Senate still waiting on first part of ‘audit’ draft report, despite claims to the contrary

Monday’s delivery to the Senate of a partial draft report from the self-styled election audit turned out to be a false start, as Republican lawmakers are still waiting to see any of the review’s findings.

The election review team hasn’t yet submitted any part of its report to Senate President Karen Fann, said attorney Kory Langhofer, who represents the Senate. Fann on Monday announced that the Senate would receive a portion of the draft report that day, and audit spokesman Randy Pullen told the Arizona Mirror the partial report had been submitted.

The Senate’s legal team had planned to begin reviewing the audit’s findings on Wednesday. 

It’s unclear what caused the mistaken claims about the delivery of the partial draft report. Neither Fann nor Pullen responded to questions.

On Monday, Fann said the full report was being delayed for two reasons. One was that Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, along with two other members of the five-person audit team had tested positive for COVID-19, including one who was hospitalized with pneumonia. 

Fann said the other reason was that Maricopa County had only provided the audit team with digital images of about 1.9 million early ballot envelopes several days earlier. But the county said it turned over those images in April in response to a Senate subpoena, and audit liaison Ken Bennett has previously said that the team already had those images. 

The original statement of work Fann signed with Logan called for the audit report to be submitted in May.