Twitter Is a Cauldron of Misinformation About the Arizona 2020 Vote Audit https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/maricopa-county-arizona-2020-vote-recount-misinformation.html Six months after the 2020 election, the Arizona state Senate is conducting what it calls an “audit” of Maricopa County’s November results. The process has been roundly and rightly criticized as chaotic and partisan by election security and administration professionals—including members of the county’s own Board of Elections, which is not participating. Run by a company whose founder has spread Stop the Steal conspiracy theories, the audit has become an opportunity for people to peddle election-related disinformation. And these false narratives are too much for election officials in Arizona—or around the country—to combat on their own. Social media platforms must take a more active role in preventing false information around elections from spreading and work with election officials to amplify accurate content. The purpose of the sham in Maricopa County is to sow continued doubt in the legitimacy of President Biden’s election. Former President Trump claims the audit will somehow change results in Arizona, with other swing states to follow. It’s wholly lacking in the kinds of protocols and procedures you’d expect from a process intended to ensure rigor and accuracy—ballots have been left unattended, and a candidate for the Arizona House of Representatives who lost in November is one of the auditors. The conspiracy theories being investigated include ludicrous claims, one of which exploits anti-Asian racism: To inspect the ballots in an effort to legitimize the myth that they were fakes sent from China, workers used an ultraviolet light that could damage ballots, apparently to check them for bamboo fibers. In fact, the official Twitter account for the audit is also proactively spreading false information. Interspersed with fundraising pleas, the account has tweeted information that’s not true about observers and reporters on site at the audit, as well as accusations of bias against local reporters who have exposed embarrassing flaws in the process. On May 2, a tweet from the account falsely accused one of the observers sent by Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ office of sneaking his way into the event by pretending to be a member of the media, leading to calls that day on Twitter for Hobbs to be doxxed. Even after the call to dox the secretary was flagged for the platform, it was still available as of May 12. The president of the Arizona state Senate has also contributed to the problem, tweeting a false claim that members of the media had doxxed an auditor. On May 6, Hobbs revealed that her office had received at least three threats, including a call from a man who wanted to know what she was wearing so she would be “easy to get.” State troopers have been assigned to protect her. Despite Trump and others being banned from Facebook and Twitter, social media remains an important vector for election-related disinformation. Far-right news sites pick up disinformation and then amplify and sensationalize it, further propagating it on social media: After the false information tweeted by the Arizona audit account and the state senate president, the Gateway Pundit published two articles pushing and expanding on these narratives. One reproduced a false tweet about the observer sent by Hobbs’ office and posted his image alongside that of a cartoon villain. The other accused a CNN reporter of harassing auditors. Although Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft, who ran the site’s Twitter account, was permanently banned from Twitter earlier this year, other users on the platform are spreading both articles on the platform. Election-related misinformation is a widespread problem that election officials are trying to combat where they can. For example, Hobbs’ office has their own accounts where they share accurate information about elections or the audit. But the platforms need to take a bigger role in helping proactively combat these narratives, which have led to death threats. Platforms could work with federal government partners to develop a directory of verified election officials, who they help in their efforts to inform the public about not just where and how to vote, but how their votes are counted. These election officials could benefit from amplification of their content when it otherwise complies with platform policies. That way, when Hobbs’s office provides accurate information about the audit, it wouldn’t be as easily drowned out by sensational falsehoods. Just as it makes sense to prominently display and promote content from trusted partners on issues of public health, like vaccines, it makes sense to build up those relationships with election officials and continue promoting correct information even after the election is over. And requests from those same election officials to remove content for policy violations could also be prioritized for review—in particular content that harasses election workers or spreads false information about elections. If a call to dox a verified election official like Hobbs is reported, the platform could prioritize removing this content. Platforms have numerous reports of policy violations to contend with, but threats to election officials and workers exploded during the 2020 election cycle. The uptick is concerning not only as it relates to the safety of election officials and their families, but it has also raised questions among election officials as to whether they will be able to recruit and retain good staff to perform the job. The least the platforms can do for these heroes of democracy is respond to any harassment of them with extra attention.
What a complete circus... Arizona Republicans move 2020 ballots in trucks after pausing controversial election audit https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/14/politics/arizona-2020-audit-pause/index.html The first semi truck full of 2020 election ballots rolled slowly through the Arizona State Fairgrounds on Friday, past the "Crazy Times Carnival" set up in the south parking lot to a warehouse where the approximately 2.1 million ballots cast by Maricopa County voters will be stored for the next week. This is the latest bizarre act in the replay of the Big Lie -- that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. On Thursday night, a three-week ballot review led by the GOP-controlled Arizona Senate came to a temporary halt. The lease for the Senate and its tech consultants, Cyber Ninjas, was up at the Veteran's Memorial Coliseum, where openly partisan volunteers and hourly workers had been conducting the ballot count. Despite public pledges that this third ballot review would be finished by May 14, Arizona Senate liaison Ken Bennett told CNN they had gotten through only about 500,000 ballots before being forced to give up their space. The lease could not be extended because the Coliseum is hosting more than a dozen high school graduations in the coming week, raising possible security concerns about the ballots, which are now being relocated. Friday morning, forklifts began lifting pallets filled with boxes of ballots onto trailer beds to move to a temporary warehouse, a building on the south side of the fairgrounds called the Wesley Bolin Building a couple of hundred yards away. The sage-green warehouse sits directly next to the Crazy Times Carnival, which has been using the Wesley Bolin's restrooms for carnivalgoers as public bathrooms, creating a second, ongoing security issue beyond the relocation from the Coliseum. "They'll be in a locked container with 24/7 armed guards, fencing and 24/7 livestreaming cameras," Bennett told CNN. When asked if the facility housing the ballots would be temperature- and moisture-controlled, Bennett said it would be, adding that "the place where the ballots are stored will be in a condition that does not affect the ballots negatively." Bennett would not discuss the specifics of circumstances inside the Wesley Bolin Building. On the Arizona fairgrounds website describing its venues, it warns that the building is "not recommended for use between May through September." The reason? "Due to temperatures during the summer months." As the truck moved the ballots across the fairgrounds, temperatures were scheduled to hit 102 on Friday. The ballots will stay in their temporary home until May 23, when they will be moved back to the Coliseum. Bennett told CNN the count will restart on May 24, with the goal of finishing "within 14-16 days." That pace would require an exponential ramp-up and rate that so far have proved elusive to this partisan ballot count, taking place despite two audits conducted by Maricopa County showing no widespread election fraud. "I've never seen anything like it," said election technology expert Ryan Macias of the ballot review being led by Cyber Ninjas, hired by the state Senate. "They do not have auditing experience. They do not have election technology experience. The more that this (the ballots) moves in and out, the more likely the chain of custody will be broken and the less likely that the data is reliable." Macias is an expert in election technology who is one of the pro bono observers brought in by the Arizona secretary of state's office to watch the Cyber Ninjas ballot count. He has been hired by both Republicans and Democrats to help safeguard dozens upon dozens of state and federal elections. "There's ballots; there's people counting. But the process in which they are utilizing, at least on the counting floor, is nothing that is in an election environment," said Macias. CNN spoke with more than a dozen workers as they went in to conduct the ballot count over the last three weeks. On many of the vehicles, there were bumper stickers signaling support for Trump. Elouise Flagg, one of the workers, said she was inspired to join the Cyber Ninjas ballot count because she didn't believe the results of the 2020 election nor the subsequent audits conducted by Maricopa County. "I think Donald Trump won the election -- firm believer," said Flagg. "I hope we come to a point where we're happy with the results and truth is told." Workers like Flagg will return in a little more than a week to start the ballot count again. A new lease agreement between Arizona Senate Republicans and the state fairgrounds shows an end date of June 30. The real deadline, however, is July 10 and 11, when the Crossroads of the West gun show takes place in the Coliseum.
Trump's latest claim is that the entire database of Maricopa County has been deleted. and smallfil did nothing to stop it. 'Insane lies' from Trump called out by Arizona Republican: 'This is unhinged' Donald Trump was blasted by the top elections official in Maricopa County on Saturday after releasing a statement about the controversial Arizona audit. "The entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED!" Trump claimed. Republican Stephen Richer said that is not true. "I'm literally looking at our voter registration database on my other screen. Right now," Richer noted. "We can't indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country," he explained. "This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5. If we don't call this out..." KPNX-TV reporter Brahm Resnik says the falsehood originated from the Arizona audit and Senate Republicans.
Let's let this play out. The results of this audit are not known yet and really can't be accurately commented on.