State Sen. and Majority Whip Sonny Borrelli (R-Havasu City) announced on Friday during a presentation that he has discovered at least 21,202 ballots were likely illegally cast during the 2020 election in Maricopa County. A group of concerned citizens he has been working with examined five percent of the voter registration records from Maricopa County residents who voted, and discovered that 1,298 ballots were cast by dead voters and 17,822 were mismatched ballots, along with thousands of other statutory discrepancies. Joe Biden was declared the winner of Arizona’s 11 electoral college votes by 10,457 – or 0.3 percent – of the votes cast.
Borrelli said the findings, which “are just the tip of the iceberg” and include many “Class 2 misdemeanors,” will be presented to the new legislature next session. He said, “This is even more of a reason for Prop. 309 to pass, despite the county recorder saying no.”
Borrelli was referring to the comprehensive election integrity measure on the ballot this fall, Arizonans for Voter ID, and taking a dig at Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is looking into whether Richer allegedly used government resources to oppose Prop. 309. Richer started his own PAC for GOP election-fraud deniers.
The Arizona secretary of state’s office – led by Democrat Katie Hobbs – canceled 1,400 voter registrations prior to the 2020 election because the voters had died. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich previously issued an opinion stating that counties must keep up with deaths, canceling voter registrations in as close to real time as possible.
Nonetheless, the group found 1,268 dead people voted in 2020, all having died before early ballots were mailed on Oct. 7, 2020. One ballot was even clearly marked “deceased” in the signature line on the envelope, but counted and not cured.
Watch the presentation:
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State Senator Sonny Borrelli (R-Havasu City)
One of the biggest sources of invalid ballots the group found came from mismatched ballots, such as ballots with signatures that didn’t match the signature on voter registration. In some instances, it was a different name. The presentation provided numerous screenshots of the faulty comparisons, 17,822 of which were found.
The investigation found that 609 votes were associated with voter registrations that were not created until after the election. Nine votes came from voters whose registrations were canceled prior to the election. There were 128 voters who had two voter registrations assigned to them — who used them to vote twice each.
Borrelli and those presenting the findings stressed that these mistakes have not been corrected and will happen again. Maricopa County Elections Department merged the duplicate voter registrations without reporting the double voting to authorities, the presenters stated.
In some cases, the signatures on the ballot envelope didn’t match the ones on file, but the ballot was accepted and the new signature was allowed to replace the one on file.
The group found problems with the Special Election Boards (SEB) assisting voters. The boards are allowed to travel to voters, and are required to add a mark to the signature line showing they assisted, and the voter still must sign it. Under Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and then-Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, the SEB’s flexibility was expanded. However, a court determined they were not authorized to relax requirements such as the voter’s signature. Yet, the group found ballots that were accepted without signatures, instead saying “voter unable to sign due to COVID-19.”
These types of ballots never went through a curing process to ensure they were valid. Under A.R.S. 16-550, ballots with missing signatures must be cured by 7 p.m. on election night, but this was not done. State law prohibits anyone from signing a ballot on behalf of a voter. Many of the flawed ballots were missing phone numbers and dates, yet were not cured.
Over 100 ballots contained two separate instances of the capital letter “S” in the signature line, even though the voter’s name did not start with an “S.” Some of the voter registrations were typed, including some that contained extra language about a marijuana ballot measure, indicating the ballot-measure circulators registered that person to vote.
Many of the ballot envelopes were not signed, but said “signature inside” instead. This violated A.R.S. 16-552 as well as the federal Help America Vote Act, the presenters said, since ballot envelopes may not be opened until the signature has been compared and verified.
An example of mismatched names and signatures presented by Borrelli.
There were hundreds of ballots swapped around among household members, not just between husbands and wives but between people who appeared not to be related. They signed each others’ ballots and were not cured.
Borrelli said the legislature never stopped looking into voter fraud after the Senate’s 2020 independent ballot audit. He said another problem is Hobbs refuses to release the source code behind the voting machines so people can see if there are problems. He said that is because “the Democrats would rather protect a big corporation than individual rights.”
State Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott), whose term ends this year and is not not running for re-election, spoke at the meeting and said, “I am not letting this go.” She mentioned evidence would appear to show that 50 ballots had been counted twice, but that Richer disregarded the error.
An audience member noted that Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) won his primary election by nine points, prompting Fann to respond, “So you tell me 50 points doesn’t matter!”
State Senator Borrelli reminded the attendees that Fann conducted the audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, which was the only full forensic audit in the country. State Representative Leo Biasucci (R-Lake Havasu) acknowledged that the legislature “missed the boat” this year with election integrity due to the slim, one-person Republican majorities in each chamber. He said this coming year Republicans are expected to do better in numbers and will make election integrity the number one issue, followed by border security.
John Gilette, who is expected to be elected to the legislature this year in the other seat from Biasucci’s district, said he spent his entire career in the military and therefore understands the importance of election integrity. “Countless people died around the world for that one vote,” he said.
Maricopa County Reorder Stephen Richer has consistently refused to provide redacted voter registration information in response to requests. But despite Richter’s lack of cooperation, Borrelli said the group was able to obtain a legal and accurate copy of the records, from which the personal information was redacted.
Borrelli said the citizen investigators will be looking for patterns now, including the extent to which artificial intelligence was involved in the signature verification procedures. The Arizona Sun Times asked him if there was any evidence of ballots coming from nursing homes, nonprofits, or other sources. He said that hasn’t yet been looked into.
View the presentation materials as a PDF here.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “State Senator Sonny Borrelli” by Arizona Senate Republicans.
