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them thar auditors are way outa their league.
Arizona voting system data sent to Montana lab as part of latest audit
by Maritsa Georgiou
Thursday, June 3rd 2021
MISSOULA, Mont. — New developments in the latest audit of Arizona’s Maricopa County 2020 general election results reveal a connection to a cabin in the remote Swan Valley of northwest Montana.
Earlier this year, a judge ordered Maricopa County to hand over 2.1 million ballots from the 2020 general election to the Arizona state Senate, which is trying to prove unfounded claims of voter fraud there after President Joe Biden won the county by about 45,000 votes.
The Senate hired a cybersecurity firm called Cyber Ninjas to conduct its own audit after multiple others found no fraud. It also hired former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett as its liaison.
Sophia Solis, deputy communications director for the Arizona secretary of state, said in an email that Cyber Ninjas doesn’t have any experience with election auditing.
“We have addressed our concerns over this partisan review with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors as well as to the Senate,” Solis wrote. “Our office was only provided access to observe after we sought a court order. The policies and processes related to many of the details of this partisan review have not been provided to this office -- so unfortunately we do not have the information you are looking for.”
The observers are documenting what they see on a section of the SOS website, where Arizona Republic reporter Jen Fifield noticed something that sent her down a Montana rabbit hole this week.
“Observation: On May 24, 2021, Senate Liaison Ken Bennett confirmed that copies of voting system data was sent to a lab in Montana. He did not specify what security measures were in place, or what the lab in Montana will do with the data or how long it will be in possession of the copies,” a line under the Equipment Concerns section read.
“At this point in the audit, nothing really is surprising to me, because there's been so many connections that have come up. The Senate has never told us the full list of contractors involved and the names of the people,” Fifield said. “And so it's been like a puzzle trying to put everything together.”
Fifield’s digging led her to CyFIR, a digital security company that subcontracts for Cyber Ninjas. It shows an address in Virginia, with its parent company Cyber Technology Services listing the address of the cabin near Swan Lake, technically a Bigfork address.
Montana property records show the cabin is owned by CyTech’s CEO and CyFIR founder Ben Cotton.
So is the data being reviewed there?
We called Bennett, the Senate liaison, who confirmed the Montana lab mentioned on the SOS site is run by Cotton, but he didn’t know where in Montana it was located.
Bennett said the lab has data downloaded from the hard drives Maricopa County used in the election, which he says they physically picked up and drove to Montana. He said it may or may not include voter registration data, and some of it could be sensitive. He says Cyber Ninjas picked CyFIR to review the data.
"The original evidence was left completely intact," Bennett told 12 News, an NBC affiliate in Phoenix. "A copy was taken to do whatever evaluation they are doing for Cyber Ninjas."
“I talked to an elections technology expert about this, and they say that the fact that the data is in Montana isn't significant in itself, but the fact that they have unfettered access to the data without oversight, and we don't really know what data they have -- they could have our private voter information as well,” Fifield said. “So until we know exactly what they have, and the terms they're using to keep that data secure, that’s the overlying concern, not really that it’s in Montana.”
We asked Bennett if he has any documentation the Montana lab is secure. He said he hasn’t seen documentation, but CyFIR told Cyber Ninja’s CEO Doug Logan it is and he trusts their word.
“We have not received any additional information about this since the secretary of state’s observers confirmed that the data was being sent to Montana,” Solis said in an email to 12 News reporter Josh Saunders in Phoenix. “This is deeply concerning from both a security and privacy perspective, especially because many of the policies and processes related this partisan review are not available. We just don't know exactly where they plan to send it or what they plan to use it for.”
We called Cotton, who told us he’s in a non-disclosure agreement and can’t talk about the audit -- not even where his Montana lab is located or if it’s secure.
Cyber Technology Services was registered as a for-profit business in Montana up until November 2020, when it went inactive because it didn’t complete an annual report with the secretary of state.
Maricopa County released results from two independent audits in February, neither of which found fraud.
The Arizona state Senate wanted its own audit, which is what’s happening now.
Fifield says it is expected to wrap up by June 30. <---- sure.
now, pots .... will you CONveniently ignore these facts too because they don't fit into the rw nutter narrative?
Arizona voting system data sent to Montana lab as part of latest audit
