by Zachary Stieber at The Epoch Times
Arizona’s Maricopa County is refusing to turn over routers or router images to election auditors, defying a judge’s ruling.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office informed former Republican Secretary of State Ken Bennett of the decision this week. Bennett is the Arizona Senate’s liaison for the audit.
The county was told late last month, while delivering subpoenaed election materials to the state Senate’s custody, that delivering routers, or even images of routers, “posed a significant security risk to law enforcement data utilized by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as well as numerous federal agencies.”
“We had previously believed that the risk would be eliminated by redacting the law enforcement data on the routers and not producing it. But we were informed that redaction did not eliminate the risk,” Joseph LaRue, deputy county attorney, told Bennett in a letter.
A spokesman for the county told The Epoch Times via email that its technology professionals “determined the information contained in Maricopa County’s routers can be used as blueprints to intercept sensitive county data.”
“Maricopa County has more than 50 different county departments, and the routers the Senate subpoena commanded the County produce support all of these departments, not just elections operations. This includes critical law enforcement data that, by law, cannot be disclosed, as well as Maricopa County residents’ protected health information and full social security numbers,” he added.
“By providing the routers, or even virtual images of routers, sensitive data and the lives of law enforcement personnel could be endangered. The County is continuing to study this issue, and routers remain in the county’s custody for the time being.”
Bennett and Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, did not respond to requests for comment.
The subpoenas issued by the state Senate to the county last year say auditors require access or control of all routers, tabulators, or some combinations thereof “in order to garner the system logs.”
The subpoena in question was for electronic machines used in the election. Each machine has a log, or record.
The county tried to rebuff the subpoenas, but a judge in February ruled the county must comply with them.
County officials forced auditors to count ballots and review equipment offsite but delivered the materials to the teams late last month. The exclusion of the routers was not reported before this week.
Maricopa County officials said separately…
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