa County (AZ) Begins Next Week

Here's the venue that Mike Lindell booked for his cyber symposium. It looks nice and it has its own gun range. I'm excited.

www.southdakotaalliance.org...

Source:
www.dakotanewsnow.com...
Also, here's a little more about the situation with Ken Bennett. Warning, this article is bias and gets several facts wrong.

slate.com...

It basically says that Bennett has been kept in the dark on actual results, and that Bennett and the auditors had disagreements about it. Bennett claims to question the auditors trustworthiness, even though we now know that he wasn't getting the full picture. One strange aspect about this, is that this article claims that he is still working on the audit, just remotely.

This makes me wonder if he was trying to get inside information from the auditors, and why.
He seemed genuine about election integrity and this audit, but who knows where his loyalies lie. I do have to wonder if he came under serious threat, and or, was pushed to try to collect Intel.

originally posted by: Boadicea
From Arizona:

Arizona Audit To FINISH Paper Recount TOMORROW – They Need The ROUTERS

Question for anyone who knows: What exactly can they learn from the routers? And would they need this information if the audit's ballot count/vote tally matched (or almost matched) the County's ballot count/vote tally?

I have a general idea I think... but I'm also afraid I could be totally misunderstanding the situation too. So if you know please explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old... and thanks in advance!

Using IndieA's link again:

originally posted by: IndieA

The question is asked at 3:58:41



The answer, apparently, was that the system is so vulnerable that an average "script kitty" (entry level hacker that doesn't know how to write their own code, I think) could hack it in 10 minutes.

Thanks to everyone for posting links yesterday! I've been catching up this morning and can't believe how much happened the last couple days. It's getting down to the wire. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

We know that the Audit War Room Twitter accounts have been suspended. There is another Twitter account following and updating the audit, which was actually started in 2018!

Maricopa Election Audit Twitter

I've been trying to find a reason why the Audit War Room accounts have been suspended, but I haven't found one. The last I checked their Twitter, probably Sunday night or Monday sometime, they were challenging Karen Fann for saying the Senate were not/would not arrest the Supervisors for refusing to hand over the subpoenaed materials. Maybe Twitter didn't want any talk about arresting the Supervisors? Wendy Rogers has been calling for arrests, and she thinks Twitter will cancel her next:

Twit ter Suspends All Election Audit ‘War Room’ Accounts; Senator Wendy Rogers Predicts She Will Be Next

She's not the only one calling for arrests:

AZ State Senator Sonny Borrelli on Maricopa Officials: Charges Should be Levied, People Should Be Prosecuted (VIDEO)

If I remember correctly, Senator Kelly Townsend has also called for arrests, but mentioned without Boyer's vote, they do not have enough to arrest.

I expect that will remain the same with the second round of subpoenas just issued. The County knows as long as Boyer won't vote to arrest, they can snub their noses at the subpoenas with no recourse.

a reply to: Boadicea
So when will we actually see the results?

Will it be broken down by actual votes for each party or will they summarize by how many fake ballots there are?

originally posted by: IndieA

Also, here's a little more about the situation with Ken Bennett. Warning, this article is bias and gets several facts wrong.

slate.com...

It basically says that Bennett has been kept in the dark on actual results, and that Bennett and the auditors had disagreements about it. Bennett claims to question the auditors trustworthiness, even though we now know that he wasn't getting the full picture. One strange aspect about this, is that this article claims that he is still working on the audit, just remotely.

This makes me wonder if he was trying to get inside information from the auditors, and why.
He seemed genuine about election integrity and this audit, but who knows where his loyalies lie. I do have to wonder if he came under serious threat, and or, was pushed to try to collect Intel.

Thanks for posting this.

For everyone -- here is an (audio only) interview Ken Bennett conducted with a local talk radio show host:

Ken Bennett discusses possibly stepping down from the AZ Election Audit

It seems that the Cyber Ninjas had been freezing Bennett out of the process for some time now. He doesn't know why. One example Bennett gives is regarding the adjudicated ballots and the lack of a corresponding original ballot or serial numbers as required by law. Bennett had asked to be informed of whether or not the auditors were able to match all those duplicates with their originals; Bennett was not so informed. When Bennett pursued the question, he was told that the auditors had instructed workers not to share anything with Bennett.

Apparently Bennett was also concerned that the different counts -- ballots vs vote tallies -- should be conducted by separate and independent entities, so as not to have one trying to "balance" with the other. He wanted them to be done individually and independent of each other. That did apparently happen, and nothing explicit is said otherwise, but it seems to have been a problem somehow? I don't know exactly.

The data provided to outside vendors refers to a couple guys who had approached several people with research they had done, and Bennett says he did give them some information on how many ballots were in certain batches, some which matched official County numbers and some that didn't. Apparently this was leaked (making me wonder about these guys who approached them), and that's when he was refused re-entry to the audit floor.

Apparently Randy Pullen is now the official spokesperson, but Bennett is still working on other aspects of the audit, separate from Cyber Ninjas.

Those are my cliff notes from the interview, but it's worth listening to. The host interrupts a couple of times, but not nearly as often as Bannon interrupts his guests!

originally posted by: MDDoxs
a reply to: Boadicea
So when will we actually see the results?

We'd all like to know that!!! The last projected date we were given was about the middle of August. I don't know if that still stands.

For now, it's in limbo waiting on the subpoenaed materials that the County refuses to turn over. New subpoenas were issued Monday to both Maricopa County and Dominion. They are to provide the subpoenaed materials and/or appear before a Senate hearing on Monday, August 2. If one/both refuses to comply, the Senate has the option of voting for arrests, but there's one holdout in the Senate who will not vote for enforcing the subpoenas. So that probably won't happen.

Obviously, the audit cannot be completed without the subpoenaed materials. We don't know how long they will continue trying to get those materials. They may decide to issue a report -- preliminary? final? -- with what they do have.

No one knows at this point.

Will it be broken down by actual votes for each party or will they summarize by how many fake ballots there are?

I expect the numbers to be parsed in a few ways. I also expect that the broken down numbers will include types of ballots/voting, as well as party and total tallies for candidates. But we don't know until we have it in our grubby little paws for our own perusal!

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

Thank you very much for the link and for posting the relevant time stamp for me!

So from Cotton's answer, it seems that they do want/need the routers at least to check on the (public) reports of a breach, and possibly confirm/debunk certain information they found in examining the ballots.

I've been wondering in the context of any report the auditors could issue without the routers, etc. If I'm understanding correctly, then a report issued without the routers might cite suspicions or curiosities, but could not/would not be able to confirm anything. Which leaves the door open for suspicion, but also excuses from the County which likewise cannot be confirmed or debunked. Leaving people to believe who/what they want to believe.

One of them can be debunked. The tech guy explained what he did to protect the machines from tampering.

He says when he first made the virtual copy of the machine, he made a "hash" of the data and put the hash in a vault. I think he was assuming everyone knows what that means.

Hashing data is how Bitcoin protects its transaction history. So in other words, anyone with the ability to hack in and change something without invalidating a hash, would also be able to hack bitcoin.



So there is no basis to "decertify".

Tampering with a hash protected machine would be pretty hard even if a nation state directed its whole network to doing it. Maybe aliens can defeat that.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
One of them can be debunked.

Was this to me? One of what or who can be debunked?

The tech guy explained what he did to protect the machines from tampering.

He says when he first made the virtual copy of the machine, he made a "hash" of the data and put the hash in a vault. I think he was assuming everyone knows what that means.

Hashing data is how Bitcoin protects its transaction history.

So in other words, anyone with the ability to hack in and change something without invalidating a hash, would also be able to hack bitcoin.

I get the feeling this says more to you than it does to me... I need it explained like I'm a five-year-old. All this says to me is that because this guy "hashed" the data, it is preserved as it was received. And this "hashing" would reveal anything changed after this. But this "hash" would not reflect all that went on prior to the hashing, correct? It would simply capture that particular moment in time, correct?

So there is no basis to "decertify".

Decertify what exactly? Decertify the machines? Decertify the votes? Decertify the electors?

Tampering with a hash protected machine would be pretty hard even if a nation state directed its whole network to doing it. Maybe aliens can defeat that.

How would the hash prevent tampering? Does it freeze the machine or the programming also? Or does it simply preserve the status/data of the machine at the time of hashing, which would reveal later additions/deletions/modifications?

originally posted by: Boadicea
Question for anyone who knows: What exactly can they learn from the routers? And would they need this information if the audit's ballot count/vote tally matched (or almost matched) the County's ballot count/vote tally?

This would show connections from outside, where they were coming from and going to, and more importantly, when.

This info can be correlated with events in the Windows event logs on all of the machines showing logins/login attempts, etc.

Not necessarily needed to prove fraud, but needed to prove who was involved from the outside.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
The answer, apparently, was that the system is so vulnerable that an average "script kitty" (entry level hacker that doesn't know how to write their own code, I think) could hack it in 10 minutes.

Actually, it's 'script kiddie', not kitty... lol

But yeah, they need the splunk logs, routers, etc, to nail down/PROVE the electronic trail to those that were accessing and doing things remotely.

They can still prove the fraud without it, but we also need to know all of the WHO's involved.

originally posted by: Boadicea
It basically says that Bennett has been kept in the dark on actual results, and that Bennett and the auditors had disagreements about it. Bennett claims to question the auditors trustworthiness, even though we now know that he wasn't getting the full picture. One strange aspect about this, is that this article claims that he is still working on the audit, just remotely.

It actually sounds to me like someone smelled a rat.

a reply to: tanstaafl

Thank you!

One of this things mentioned during the latest hearing is that the same password was used by everyone since the machine was put into service. So am I understanding correctly that because there was only one password used, ever, that they would not necessarily know the specific person?

And would this include where any access originated? So could the logs tell them from where someone was accessing the machines? And how would that appear? Would the logs show a geographical location it was being accessed from? Or a specific computer the accessor was using?

And is it safe for me to assume it would also show if any information transmitted/downloaded during that access? But not necessarily the information transmitted/downloaded?

Sorry for all the questions... if you cannot/don't want to answer, that's fine. I'm just trying to understand it for myself!

a reply to: Boadicea

The router logs would list IP addresses that accessed the system and list the ports used. IP addresses can be used to identify the location of the intrusion, but VPN's can mask the locations and obfuscate the identity. Unless those accessing the system (if it happened) were super careless, finding the "who" is unlikely, but for this case, just finding that "it happened" is enough to prove a massive lie and coverup. If I remember right, we were all assured the machines were NOT connected to the internet.

The routers wouldn't store the data that was transmitted, just the locations on each end, and the generic data about the activity. it would show the endpoint IP, and more importantly the MAC address, which is specific to each network port.

a reply to: tanstaafl

It actually sounds to me like someone smelled a rat.

That's definitely the impression we're supposed to get it seems... but who is the rat?

And is it possible there is more than one rat? (Well, of course it's possible! We're talking politics!!!)

a reply to: network dude

Ahhhhh... gotcha! Thank you!!!

I'm really not trying to be difficult, I just want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding something, and then go and pass on false information. We've got enough deliberate disinfo without any ignorant misinfo from me!

a reply to: IndieA
South Dakota is where copies of certain Arizona election-related documents were taken and analyzed. And now Mike Lindell will hold his blockbuster symposium there next month...of all places.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous
The same determination was arrived at during the Antrim county Michigan forensic audit. In their report, they went so far as to say the Dominion system was DESIGNED to be vulnerable to hacking.

originally posted by: Boadicea
I get the feeling this says more to you than it does to me... I need it explained like I'm a five-year-old. All this says to me is that because this guy "hashed" the data, it is preserved as it was received. And this "hashing" would reveal anything changed after this. But this "hash" would not reflect all that went on prior to the hashing, correct? It would simply capture that particular moment in time, correct?

Yes. It is a fingerprint of the exact state of the image. You can create a hash for anything - e.g., any single file (picture, Word document, etc), a zipped file containing a lot of files/folders, or an image file of a hard drive or even firmware.

How would the hash prevent tampering?

It doesn't. It merely provides a mechanism to prove beyond a doubt that it was tampered with, or not. But it can't tell you what was changed.

a reply to: carewemust

South Dakota? I heard about Montana, missed the part about South Dakota...

I did find the SD location curious for Lindell's symposium and wondered why he chose there.