[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    ASSESSING THE ELECTION ``AUDIT''
                       IN ARIZONA AND THREATS TO
                           AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                          OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            OCTOBER 7, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-46

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-022 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                
                            
                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking 
    Columbia                             Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts      Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee                Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia         Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Ro Khanna, California                Michael Cloud, Texas
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland               Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York   Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan              Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Katie Porter, California             Pete Sessions, Texas
Cori Bush, Missouri                  Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Danny K. Davis, Illinois             Andy Biggs, Arizona
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida    Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Peter Welch, Vermont                 Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr.,      Scott Franklin, Florida
    Georgia                          Jake LaTurner, Kansas
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland           Pat Fallon, Texas
Jackie Speier, California            Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois             Byron Donalds, Florida
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Mike Quigley, Illinois

                      Staff Director - Russ Anello
 Staff - Greta Gao, Kadeem Cooper, Gideon Cohn-Postar, Taylor Edwards, 
                       Kelly Hennessey, Will Ryan
         Chief Clerk and Director of Operations - Elisa LaNier

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                 Minority Staff Director - Mark Marin 
                 
                                 ------                                
                                 
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on October 7, 2021..................................     1

                               Witnesses

Mr. Jack Sellers, Chairman, Board of Supervisors, Maricopa 
  County, Arizona
    Oral Statement...............................................     8

Mr. William Gates, Vice Chairman, Board of Supervisors, Maricopa 
  County, Arizona
    Oral Statement...............................................     9

Mr. David Becker, Executive Director and Founder, The Center for 
  Election Innovation and Research
    Oral Statement...............................................    11

Ms. Gowri Ramachandran, Senior Counsel, Brennan Center for 
  Justice
    Oral Statement...............................................    13

Ken Bennett (Minority Witness), Arizona State Senate Audit 
  Liaison, Arizona State Senate, Arizona
    Oral Statement...............................................    15

Mr. Doug Logan (Invited), Chief Executive Officer and Principal 
  Consultant, Cyber Ninjas, Inc.
    Oral Statement...............................................     0

 Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses 
  are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository 
  at: docs.house.gov.
                           INDEX OF DOCUMENTS

                              ----------                              

The documents entered into the record during this hearing, and 
  Questions for the Record (QFR's) for this hearing are listed 
  below.

  * Non-partisan Fact Checker Article; submitted by Chairwoman 
  Carolyn B. Maloney.

  * SB 202 and SB 202 Summary; submitted by Rep. Hice.

  * Rep. Gibbs' Letter to the Full Committee; submitted by Rep. 
  Gibbs.

  * Transcripts and Articles of Senators asking questions; 
  submitted by Rep. Gosar.

  * Arizona Republic, article, ``Judge Rules Maricopa County Must 
  Provide 2020 Ballots to Arizona Senate for Audit Under 
  Subpoenas''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Glenn Greenwald Tweet; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Rep. Connally's Letter to Gowdy; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Chairwoman Maloney's Letter to Gowdy; submitted by Rep. 
  Biggs.

  * Baltimore Sun, article, ``Rep. Jamie Raskin `Not Seeing' 
  Electoral College Challenge for Trump''; submitted by Rep. 
  Biggs.

  * Washington Examiner, article, ``State Legislatures Need to 
  Restore Election Procedures''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * QFR's: to Becker; submitted by Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney.

  * QFRs: to Bennett; submitted by Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney.

  * QFRs: to Ramachandran; submitted by Chairwoman Carolyn B. 
  Maloney.

  * QFRs: to Chairman Sellers; submitted by Chairwoman Carolyn B. 
  Maloney.

  * QFRs: to to Becker; submitted by Rep. Quigley.

The documents listed below are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                    ASSESSING THE ELECTION ``AUDIT''
                       IN ARIZONA AND THREATS TO
                           AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

                              ----------                              


                       Thursday, October 7, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
                 Committee on Oversight and Reform,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, and via Zoom. Hon. 
Carolyn B. Maloney [chairwoman of the committee].
    Present: Representatives Maloney, Norton, Lynch, Raskin, 
Khanna, Mfume, Tlaib, Porter, Bush, Davis, Wasserman Schultz, 
Welch, Johnson, Sarbanes, Speier, Kelly, DeSaulnier, Comer, 
Jordan, Gosar, Hice, Grothman, Gibbs, Higgins, Norman, 
Sessions, Keller, Biggs, Clyde, and Fallon.
    Also present: Representative Stanton (waived in).
    Chairwoman Maloney. The committee will come to order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time.
    I now recognize myself for five minutes.
    On November 3, 2020, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump clearly 
and decisively in the Presidential election. President Biden 
won 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232, and he beat Trump in 
the popular vote by more than 7 million votes.
    But rather than accept his loss, Donald Trump tried 
everything he could to overturn the will of American voters. He 
and his allies filed more than 60 lawsuits with false claims of 
election fraud and lost all 60 of them. He waged a pressure 
campaign at every level of government--from county election 
officials to secretaries of state, to the Department of 
Justice, to his own Vice President--to try to prevent the 
certification of the election results.
    At each stage, Donald Trump and his allies were asked to 
bring forward evidence that the election was tainted by 
widespread voter fraud. But whether in Michigan or Pennsylvania 
or, as we will hear today, Arizona, the purveyors of the big 
lie repeatedly failed to produce one scintilla of credible 
evidence of widespread fraud.
    Yet today, more than 11 months after the election, the 
attacks on our election system have only intensified, and the 
latest weapon of choice is the partisan audit. Let me be clear. 
The hyperpartisan audits pushed by President Trump and his 
allies are not about fairness, election security, or the truth. 
They are instead designed to promote conspiracy theories and to 
raise doubts about our elections.
    And the ultimate aim of these audits is even worse--to lay 
the groundwork for new laws that make it harder for Americans 
to cast their ballots, but easier for dishonest officials to 
overturn the results of elections they don't like.
    Today's hearing will focus on the five-month long, 
hyperpartisan audit in Maricopa County, Arizona. It was clear 
from the beginning that this so-called audit, led by the 
Republican State Senate, was really a fishing expedition in 
search of evidence of election fraud, no matter how flimsy.
    The State Senate rejected a bid from a qualified and 
certified auditor, choosing instead to hire Cyber Ninjas, an 
unaccredited firm with no experience auditing elections. What 
the company did have was a CEO who had publicly supported Trump 
and promoted the so-called ``big lie.''
    During the audit, Cyber Ninjas' sloppy, insecure practices 
jeopardized the integrity of ballots and voting machines, 
forcing Arizona taxpayers to spend millions to replace the 
compromised machines. The audit itself was funded with at least 
$6.7 million from rightwing dark money groups headed by Trump 
allies and supporters of Stop the Steal movement. Documents 
show that Trump himself may have funneled funds to the audit 
effort in Arizona.
    Yet all that partisan dark money failed to overcome the 
truth. Last month, Cyber Ninjas finally was forced to admit 
that it had found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 
Maricopa County election results. In its final report, Cyber 
Ninjas wrote that there were ``no substantial differences'' 
between the official count and the audit results and that there 
is ``no reliable evidence that the paper ballots were altered 
to any material degree.''
    This should have been the end of the story. But rather than 
admit that they were wrong about voter fraud, Cyber Ninjas and 
Republicans leaders in Arizona are now pushing a host of 
unnecessary legislative changes to make it harder to vote and 
easier to overturn election results. And hyperpartisan audits 
are now spreading to more states.
    We are holding today's hearing so we can hear the facts 
about the Cyber Ninjas audit in Arizona. We invited the 
company's CEO, Doug Logan, to testify today so that we could 
hear firsthand about the audit's findings. Unfortunately, Mr. 
Logan refused our invitation, and he also refused to produce 
documents that the committee requested back in July.
    Mr. Logan's refusal to answer questions under oath is just 
one more sign that the dark money-fueled audit he led never 
should have happened in the first place.
    Today, we will hear from the chairman and vice chairman of 
the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, both Republicans, 
who, unlike Mr. Logan, were not afraid to tell the committee 
the truth about this audit. I am honored that they both agreed 
to put country over party by testifying today, despite threats 
to their personal safety.
    We will also hear from election and democracy experts, who 
will tell us how partisan audits are spreading to other states, 
including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas, and the threat 
this poses to our democracy.
    The attempts by former President Trump and his allies to 
undermine America's elections, are failing to win the last one 
fair and square, it represents the biggest threat to our 
constitutional republic since the Civil War. This committee 
will not be silent in the face of this threat. We will continue 
to conduct oversight to ensure that the American people know 
the truth about these sham audits and to protect our elections 
from further interference.
    But it should not just be Democrats who stick up for 
America's elections. I urge my Republican colleagues to follow 
the lead of our brave witnesses from Maricopa County by putting 
country over party and finally renouncing Trump's big lie.
    I want to thank our panelists for being here today. Thank 
you so much for your testimony.
    And I now recognize the distinguished ranking member, Mr. 
Comer, for his opening statement.
    Mr. Comer. Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for holding 
today's hearing because half of America has questions about the 
integrity of our elections.
    Democrats unilaterally changing the rules in the middle of 
those elections, like what happened last summer, does nothing 
to answer the questions that Americans have with respect to the 
integrity of last year's elections. It is important that the 
American public have confidence in election results. So states 
and counties should be transparent and open to outside audits.
    I hope today's hearing helps to answer some outstanding 
concerns regarding election integrity. Unfortunately, today's 
hearing is the continuation of two troubling trends from this 
committee.
    The first trend is the Democrats' obsession with avoiding 
any actual oversight of the Biden administration. If you don't 
believe me, just look at the actions. This committee has held 
less than half the number of hearings they did when President 
Trump was in office. This committee has had less than half as 
many witnesses from the administration, and this committee 
hasn't held a single hearing on the border crisis or on the 
disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, or on the illegal leaks 
at the IRS, or on the origins of COVID-19, or on many other 
important topics like the border security crisis.
    The second trend is the Democrats' current obsession with 
investigating anything coming out of the states. Recently, we 
have had hearings on voting rights and abortion, both solely 
because of laws passed in a single state. Today, we are having 
a hearing about election integrity, based solely on an audit 
that occurred in a single state.
    Each of these issues--abortion rights, voting rights, 
election integrity--are issues that have long been known to be 
handled at the state level. Yet this committee cannot resist 
wading into state issues, attempting to trample all over the 
Tenth Amendment.
    With that, I want to yield the balance of my time to Mr. 
Biggs, who has been on the front lines in Arizona on this issue 
from the very beginning.
    Mr. Biggs. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank 
the chair today for having this hearing.
    You know, the Democrats really can't have it both ways, can 
they? I mean, really, can they have it both ways? You cannot 
say that the audit showed the integrity of the election while 
at the same time claiming that the mere fact of an audit, in 
and of itself, is a threat existentially to our democracy. You 
can't do that. It is a fallacious, logical inconsistency.
    If, as you claim--by the way, a claim I dispute--that the 
election was fair and properly conducted, a complete forensic 
audit ought to demonstrate that, which is what you assert. That 
is what you are asserting here today.
    But at the same time, you are saying, well, while the audit 
confirms what we think it did, when you cherry-pick some of the 
statements from the audit report, you are also saying that an 
audit undermines the election's integrity. Do you see the 
inconsistency of your position?
    If there are questions as to the accuracy of the election, 
a forensic audit will reveal the questionable outcomes and 
problems that need to be cured going forward, and the 
legitimacy of the election may be compromised. The Dems and 
leftists have been highly critical of this audit even before it 
began. They had an agenda, and the chairwoman mentioned this 
agenda today so that all of you who are participating here, you 
can support this agenda.
    She said they don't think legislative changes should be 
made. That's what she said. That is why we are doing this 
today. Because they think any legislative changes are not 
appropriate.
    Well, in 2018, in Maricopa County, most of you may not know 
this, there were such problems with the Maricopa County 
election that the Democrat county recorder, who is the 
elections official for the county, Adrian Fontes, got to go 
under scrutiny by this Board of Supervisors, the 2018 Board of 
Supervisors, who took everything back from him that they 
possibly could legally and statutorily. That's the history of 
problems in Maricopa County in our voting.
    Looking from the outside, the election process in Maricopa 
County was fraught with problems. If your claim was that the 
audit wasn't in order, you must acknowledge several broad 
observations of the auditors that they made with regard to this 
audit. everything from procedure and conduct--or misconduct on 
the part of the board and specific elected officials.
    You cannot argue the question regarding election integrity 
from the right is an attack on our democracy, our 
constitutional republic, especially after four years of the 
Democrats claiming that the 2016 Presidential election was 
stolen because of Russian interference.
    Here is what a member of this committee said, Mr. Raskin 
from Maryland said, ``I would love to challenge the Electoral 
College vote because our election was badly tainted by 
everything from cyber sabotage by Vladimir Putin to deliberate 
voter suppression by Republicans in numerous swing states.'' 
That's what he said.
    And we went through--we went through literally 4 1/2 years, 
right up to the start of the November voting, the early 
balloting in Arizona, of Hillary Clinton and her supporters in 
the media saying that the 2016 election was stolen by 
Republicans. It is no secret that if you go back and look at 
polling data, everything from the Bush v. Gore era forward, the 
party whose candidate was not successful asserted that the 
election was not fair and impartial.
    No secret. Every polling outlet from that point, 2001, 
right on up to 2020 claimed that.
    I advocated for a full forensic audit because I felt like 
election integrity should be restored. One of the biggest 
things that I find problematic here is that the two statutory 
minimum audits committed to by the County Board of Supervisors 
that were done could have been easily expanded in a timely 
fashion to full forensic audit. They chose not to do it. They 
spent $18,000 for those two audits. They spent literally 
hundreds of thousands of dollars, multiple lawsuits, to prevent 
the audit that we are discussing today.
    And ultimately, the bottom line is we are here because this 
chairwoman and the Democrats don't want to see any kind of 
legislative change. I believe that there needs to be 
legislative change probably in Arizona, and I don't know what 
is going on in other states, but other folks tell me that in 
their states, there needs to be legislative change, too.
    That's --that's why we are here is because the chairwoman 
would like to see legislative change scuttled, and I, for the 
life of me, don't understand why this committee thinks that it 
has the constant obligation to interfere in what is patently a 
state issue.
    With that, Madam Chair, I thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. I now 
recognize Mr. Raskin, who is the chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, for an opening statement.
    Mr. Raskin. Madam Chair, thank you very much for calling 
this important hearing and thank you for making our committee a 
leader in defending democracy and the voting rights of the 
people against this escalating onslaught by Donald Trump and 
his supporters against American constitutional democracy.
    We know that Mr. Trump never accepted the results of the 
2020 Presidential election, despite the fact that Joe Biden 
beat him by more than 7 million votes and by a margin of 306 to 
232 in the Electoral College, a margin incidentally that Mr. 
Trump declared a landslide when he beat Hillary Clinton by the 
exact same amount.
    So Donald Trump moved quickly to try to browbeat state 
election officials, and they were the first line of defense of 
the democracy, people like Republican Secretary of State Brad 
Raffensperger in Georgia, who refused to participate in Donald 
Trump's election fraud, refusing to find just 11,781 votes that 
Donald Trump said was all he needed in order to overturn the 
lawful result in the state. But there were election officials 
across the country who definitively refuted and repudiated 
Donald Trump's claims of corruption and fraud. And in fact, 
Trump's own Homeland Security Department declared the 2020 
election the most secure in American history.
    So then he went to court, and 61 Federal and state courts 
in the land, from the lowest courts in the land--state, county, 
district courts--to Federal district courts, all the way up to 
the U.S. Supreme Court definitively, meticulously, and 
comprehensively refuted, repudiated, and rejected every claim 
that Donald Trump's supporters made that there was election 
fraud or electoral corruption. And even the claim that some of 
our colleagues have decided to float again today, which has 
been rejected all the way up to the Supreme Court, was one that 
was thoroughly vetted. The idea that when state election 
administrators or state supreme courts under state 
constitutions or under state legislative command act in the 
electoral process, that is somehow unconstitutional.
    There is no basis for that. It has been made up. It was 
floated in all of these courts, rejected in all of these 
courts. It was floated by the attorney general of Texas, who 
sued in the Supreme Court. It was rejected.
    And then it was floated again on the House floor on January 
6, as the violent insurrectionary mob attacked us. It was 
rejected again.
    And yet the big lie lives now in these phony audits around 
the country. It was amazing, yet telling, for me to hear the 
gentleman from Arizona essentially I think he is trying to 
allay the fact that this audit rejected the claim that Donald 
Trump won in Arizona.
    I never really understood Members from Arizona challenging 
the result by which they themselves were elected, in the exact 
same election where they were elected. And yet, still I 
believe--and perhaps Mr. Biggs can correct me if I am wrong--I 
hear him not even to be accepting the results of this audit, 
which say that Joe Biden got more votes than were lawfully 
recorded by the state.
    And so----
    Mr. Biggs. Will the gentleman yield? You have called me out 
and asked if I would respond, I am happy to respond.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes, by all means. Do you accept the--do you 
accept this audit would show that Joe Biden won and, indeed, by 
more votes than----
    Mr. Biggs. That is not what the audit concluded, Mr. 
Raskin. You know better than that. Have you read the whole 
audit, or you cherry-picked the line which talks about the 
recount versus the tabulation machines?
    That, we would have expected to be very similar, and it 
wasn't. So anything that might have inured to President 
Biden's----
    Mr. Raskin. Well, who won the election is my question, Mr. 
Biggs. I am happy to yield to you for that. Who won the 
election in Arizona, Donald Trump or----
    Mr. Biggs. We don't know. Because as the audit, it 
demonstrates very clearly, Mr. Raskin, there are a lot of 
issues with this election that took place. We are going to go 
through those today, but you can continue----
    Mr. Raskin. OK. I will reclaim my time. You see, Madam 
Chair, here is the problem.
    Mr. Biggs [continuing]. And speaking of the big lie, you 
can continue to perpetuate it as long as you want, but we are 
going to find out, I hope.
    Mr. Raskin. I will reclaim my time. Madam Chair, there is 
the problem that we have. Donald Trump refuses to accept the 
results, and unfortunately, we have one of the world's great 
political parties, which has followed him off of the ledge of 
this electoral lunacy, and it is dangerous for democracy.
    So I am glad we are having this hearing today, and I yield 
back to you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. I would just 
first like to respond to my dear friend from the great state of 
Kentucky, who said we had not conducted oversight with the 
administration.
    I would like to remind him that just two days ago, we held 
a hearing on Ida, with the Administrator from FEMA on the 
response of the Federal Government to that disaster. And in 
terms of Afghanistan, last month, at the request of 
Republicans, we held a bipartisan classified briefing with the 
Defense Department, State Department, DHS, and the intelligence 
community to examine the ongoing efforts to help U.S. citizens 
and Afghan allies who are still at risk in Afghanistan.
    And I will note that just yesterday, our National Security 
Subcommittee chair, Mr. Lynch, sent invitations for a 
counterterrorism hearing later this month on Afghanistan. But 
we do not want to be focusing on areas--we are focusing on this 
election audit, and I would now like to----
    Mr. Comer. Point of order, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Maloney. I would like to introduce the 
witnesses.
    Mr. Comer. Point of order.
    Mr. Biggs. Point of order, Madam Chair. Point of order. 
Point of order. Point of order.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Who is calling for a point of order?
    Mr. Comer. Congressman Comer, the ranking member.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Will you state your point of order? Who 
is speaking?
    Mr. Biggs. Mr. Comer.
    Mr. Comer. Yes. I just wanted to clarify--Madam Chair, I 
just wanted to clarify----
    Chairwoman Maloney. Who is speaking?
    Mr. Comer [continuing]. We called for a public transparent 
hearing----
    Chairwoman Maloney. Mr. Comer, OK.
    Mr. Comer [continuing]. About the debacle in Afghanistan. 
What you have provided us was a closed-door classified 
briefing. The American people want transparency and 
accountability with what went wrong with Afghanistan.
    So what we are asking for isn't a behind the closed doors, 
in a smoke-filled room briefing by a bunch of bureaucrats in 
the Biden administration. We want a transparent hearing so the 
American people can see exactly what went wrong. So that is my 
point of order.
    I yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. One is scheduled. And again, I repeat, 
I held that classified briefing at the request of Republicans 
who asked for it.
    But right now, let us return to the subject before us 
today. I would like to introduce our witnesses.
    Our first witness today is Jack Sellers, who is the 
chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Maricopa County, 
Arizona. Then we will hear from Bill Gates, who is the vice 
chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Maricopa County.
    Next, we will hear from David Becker, who is the executive 
director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and 
Research. Next, we will hear from Gowri Ramachandran, who is a 
senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. And finally, 
we will hear from Ken Bennett, who was the Senate audit liaison 
and the former secretary of state in Arizona.
    The witnesses will be unmuted so that we can swear them in. 
Please raise your right hands.
    Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to 
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help you God? [Response.]
    Chairwoman Maloney. Let the record show that the witnesses 
answered in the affirmative.
    Thank you. Without objection, your written statements will 
be made part of the record.
    With that, Mr. Sellers, you are now recognized for your 
testimony. Thank you for traveling here from Arizona and for 
your public service.
    Mr. Sellers?

  STATEMENT OF JACK SELLERS, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, 
                    MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA

    Mr. Sellers. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the 
committee. Thank you all for inviting me here today.
    I want to start by saying that the election of November 3, 
2020, in Maricopa County was free, fair, and accurate. Maricopa 
County is the second-largest voting district in the United 
States of America. I sit before you today as a Republican who 
was voted into office in November 2020, and there's a member of 
this distinguished committee who was also successful in the 
November 2020 election held in Maricopa County.
    But the most important people involved in the November 
election were the men and women of the Maricopa County 
Elections Department. They executed a secure, accurate, and 
efficient election of over 1.8 million voters in the Nation's 
fourth most populous county during a worldwide pandemic. Our 
Election Department was praised by election experts throughout 
the country, and we received an award from the National 
Association of Counties.
    Maricopa County began planning for the 2020 election 
immediately after the November 2018 election results were 
canvassed and submitted to the Arizona secretary of state. The 
county began to assess staff, processes, and equipment needs in 
anticipation of the 2020 election cycle and taking appropriate 
action to complete that preparation because we also knew that 
the election results in Maricopa County would play a pivotal 
role in both the outcome of the Presidential race and the U.S. 
Senate chamber political makeup.
    I'm very proud of the efforts we put forth to prepare. We 
worked closely with the Arizona secretary of state, our 
legislative leaders in both the House and the Senate, the 
attorney general, and the Governor's office.
    We were also very inclusive of all the political parties 
who participated fully in not only observing Election Day 
administration and tabulation, but also in pre-and post 
election logic and accuracy testing. If you were in Arizona 
politics in November 2020 and didn't understand how Maricopa 
County was running elections, then you just weren't paying 
attention.
    The county authored an election bill regarding electronic 
adjudication at the legislature, which passed both chambers 
unanimously and was signed by our Governor. The county invested 
in a very robust voter education campaign. So if you watched 
TV, tweeted, Instagrammed, or used YouTube, you saw our media 
campaign.
    We implemented the technology to educate our residents on 
how--on when and how to register, how you can vote, where you 
can vote, and the wait times at the polling locations, all by 
pushing a button on your phone.
    We ran a Presidential preference election in February. All 
participants agreed it was well run and accurate.
    We ran the primary election in August 2020. Again, the 
public, the candidates, and the political parties all agreed 
the county's election execution was excellent.
    We ran the 2020 general election in November, and suddenly, 
what to that point had been a great process was deemed fatally 
flawed by a small, yet loud minority.
    I dare say if you're a student of Maricopa County 
Republican election history, you are not surprised by the 
results. It was not a flawed election process, not a lack of 
security. It was a candidate that many Maricopa County 
Republicans simply did not support. If that lesson is not clear 
to our state and county Republican leaders, then I'm afraid 
2022 will not be favorable to my party.
    During these last 10 months, I've learned a lot about 
people, and frankly, I was naive in thinking that I could just 
sit down with our State Senate leadership and explain the 
answers to their questions and accusations, and we could put 
this uncertainty behind us and move on with securing a fruitful 
future for our residents. But it's become clear that there are 
those who don't care what the facts are. They just want to gain 
political power and raise money by fostering mistrust of the 
greatest power an individual can exercise in the United States, 
their vote.
    I'm an elected official. Some say I signed up for this, and 
that's true. But I ran because economic development and 
maintaining our quality of life is very important to me. Making 
sure the Valley of the Sun has the proper investment in 
infrastructure, technology, and education is what drives me. 
Relitigating a failed campaign is not what drives me.
    So it's time to move on. It's time to put our efforts into 
securing a greater future for our country, and that's exactly 
what I plan to do.
    Thank you.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. The gentleman yields back, 
and thank you.
    And Mr. Gates, you are now recognized for your testimony.

STATEMENT OF BILL GATES, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, MARICOPA COUNTY, 
                            ARIZONA

    Mr. Gates. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Ranking 
Member, and members of the committee. Thank you so much for 
having me here today to discuss a very important issue in our 
country, and that's the future of fair and free elections.
    The 2020 election in Maricopa County, the general election, 
was the best election we've ever run in Maricopa County. And 
the way that I know that was it was the most scrutinized 
election in the history of Maricopa County. Election experts 
said that. Machine counts confirmed it. Hand counts confirmed 
it. The court system reconfirmed it, and our residents were 
happy, too.
    We did a poll of 80,000 of our voters, and 90 percent of 
them said that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the 
election. Really, by any measure, this election in 2020 was 
secure, and everyone who wanted to vote was able to do so.
    Unfortunately, some in our party see it differently. They 
have attacked the work that was done by our elections workers 
in Maricopa County, and they have fanned the flames of 
conspiracy. And this willingness to do so, unfortunately, is 
what led to the first nonpeaceful transfer of power in our 
country's history.
    And unfortunately, Arizona has been at the center of this 
attack on our American ideals. Even though Joe Biden won 
Arizona by 45,000 votes, 20 members of the Arizona legislature 
signed a resolution asking Congress to disregard those results 
and seat an electors slate of Trump electors. That was, without 
a doubt, a staggering refusal to follow the will of the voters.
    Next, Republican State senators went to court, and they 
tried to get from Maricopa County the people's ballots and the 
election machines ``sufficiently in advance of the 
congressional review of the Electoral College returns on 
January 6, 2021.''
    Now when they failed, the senators carried on. They 
threatened to jail me and my colleagues on the Board of 
Supervisors. And then they cast doubt on two additional audits 
that we authorized at the Board of Supervisors. And by the way, 
both of these audits found that there was no hacking, there was 
no manipulation with our machines or with our software. It 
should have ended there, but it didn't.
    The Senate then hired the Cyber Ninjas to head up a group 
of firms with no or little election experience to conduct an 
extralegal review, essentially an extralegal recount of 
Maricopa County's ballots. And really, that can only be 
described as an amateurish review of Maricopa County's election 
technical infrastructure.
    The Cyber Ninjas, they changed the policies and procedures. 
They chased conspiracy theories. They threw out false claims. 
And worst of all, they accused our good elections workers of 
committing crimes. They said that they deleted files, but these 
were files that the Cyber Ninjas just couldn't find. Now, this 
was either an out-and-out lie or a level of incompetence by the 
Cyber Ninjas that was staggering.
    Elections integrity is not a new thing for me. As a former 
Republican election lawyer for the Arizona Republican Party, 
it's a passion of mine. And that's why I'm here today to speak 
out against those that are passing off this disinformation and 
those that would call on legitimate elections to be 
decertified.
    This is, without a doubt, the biggest threat to our 
democracy in my lifetime. If elected officials continue to 
choose party over truth, then these procedures are going to 
continue on these privately funded, government-backed attacks 
on legitimate elections. And losers of elections will just go 
out and find financial backers who will continue to drag these 
procedures on. And unfortunately, that is going to negatively 
impact our democracy.
    As a Republican who believes in democracy, I dreamed of one 
day going to a nation that was trying to build a democracy and 
help them out. Perhaps a former Soviet republic like Belarus or 
Tajikistan. I never could have imagined that I would be doing 
that work here in the United States of America.
    Thank you.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
    Mr. Becker, you are now recognized.

STATEMENT OF DAVID BECKER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER, THE 
          CENTER FOR ELECTION INNOVATION AND RESEARCH

    Mr. Becker. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the 
committee.
    My name is David Becker, and I'm the executive director and 
founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a 
nonpartisan nonprofit that works with election officials and 
others from both parties all over the country to ensure 
elections are secure and accessible. I've nearly 25 years of 
experience working in elections, and I come here before you 
today as concerned as I've never been before about the ongoing 
threats to American democracy.
    First, the good news. In every state, including Arizona, we 
saw the most secure, verified, and transparent election in 
American history. Almost 95 percent of all ballots were cast on 
auditable paper, up from less than 80 percent in 2016, 
including all ballots in every swing state.
    There were more legitimate audits of those ballots than 
ever before in states like Arizona, Michigan, and most notably 
in Georgia, where they counted every Presidential ballot three 
times, including once entirely by hand.
    We saw more pre-election litigation clarifying the rules 
than ever before, with each side winning some cases and losing 
others. And there was more post election litigation confirming 
the results. This was largely due to the heroic efforts of 
election officials around the country of both parties, who 
managed record turnout while severely underfunded during a 
global pandemic.
    But the bad news is that tens of millions of Americans, 
sincerely disappointed that their candidate lost, have been 
targeted in a scam to keep them angry, divided, and donating. 
They've been fed a constant diet of lies telling them that 
millions of their fellow citizens, half of them members of 
their own party, engaged in a massive conspiracy to deliver the 
election to the current President and that none of the millions 
of conspirators are talking.
    This big lie is leading to laws in the states that make 
elections less secure and leading to threats against public 
servants who run elections, and it's led to the effort that was 
recently concluded by the Cyber Ninjas in Maricopa County, 
Arizona.
    The Ninjas' effort was flawed from the start. They spread 
lies about the election months before they got the contract. 
And despite having no experience in elections, they raised 
millions of dollars from outside sources to fund their efforts. 
The Arizona Senate and their contractors had to be taken to 
court to get basic documents about the process and the backroom 
discussions that drove it.
    Meanwhile, the Ninjas seized ballots from the election 
officials who were required by law to maintain them and, in so 
doing, likely violated Federal law and broke the chain of 
custody of these ballots. One of the great ironies is that even 
if the Ninjas had discovered an actual election problem, which 
they did not, they had so tainted the evidence that it would 
almost certainly have been found inadmissible in any legal 
proceeding to address the problem.
    The Ninjas' conclusions suffered from the same flaws that 
afflicted the entire process. They made wild claims about 
voters who had allegedly moved, based upon an incompetent and 
discredited methodology and an incomplete commercial data base. 
Experienced election auditors confirmed that the Ninjas and 
their allies got nearly half of their numbers flat-out wrong, 
including failing to account for one-third of the hand-counted 
ballots.
    And despite the fact that Arizona was the best hope for 
those that sought to deny the election, the Ninjas' effort 
confirmed nothing. It merely demonstrated that even in a state 
with the smallest margin of victory among the swing states, 
highly biased and motivated individuals, bolstered by millions 
of dollars from unclear sources and nearly eight months to 
work, could not manufacture enough fake fraud to overturn the 
will of Arizona voters.
    Before the Ninjas even started, the election had already 
been verified and confirmed, consistent with Arizona law. The 
voter lists were confirmed and maintained accurately, thanks 
to, among other things, Arizona's membership in the Electronic 
Registration Information Center, the gold standard of voter 
list maintenance that 30 states utilize.
    Audits conducted immediately after the election, pursuant 
to Arizona law, compared the paper ballots to the machine 
counts and confirmed the outcomes. Nevertheless, the Ninjas' 
effort has contributed to threats against public servants and 
their families. These threats are so pervasive that my 
organization recently formed the Election Official Legal 
Defense Network, under the leadership of co-chairs Bob Bauer 
and Ben Ginsberg, to provide pro bono legal assistance to 
election officials suffering threats.
    Notwithstanding, lawmakers in Pennsylvania, Texas, and 
Wisconsin have pushed similar flawed efforts now, beginning 11 
months after the election. In each of these states, as 
throughout the Nation, there is still zero evidence of 
significant fraud, even after nearly a year of looking for it.
    These efforts continue to have a disastrous effect on our 
democracy. We're at risk of losing a generation of professional 
expertise in election administration due to the ongoing 
threats. Laws are being passed that actually make elections 
less secure and inject more chaos into vote casting, counting, 
and certification of results.
    Validly elected leaders are finding their elections 
delegitimized, and their ability to govern questioned. 
Ironically, many of the same lawmakers in these states are 
calling into question their own elections, just as members of 
the Arizona Senate have done.
    Let's be clear. Real post election audits, conducted 
transparently by professional election administrators under 
laws established prior to an election are a very good thing. We 
had more strong audits than ever before in 2020. If states want 
to pass laws requiring even better audits immediately after an 
election, I will be there working with them and helping them. I 
have already done so with both Republicans and Democrats in 
states like Georgia and Michigan.
    But that's not what happened in Arizona or other states. 
The legislatures in those states did not see any problems with 
their existing audit laws pre-election. It was only after they 
became unhappy with the results and the losing candidate 
refused to concede that they fueled his election denial with 
these efforts many months after the elections in these states 
had been verified, audited, and certified.
    Thank you.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
    And Ms. Ramachandran, you are now recognized for five 
minutes. Ms. Ramachandran?

 STATEMENT OF GOWRI RAMACHANDRAN, SENIOR COUNSEL, THE BRENNAN 
                             CENTER

    Ms. Ramachandran. Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Comer, 
and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
discuss this critical issue.
    In the last year, we have seen a number of techniques 
employed to undermine the will of the voters--the flagrant 
violence of January 6, the behind the scenes phone calls to 
state and local officials, an alleged secret memo advocating 
for a coup. None of these techniques succeeded in overturning 
the 2020 election, but willfully ignorant sham partisan reviews 
are serving up innuendo and baseless suspicions, ready for 
deployment by super spreaders of lies.
    The impact of these lies is twofold, attacks on election 
officials and their families now and the fostering of 
systematic efforts at election sabotage in the future. I hope 
to make three points in my testimony.
    First, after more than nine months and millions of dollars 
spent, the sham partisan review in Arizona has given us the 
same insinuations that purveyors of voter fraud myths have been 
pushing and that real election experts have been debunking for 
years. And it's no surprise. The contractors that the Arizona 
Senate chose to conduct this charade were biased from the 
start.
    Second, we cannot dismiss these foolish exploits out of 
hand because they are spreading and providing seed material 
that common actors leverage in their disinformation campaigns 
to keep the big lie alive.
    Third, all of society must do its part to protect our 
democracy. Congress can help by providing resources to help 
election officials defend against these attacks and by passing 
legislation to protect election officials, workers, and voters.
    The Arizona Senate's partisan review was conceived and 
executed by people who were the subject of pressure from former 
President Trump and his supporters to propagate fraud claims. 
From a State Senate meeting with Giuliani to a call from Trump 
to Senate President Fann to the voicemails left with the 
Maricopa County supervisors, who stood firm and did not call 
back, the pressure campaign did not let up.
    It was in this context that instead of choosing objective, 
transparent, and competent contractors, the Senate choose Cyber 
Ninjas. Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, has authored and 
apparently still stands by a memo to legislators chalk full of 
debunked Stop the Steal conspiracy theories, including a viral 
claim against a former Dominion employee who had to go into 
hiding after a flood of harassment and threats.
    In addition to being biased, the Cyber Ninjas have resisted 
transparency about their procedures and for the press at every 
turn. There is also very little transparency about who is 
funding the review. What little information has been disclosed 
is troubling.
    Finally, the Cyber Ninjas were incompetent to perform any 
election review. The firm's top three findings are textbook 
examples of how purveyors of voter fraud misunderstand data. 
First, they ignored the birthday problem, a basic concept of 
probability. They looked for Arizona voters who shared a first, 
middle, and last name and birth year with another voter, and 
they found about 10,000 such matches.
    They then gave this finding the alarming title, voters that 
potentially voted in multiple counties. But within groups of 
people who have a common name, such as Robert Smith, it is 
expected that some of them will share a birthday. And it is 
even more common for people to share a birth year, which is all 
the Cyber Ninjas found.
    In another example of their willingness to cast aspersions 
on their fellow citizens, they labeled one finding critical, 
supposedly impacting over 23,000 ballots. This is the number of 
people who Cyber Ninjas found through matching voter check-in 
files to a commercial address verification list.
    But temporary moves do not change a voter's eligibility to 
vote from their permanent residence. This isn't an obscure 
election law fact. It appeared in mainstream news stories 
before November, since many voters had questions about this 
during the pandemic.
    And Cyber Ninjas is not the only biased contractor that was 
chosen. Shiva Ayyadurai was contracted to look at ballot 
envelope images. He has a history of conflating ballot images 
and ballots to allege election fraud in his home state of 
Massachusetts, and he did this again with envelope images and 
ballots in Arizona.
    These errors and misleading innuendo would be sad if they 
weren't so dangerous. Most election officials do not have the 
staff and resources to run year-round fact check operations. 
Congress should assist with these resources.
    Many of the provisions in the Freedom to Vote Act would 
also be helpful, such as the one providing for voters to bring 
a lawsuit if their right to vote has been infringed in a 
Federal election. This provision would provide a remedy in the 
worst-case scenario, where an official gives in to pressure to 
overturn an outcome.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look 
forward to answering your questions.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
    Mr. Bennett, you are now recognized. Mr. Bennett?

  STATEMENT OF KEN BENNETT, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE 
STATE OF ARIZONA, ARIZONA STATE SENATE LIAISON TO CYBER NINJAS 
                             AUDIT

    Mr. Bennett. Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member 
Comer, and members of the committee.
    Auditing elections is not a threat to our democratic 
republic. Anything we can do to make sure our elections are 
transparent, trackable, and publicly verified only strengthens 
our country. Elections are how we, the people, give our consent 
of the governed, as is stated in the Declaration of 
Independence. And every citizen deserves to know that they are 
treated equally under the law, as guaranteed in the 
Constitution.
    Every lawful vote must be counted accurately and not 
canceled out by unlawful ones. Even the election system used by 
Maricopa County, known as Dominion, points out in their 
marketing materials that the fourth of four steps in an 
election is to audit the election. They even trademark that 
module saying, ``This ballot-level audit trail allows election 
officials and other stakeholders to review not only the ballot 
images, but also the tabulator's interpretation of each 
ballot.''
    And why does each ballot matter? In 2020, Arizona had the 
closest contest for President in our state's history. To use 
numbers we can all easily relate to, if Arizona was 1,000 
people, we had 80 percent, or 800 people vote. The official 
results were President Biden, 397; President Trump, 395. Yes, a 
two out of 800 vote margin, or 3/10ths of one percent, which 
was the exact percentage of about 10,000 out of 3.4 million in 
the actual election.
    Now you notice that 397 and 395 don't add up to 800 either. 
That's because on one percent of the ballots, eight out of 800, 
the machines didn't record any vote in the Presidential race. 
In the actual election, it was almost 34,000 ballots out of 3.4 
million statewide.
    Maybe that's what those voters intended, or maybe some 
voters circled their ovals or checked next to the oval, not 
getting any mark inside the oval. In either case, no vote was 
counted by the Election Management System, and those undervotes 
would not have been sent to adjudication teams to determine 
voter intent.
    This fact alone warrants auditing an election that was this 
close by reviewing each ballot, which is exactly what we did in 
the audit. We reviewed each of the almost 2.1 million ballots. 
And despite months of warnings from the county, our secretary 
of state, election experts, and most of the media that the 
auditors' procedures were imprecise and unreliable, the most 
significant finding of the audit is that the hand count of the 
physical ballots very closely matches the county's official 
results in the President and U.S. Senate races.
    Now that finding is frustrating to many who expected the 
audit to prove a different election result. But as Arizona 
Senate President Karen Fann stated numerous times, the audit 
has never been about trying to overturn the 2020 election. It 
is about verifying that Arizona laws and procedures were 
followed and identifying how our laws can be improved and 
better enforced going forward to maximize integrity in our 
elections.
    To that end, we did find several areas where election laws 
and procedures were or may have been violated. These include 
missing or unmatched signatures on ballot envelope affidavits, 
missing serial numbers matching duplicate ballots to their 
originals, common usernames and passwords used to log into the 
Election Management System, insufficient security protocols and 
procedures, deleted files and churned logs from the data 
delivered to the Senate, and numerous voter registration 
anomalies.
    Now some of these are findings, and some are observations 
or questions to which the county say they have answers and 
explanations. We welcome those answers.
    One of the most disturbing aspects of the audit was the 
county's lack of cooperation, especially their unwillingness to 
answer any questions once the audit began. Not many people like 
to have their work checked, but audits are much better with the 
cooperation of the auditee.
    The audit report has been forwarded by the Senate to our 
state attorney general, whose Election Integrity Unit will work 
with the county to find those answers and accountability. 
Election integrity is so important, we must find ways to work 
amongst different levels and branches of government to achieve 
it.
    No election or election audit can be conducted perfectly, 
as they are administered by imperfect human beings. I believe 
the majority of election officials throughout our fine state 
are honorable, well-intentioned people trying to do the best 
job they can. I believe the same about the audit.
    We should not fear auditing elections. We should embrace it 
and welcome it.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Thank all of the panelists 
for your testimony.
    I now recognize myself.
    Chairman Sellers and Supervisor Gates, thank you for being 
here today. You are both lifelong Republicans. Mr. Gates, I 
understand that you even founded a teenage Republican Party 
while you were in high school, and I don't think anyone would 
question either of you for your long-held allegiance to the 
Republican Party.
    Yet you have both been outspoken messengers that the 2020 
election was safe, secure, and fair, even when that message has 
brought you into conflict with members of your own party. 
Nearly every Republican in the Arizona State Senate voted to 
hold both of you in contempt for standing up against the Cyber 
Ninja audit. One Republican state senator called for the entire 
Maricopa board to be arrested and put in solitary confinement.
    My question for you, Supervisor Gates, why have you chosen 
to speak out so forcefully on this issue, even against some 
members of your own party?
    Mr. Gates. Well, thank you, Madam Chair.
    It hasn't been easy to do this. I have been a lifelong 
Republican, and I'm proud to be a Republican. But I'm also a 
member of the Board of Supervisors, and as was mentioned 
earlier, the Board of Supervisors took more authority in 
running elections in 2020 because we wanted to run an excellent 
election, and we believe that that's what has happened here.
    But the problem is, that as people have been distorting 
what happened in this election--I have no problem with people 
raising questions. What I have a problem with is people going 
to the lengths as you mentioned.
    We had gone to court to get direction from a superior court 
judge on whether we had the legal authority to turn the ballots 
over. We had asked for an expedited hearing. And despite that, 
the Arizona State Senate was one vote away from holding us in 
contempt and most likely detaining us. That was wrong.
    It was also wrong, once they had the ballots, in my 
opinion, to conduct an audit with auditors who had no elections 
experience and then also auditors who clearly had a 
preconceived notion. I don't have a problem with audits. I had 
concerns with this particular audit, and that's why I'm 
speaking out.
    Chairwoman Maloney. And Chairman Sellers, what about you? 
Why are you speaking out today?
    Mr. Sellers. When I first got on the Board of Supervisors, 
we were in the process of taking the parts of the election 
process back that we could because we'd had some issues with 
elections in the past couple of elections, people waiting in 
lines for 4 or 5 hours and those kind of things. And the 
interesting thing to me was that every step of the way, we 
ensured that we were staying within the U.S. and the Arizona 
constitution on everything we did.
    When we were faced with the pandemic and had to change the 
way we were going to run the election from a precinct-based 
model to a vote center model, we again went back to the 
political parties, to the secretary of state, to the governor, 
to the attorney general, and got their agreement on everything 
we were doing, that it was legal and going to provide us with a 
safe, secure election going forward.
    So----
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Thank you.
    Reclaiming my time, I have very little, limited time. Mr. 
Sellers and Mr. Gates, you faced pressure to support President 
Trump's big lie even before the audit started. On Christmas Eve 
last year, former President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy 
Giuliani, called both Mr. Sellers and Mr. Gates as part of 
Trump's pressure campaign to try to overturn the election 
results in Arizona.
    Neither of you picked up. So he left a voicemail message. I 
would like to play one of those voicemails now that Mr. 
Giuliani left for Chairman Sellers. May we hear the audio now, 
please?
    Mr. Giuliani.
    [on voicemail recording] Hi. Rudy Giuliani, President 
Trump's attorney calling. I'm hoping we could have a chance to 
have a conversation. I'd like to see if there's a way that we 
could resolve this so it comes out well for everyone. We're all 
Republicans. I think we all have the same goal. Let's see if--
let's see if we can get this done outside of the courts. Gosh.
    OK, call me. Anytime. No problem. Bye.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Mr. Giuliani said, and I quote, ``We're 
all Republicans. I think we all have the same goal.''
    I would like to ask you, Supervisor Gates, what you do 
think that goal was? And you got a similar call where he said--
he asked you to ``get this thing fixed up'' and saying ``I 
think there may be a nice way to resolve this.'' What do you 
think Mr. Giuliani wanted you to do?
    Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair, just a point of order real quick. I 
hope I am going to be extended the same courtesy to go beyond 
the five-minute limit?
    Chairwoman Maloney. Absolutely.
    Mr. Gates. Madam Chair, that voicemail was left at a time 
we were in litigation with the State Senate over turning over 
the ballots and the election machines. I think he was trying to 
get us to settle that lawsuit so that they could very quickly 
get the ballots in advance of the January 6 certification of 
the Electoral College.
    Chairwoman Maloney. And why was this so important? What was 
Mr. Giuliani's ultimate goal? What do you think his ultimate 
goal was?
    Mr. Gates. Well, you know, I can't speculate on that. But I 
think that he wanted to look at the evidence and see if there 
was evidence to support not certifying the election.
    Chairwoman Maloney. And I want to thank you both--my time 
is up--and the many other state and local officials who stood 
up to Trump's pressure campaign and turned back his efforts to 
overturn a free and fair election.
    The late Senator from Arizona John McCain once said, and I 
quote, ``We are Americans first, Americans last, Americans 
always.'' I agree. We are Americans before we are members of 
any political party.
    Chairman Sellers and Supervisor Gates, I hope other 
Republicans, including my colleagues in Congress, follow the 
example that you set today. I want to thank you for your 
testimony. Thank you so much.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Gosar. Mr. 
Gosar?
    Mr. Gosar. Can you hear me, Madam Chairwoman?
    Chairwoman Maloney. I can hear you.
    Mr. Gosar. That sounds good.
    Well, I want to thank all of the witnesses, especially Mr. 
Bennett from my district. Ken, it is good seeing you again. Mr. 
Sellers, Mr. Gates, thank you for attending.
    You know, the majority is very shortsighted, and this 
hearing today reminds me of 2017, I think, maybe 2018, when we 
actually--one of our own members from the other side actually 
introduced legislation, Mr. Raskin, for the Election Vendor 
Security Act. Part of that was due in terms to security--an 
election security vendor infrastructure subcommittee hearing on 
the U.S. Senate side in Homeland Security, which basically said 
that the equipment or the vendors or these machines were 
potentially 100 percent corruptible. Interesting. Interesting.
    Now I want to bring back into point a film, and I am not 
usually complimentary of films. But this one is very 
interesting, released in March 2020. It is called ``Kill 
Chain'' by the HBO Films.
    And basically, what it is, is they go in with a security 
expert, cybersecurity expert by the name of Harri Hursti. I 
think most of you would admit he is very good at what he does. 
And basically, what he talked about, he goes systematically 
through an election and these machines.
    You know, in the old days of the 20th century, I guess when 
my hair was still around and it is not so gray, they were 
basically adding machines with a light. But today, they are 
controlled by a computer. And all computers can be hacked. And 
what Harri Hursti does is he goes through a number of scenarios 
and people and experts to show how these machines can be 
corrupted.
    Yes, the results we see here supposedly don't change the 
outcome, but there is more to the story as to how those votes 
could be manipulated by the machine, and then the calibration 
or the certification of those ballots is covered up by the 
machine.
    Don't take my word for it. I want you to go back to watch 
``Kill Chain.'' I think it is a wonderful documentary that 
doesn't take a partisan look either way, at least for most of 
it. But it highlights a series of problems that exist, 
undeniably. Undeniably.
    Hackers can make this change, and we have problems, as Mr. 
Biggs talked about, with Maricopa County from the 2018 
election. The Board of Supervisors adamantly and valiantly took 
back some of their power and oversight at that election. But 
Mr. Fontes kept custody of the voter registration rolls. Very 
important. Very important when we start dissecting what the 
Cyber Ninjas did.
    Second of all, they want the scrutiny from private entities 
like Cyber Ninjas because the certification of these audit 
folks is not exactly what you really want, and I don't think it 
is what Mr. Raskin and anybody else wants either. You don't 
want government OKing a process and then certifying that 
process. You want somebody independent of that aspect. So from 
the standpoint that we see this, there are problems.
    How about me? Where do you account for me? The day after 
the election, I was contacted by two individuals. One had 
security and fraud jobs with the banking world. The other one 
does fraud from Department of Defense. They were monitoring the 
election through Edison, the amalgamator, that was providing 
information to the media.
    What they saw in Arizona--they were watching the secretary 
of state at the same time. What they saw from Arizona drew 
their attention quickly first, based on numbers of 90,000-some, 
60,000-some, 40,000-some ballots dropped into Donald Trump's 
category and then quickly come out verbatim. Now there may be a 
reason for that. We don't know.
    But then they started watching and looking to the dumps. 
And what I mean by that is, is there is a first dump. There is 
multiple dumps, maybe 9 or 10 through the night. So if they are 
random, which they should be, if the first dump in Coconino 
County was 61 percent for Joe Biden, you would expect the rest 
of the time and the rest of the dumps to be very similar, 58, 
62, 55, and so forth. Not 40, 38, 35. That drove their--a big 
question mark for them.
    There were four anomalies in our state--Maricopa County, 
Pima County or Tucson, Coconino County up in Flagstaff, and 
Pinal County down just southeast of Phoenix. Interestingly 
enough, the top two election officials in Pinal County actually 
resigned the very next morning. That doesn't draw any 
attention, does it?
    So it gets even worse. So they go, the election--Maricopa 
Election Committee actually takes 100 random duplicate ballots. 
These are ballots that can't go through the machine for 
smudges, tears, whatever. And you do a new one with judges from 
both sides of the aisle looking over, making sure that it is 
done right. So when you run them through the machine, you 
should have a zero percent error rate.
    They had a three percent error rate. And in Maricopa 
County, that represents over 90,000 ballots. Wow, we got a 
problem. The margin of loss was right under 11,000.
    So then they did 2,500 random duplicate ballots. They never 
finished. They locked them up. We were told that there was 
double-digit error rates. So the two guys, going back to the 
two guys, they estimated between 450,000 and 700,000 ballots 
had some electronic or some kind of issue. They still may be 
valid, but that had an issue.
    Well, if you take 3 times 3 at 90,000, you are talking 
about over 200,000 or 270,000 ballots. This should be a cause 
for an audit. It shouldn't be that you are suing the State 
Senate who has jurisdiction over you, and we had to go to court 
for that aspect. And yes, the State Senate won in this-that 
discard.
    But we saw the county supervisors lock them up, sue at 
every case they got. They lost at that superior court judge 
that they don't have to answer to the State Senate. They do. 
They didn't provide different mechanisms. So they didn't allow 
a full canvass. They didn't have access to the routers. They 
didn't have full access for voter signature acuity and 
documentation and accuracy.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has----
    Mr. Gosar. There are certainly problems here, and 
hopefully, I will be able to get some time yielded to me so I 
can explain even more.
    Chairwoman Maloney. OK----
    Mr. Gosar. There should have been an audit based on this 
information, and this information alone.
    Thank you.
    Chairwoman Maloney. OK. The gentleman has received equal 
time, and we were both over time.
    I now recognize the gentlelady from the District of 
Columbia, Ms. Norton. She is now recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I will certainly 
try to stay within my time.
    This oversight hearing is the appropriate response to 
claims that the election was stolen. Let's look into it. Let us 
call, as we have, those who were in charge of conducting this 
election.
    And I note for the record that Cyber Ninjas who did the 
audit is not here. I would have thought that they would be 
first to want to step up to speak to the issue of the audit. 
They were invited. They are not here.
    The other side mentioned problems in all of our elections. 
There has never been a problem such as the problem we have seen 
here. This is unprecedented.
    He mentioned Bush v. Gore. I remember very distinctly that 
at that very close election, Gore stepped up to concede the 
election. That is the American way. This is the first time that 
has been broken in the history of the United States of America.
    I have questions for Chairman Sellers and Supervisor Gates, 
who I thank for appearing before us today. I understand that 
since the election, you have been the targets of horrific 
threats of violence, something else unprecedented in American 
life.
    I would like to ask each of you about the threats you have 
received. Chairman Sellers, approximately how many threats have 
you and your family received since November 2020, and have 
these threats--how have these threats affected you and your 
family?
    Mr. Sellers. OK. I have not reacted as much to the threats 
as some of my colleagues because I'm widowed, I live alone, and 
you know, I think even my staff and our law enforcement 
agencies have admonished me for not being concerned enough 
about the threats. But to that point, I have had Sheriff's 
Department and Chandler Police Department vehicles that parked 
in front of my house overnight on many nights because of very 
specific threats against me.
    And in fact, the Maricopa County sheriff told me if you 
don't have a Ring doorbell, I will buy you one if you're not 
willing to buy one for yourself. And I now have one of those as 
well, just to--to enhance the security where I live.
    Ms. Norton. Madam Chair, that kind of threats after an 
election again is unprecedented in American life.
    Supervisor Gates, can you describe some of the threats that 
you and your family have received, and is it your understanding 
that people making these threats support the notion that the 
election was stolen?
    Mr. Gates. Thank you for that question.
    We have been--my family--I have three daughters, and we 
have been subjected to many threats over the past few months. 
We have been doxxed. One of our colleagues had 90 people 
outside of his house one evening, and we've had phone calls 
into the Board of Supervisors saying that they were--people 
were going to come and slaughter us and our families.
    Sadly, we had a state senator who sent out a fundraising 
email in which she told us--she's a veteran, and she told us to 
``check our six,'' which I believe means that, you know, we 
better watch our back.
    This is clearly an attempt by people--and we see it on both 
sides of the aisle, sadly--people all across the spectrum. But 
for us, it's generally been people who have--who have been 
unhappy with the election result. There's been an attempt to 
intimidate us and intimidating others who are doing elections 
work. And that's what I'm most concerned about is that this 
would deter good people who want to be involved in running 
elections in the future from getting involved and making a 
difference.
    Ms. Norton. Vice Chairman Gates, that`s a very important 
point. These are volunteers. We need them every election.
    Could I ask you, Chairman Sellers, have other supervisors 
and employees of the county been targeted by similar threats of 
the kind that you and the vice chairman have mentioned?
    Mr. Sellers. Yes, absolutely. And in fact, we had a fence 
put up around our building in downtown Phoenix, a fence put up 
around our election headquarters just to protect the employees 
who are--and the important thing to me is that the Elections 
Department people are nonpartisan people that have worked 
through all--all the elections without any political 
involvement at all. They are just experts at what they do. And 
yet they, as well, were getting threats.
    Ms. Norton. Madam Chair, this has been important to put on 
the record. This kind of conduct you would expect in an 
autocratic republic, not a democracy like the United States of 
America. That is why this hearing is so important, and I thank 
you.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I now recognize the 
gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs, for as much time as he 
needs.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. I will try to stay as close to that 
five as I can, Madam Chair. Thank you so much.
    It is unfortunate that we have devolved that there are 
threats. I mean, that really is a terrible thing. I spent the 
first two years receiving threats from the hard left 
repeatedly. I couldn't even hold town halls anymore because I 
had to have massive amounts of protection there not just for 
me, but for anybody who would come because we had no idea what 
would happen.
    The threats were real. I know that Senator Fann, the 
president of the Arizona Senate, has received threats from the 
other side as well. So, I mean, this is a problem that we face 
in a very divided nation right now.
    But I wanted to just--I had to point out something about 
Vice Chair Gates' testimony that I thought was interesting 
because you mentioned in your written testimony. I read that, 
and you stated it, and you kind of read that today that the 
Senate was trying to put you in jail. That isn't really the 
full context.
    The full context was this. That the Senate in December 
after their hearing issued subpoenas. You guys were 
negotiating, trying to figure out how to respond to those 
subpoenas. Didn't happen. In January and February, there was an 
attempt to issue second subpoenas. Those subpoenas were not 
responded to.
    A court hearing was held. Court, Timothy Thomason said the 
subpoenas issued by the Arizona Senate were valid. You didn't 
go to court to say, hey, you know, we want to participate. We 
just want to know what we can and can't get. You went to quash 
the subpoenas. That's a huge difference.
    And to be held in contempt, it takes a majority. They 
didn't get their majority because the Senate is very evenly 
split. That is something quite different than saying, yes, they 
were trying to put us in jail. They were trying to cite you for 
contempt of something that constitutionally and statutorily the 
legislature was allowed to do.
    I just needed to make sure that that was clear as we go. 
And now I am going to turn to Mr. Bennett.
    Mr. Gates. May I respond to that?
    Mr. Biggs. No, you can't. It is my time.
    I am going to turn to Mr. Bennett. Mr. Bennett, I want to 
ask you a question with regard to this notion of--let me get to 
my question here--Mr. Becker, yes, he was critical of the chain 
of custody. Can you talk to us about the valid chain of 
custody?
    And I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Gates. I have a very 
limited amount of time, and I got to get to certain things.
    Mr. Bennett. Yes, I think Mr. Becker's testimony was that 
the Ninjas had seized the ballots and machines. Nothing could 
be further from the truth. I personally, along with the co-
election director of Maricopa County, Mr. Scott Jarrett, 
supervised the transition of the ballots and the machines from 
the county to the audit over a period of two days. We processed 
46 pallets, 1,691 boxes.
    Now, a box contains about 1,200 to 1,300 ballots. That 
process went very smoothly. I've been very complimentary both 
privately and publicly of Mr. Jarrett and the county's 
transition of the ballots. But we did find, for example, 26 
mismarked boxes. We found eight boxes that were not listed on 
the manifest, the chain of custody documents that Maricopa 
County was supposed to have since the election until they 
turned them over to us on April 22 of 2021.
    We found two boxes that were on the manifest, but not 
present on the pallets. And then we found three boxes that were 
on different pallets than they were listed.
    So the point is that out of 1,691 boxes, there were 40-some 
boxes of errors. But the transition was not one of the auditors 
seizing the ballots and the machines. We had a very smooth 
transition. And once they were in our custody for the audit, we 
never had a break or lack of chain of custody until we returned 
them to the county.
    Mr. Biggs. And why is the chain of custody so important 
here, where the folks that didn't want to see an audit take 
place were claiming there was a chain of custody problem? But 
the actual chain of custody problem was in transferring from 
the county to y'all? Why is it important to have good chain of 
custody?
    Mr. Bennett. Well, the chain of custody that has never been 
provided is the chain of custody that is required by state law 
that should be created when the ballots are delivered to the 
county by their vendors and then are processed in the election 
through the election. That chain of custody should have started 
then, and that chain of custody should have been part of the 
documentation that was delivered to us when the ballots and the 
machines were given to us in April. We never received that 
chain of custody.
    But we do have a full chain of custody. And the reason the 
importance of chain of custody during the audit is the same as 
during an election, to be able to account to the people of your 
county and your state that you have accounted for all of the 
ballots and the ones that you used, the ones that you didn't 
use, the ones that were spoiled, the ones that were duplicated. 
And all of that chain of custody is important in the election, 
as it is in the audit, which is why we maintained full chain of 
custody during the audit.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will yield back to 
you.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. I now 
recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch. You are 
now recognized Mr. Lynch.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Mr. Gates, I will give you an opportunity to respond to the 
fact pattern that was presented in your question. But first of 
all, I want to say that how shameful, how absolutely shameful 
the conduct that some of my colleagues has been in perpetuating 
this big lie.
    I just--you know, I chair the Subcommittee on National 
Security, and we regularly visit failed states. I spent a lot 
of time in Afghanistan as well as other countries where there 
is one common denominator in these failed states, and that is 
there is no trust in the election process. For decades, 
decades, in Afghanistan, the losing candidate always says it 
was stolen, and they undermine the ability of the winning party 
to actually govern.
    And while that has been a characteristic in other failed 
states, it is having the same impact on our country. It is 
undermining the faith in whoever wins, whether it is a Democrat 
or Republican candidate, and that is shameful.
    It really is shameful that so many of my colleagues have 
followed the Trump lie. This is all about Trump. Mr. Trump has 
had other occasions where he has questioned elections. 
Remember, he actually tweeted out when Romney lost to Obama. He 
tweeted out that, oh, the election was stolen. The election was 
stolen. Check the machines, he said.
    When Ted Cruz beat him in Iowa, Trump said he stole it. 
Anybody who--look, I have attended several caucuses in Iowa. 
You have got to physically be there. You have got to raise your 
hand for your candidate. But Trump said it was stolen.
    And then months before this election, this past election, 
when President Biden won, he said, oh, the only way they are 
going to--the only way Biden could win is if he is going to 
steal it. That is absolutely shameful. What is more shameful, 
that he has taken so many good people down with him.
    You know, history--history will remember, will remember the 
people like Mr. Gates and Chairman Sellers who stood up for 
democracy, stood up for democracy, in the face of threats, 
physical threats to themselves and their families. And history 
will also remember the quislings, the quislings who backed 
Trump and his allegations that the election was stolen.
    So this is not only a day to stand up for what you believe 
in, it is also reputationally something that is going to be 
visited on your family that you attacked this country, you 
attacked a legitimate election in favor of that man, President 
Trump. It is disgraceful.
    Sixty-two cases were brought in court. None of them, none 
of them--and before Trump-appointed judges, Federal judges, 
they are Trump appointed. A lot of Federal--excuse me, a lot of 
state judges that were Republicans, long-time Republicans, and 
they never, ever substantiated.
    Most of those cases were dismissed for lack of evidence. 
They never got to the merits. And yet you continue to support 
the big lie. It is disgraceful.
    Mr. Gates, I now yield my last minute to you to address the 
custodial issues that the gentleman from Arizona raised.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Gates. Thank you very much, Congressman.
    I didn't want to leave any lack of clarity on what 
happened. Congressman, we did receive a subpoena, and we didn't 
attempt to quash that subpoena, for the record. We went to 
court to get direction. We believed that it was a violation of 
Arizona law to produce the ballots and the machines. We were 
looking for direction.
    And I would point out as well, we did not appeal that 
decision to the Court of Appeals, which a lot of people have 
said was a mistake on our part. But I did not want to give 
that--I wanted to make sure that was clear for the record. The 
vote that was going to--the vote that took place, we were in--
Jack Sellers and I were in Karen Fann's office, and we said 
we've asked for an expedited hearing. You don't have to do 
this. She said it's going up on the board.
    And I said, ``Karen, you know, my daughter called me, and 
said, 'Dad, are you going to get thrown in jail?' '' She said, 
``Bill, we're not going to throw you in jail.'' I said, ``This 
resolution gives you the authority up to and including throwing 
us in jail,'' and there will be lot of people pressing for us 
to be in jail if we weren't by the end of that day.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice. 
You are now recognized, Mr. Hice.
    Mr. Hice. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Here we are. This committee continues to ignore its 
responsibility, as we have so many issues facing our country at 
the border and inflation. I mean, we have got so many issues, 
and here we are meddling with what states are doing in their 
election laws, which the--and the audit here, which the 
Constitution clearly grants the states to oversee all of this.
    But nonetheless, I hear a lot today about the ``big lie.'' 
Let us remember the big lie was the Russian hoax that we had to 
live with for years and going through the hoax impeachment 
processes over and over. I don't recall a single hearing that 
we had on that, Madam Chair, and yet here, it is somehow wrong 
for Republicans to raise legitimate questions when we had an 
election that was fraught with irregularities and potential 
fraud, where rules and laws for the election process were 
changed immediately prior to the election, and it created all 
sorts of problems.
    And I think all of us recognize this. Our republic is based 
on the foundation that the people, the voters of this country 
must have faith and confidence in our election process. And yet 
tens of millions of people from this last election have serious 
concerns as to what happened and serious concerns with 
potential fraud.
    There are thousands and thousands of affidavits of people 
expressing that. Many of those affidavits I personally have 
looked at. And when the people of this country lose faith in 
their elections, when they lose the belief that they can enact 
change at the ballot box, then we are in serious trouble.
    And us somehow to have an attitude that it is OK to sweep 
these concerns under the rug is major disservice to our 
Constitution and the people of this land. Wherever, if ever, 
there is a fraudulent vote, that vote in itself, by nature of 
what it is, suppresses the vote of a legal voter. Whatever way 
the legal voter expressed his or her opinion at the ballot, if 
there is a fraudulent vote on the other side, then that legal 
vote is suppressed.
    We must look at these things. We cannot sweep these under 
the rug. And the only way to expose this type of thing or the 
only way to deal with this type of crisis, potential crisis in 
our elections is to expose it and to address the problems 
straight up.
    My home state of Georgia, as we all know, in many ways has 
become the center of this, and thankfully, the Georgia General 
Assembly has addressed the problems. And they enacted SB 202, 
which is a great step forward to making sure that we have fair, 
accessible, secure, and transparent elections in our state, 
regardless of what Democrats try to portray with the election 
law.
    And Madam Chair, I would ask unanimous consent to submit SB 
202 into the record, along with a summary of that bill.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Without objection.
    Mr. Hice. Thank you very much.
    And in spite of it all, Georgia has not been able to have a 
full audit, which I believe we should have and I continue to 
call for. But in all that context is why I believe this Arizona 
audit is extremely important and something that we have got to 
continue to look at. I think it is unfortunate that Maricopa 
County, in many ways, resisted this and only through subpoenas 
and court order finally got through with all of this.
    But there are still problems. There are inconsistencies. 
There remain question marks with the Arizona results. For 
example, there appears to be many ballots from individuals who 
had moved prior to the election. There are missing files from 
the Election Management System.
    We have a host of other issues where the numbers don't add 
up. They don't equal up to one another. That is a serious 
problem. There were ballot batches that were not clearly 
delineated.
    Serials numbers that were missing. Originals that were 
duplicated more than once. As we have already heard, chain of 
custody issues.
    Now, look, the question is, folks, we have got to take this 
whole issue of election integrity seriously. Regardless of 
whether you are pleased with the outcome of the current 
administration and the disastrous results happening in our 
country, election integrity is of utmost importance to our 
country. We have got to look at this in a serious way, and I 
see my time has expired.
    But where there are concerns of fraud and irregularities, 
they must be dealt with, and I encourage us to move forward 
with that kind of attitude. And with that, Madam Chair, I yield 
back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. The 
gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, you are now recognized.
    Unmute, please. We can't hear you. Unmute, please.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I hope that those colleagues who are saying that 
legislatures have a right to obtain the information they seek 
and that holding people in contempt for not complying with 
subpoenas is not an excuse to put them in jail, but rather, it 
is an attempt to effectuate the people's right to information 
will remember that this week and next week, as the legislature 
you belong to works to get information from material witnesses 
to the violent insurrection that led to the wounding and the 
injury of more than 140 officers and interrupted the counting 
of Electoral College votes for the first time in American 
history in the most sweeping violent attack on the U.S. Capitol 
since the War of 1812.
    So that is a point that people should keep in mind. The 
second point I want to make is you cannot bemoan the people's 
loss of faith in elections while you are spreading information 
and propaganda that are eroding the people's faith in 
elections. Now when there are real problems, all of us need to 
act to address them. But I don't think it is a fitting response 
to the situation to spread lies and propaganda and 
disinformation that are being refuted today by Republican 
witnesses and then say we have a problem with people's faith in 
elections.
    Now, Madam Chair, this is one of the most important 
hearings I have ever seen in my life. There is no doubt this is 
the most important thing going on in America today, and I hope 
everybody listens to it.
    We have before us top-ranking, highly qualified election 
officials who happen to be Republicans, Chairman Sellers and 
Mr. Gates, who have told us that the election in Maricopa 
County was the most secure, verified election in our history. 
They have told us that the attacks on the election are a scam 
to keep people angry and donating.
    They have said that the attacks on the election are lies. 
They have explained to us that the elections in Arizona were 
free, fair, and accurate and that Joe Biden won by more than 
45,000 votes. This was confirmed by the counties, confirmed by 
the hand--the hand counts, confirmed by the machine counts, and 
confirmed by the people, over 90 percent of whom believe the 
lawful results.
    And yet still we have people today in this hearing trying 
to perpetrate the big lie, which their own concocted audit 
itself discredited. So it is just a remarkable, remarkable 
moment and an extraordinary thing for America to see here.
    Now, Chairman Sellers, let me come back to you. Was there 
any fraud or corruption materially affecting the outcome of the 
election in Arizona in 2020?
    Mr. Sellers. No. And in fact, before we certified the 
election, we asked a lot of questions. We had an over 2-hour 
meeting where the results of the election were presented to us. 
We were able to ask questions that had been presented to us by 
different people in our legislature and our Senate. And you 
know, we very carefully went through everything before we 
canvassed and approved that election.
    Mr. Raskin. You have invoked in this remarkable onslaught, 
which continues by Donald Trump and his followers, against the 
election a ``staggering refusal to follow the will of the 
people,'' which, of course, is the essence of democracy. How do 
you explain this staggering refusal to follow the will of the 
people?
    Mr. Sellers. Well, you know, I'm not sure how I explain it. 
Because a lot of people don't seem to realize that the Board of 
Supervisors do a lot of things other than just elections. And 
we are the fastest-growing county in the United States, and I'm 
so anxious to get us back onto doing the kind of things that 
are truly important for us to be doing, rather than 
relitigating things. And as people have asked questions about--
about the audit and the things that have been brought up in the 
audit, virtually everything has already been answered.
    Our recorder is working on----
    Mr. Raskin. At every level--and forgive me, I just want to 
ask you one last question before we go. Because much has been 
made of the fact that you guys are Republicans. You have been 
lifelong Republicans, active Republicans, and all you are 
trying to stand up for is a free, fair, and accurate election 
against all the lies and propaganda.
    But what if you were Democrats? You can only imagine what 
they would be saying in that case. There are some people who 
just will not accept an accurate count in the election, and my 
question for you is what does that mean for democracy if we 
have people who will question, even after all of these audits, 
even after all of this investment, the final results as 
determined by election officials? What does that mean for 
democracy?
    Mr. Sellers. It's very troubling because when you give 
people the facts and they still do not accept them, that's a 
problem.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired. And 
the gentleman is recognized for a point of order?
    OK. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, is now recognized 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The previous member just said ``bemoan the results and talk 
about the big lie.'' Well, how about the big lies? How about 
all the lies that Democrats have told us over the last couple 
of years?
    Democrats told us the protests in the summer of 2020 were 
peaceful. Democrats told us the dossier was real. Democrats 
told us Trump colluded with Russia. We had a $30 million 
investigation done by Bob Mueller that said that wasn't true. 
Democrats told us the Russian bounty story was true.
    Democrats told us COVID didn't start in a Chinese lab. 
Nope, nope, didn't start there. It was a--it was a bat to a 
penguin to a hippopotamus to Joe Rogan, and we get bit--no, no, 
no.
    And then Democrats for four years told us the 2016 election 
was stolen. For four--they could investigate that for four 
years. We are not allowed to question some concerns we have 
about the 2020 election for four minutes, but they could 
investigate that for four years.
    In fact, on January 6, 2017, Democrats objected to more 
states than Republicans objected to on January 6, 2021. Mr. 
Raskin himself objected to the state of Florida, to certifying 
the results from the state of Florida on January 6, 2017. But 
we are not allowed to ask questions.
    I mean, they objected to the state of Alabama. Alabama, a 
state that President Trump won by 30 points. They can object to 
Alabama, but we are not allowed to object to Pennsylvania, 
where in the run-up to that election, they changed their 
election law in an unconstitutional fashion? We are not allowed 
to object to that or do an audit in Arizona? Give me a break.
    Mr. Becker, the chairwoman--in her opening statement, the 
chairwoman criticized the fact that private funds were used to 
finance the Arizona audit. Do you share her criticism of that?
    Mr. Becker. I do in the sense that it was untransparent. 
They resisted any kind of transparency in that endeavor. My 
organization----
    Mr. Jordan. Do you agree with the fact that Facebook and 
Mark Zuckerberg gave over $4 million--$400 million, excuse me, 
$400 million for the election itself?
    Mr. Becker. Yes. I was just getting to that. Actually, my 
organization received over $60 million from Mr. Zuckerberg and 
Ms. Chan to grant to any state that wanted to apply for it for 
purposes of conducting voter education for----
    Mr. Jordan. You took how many million? They took how many 
million?
    Mr. Becker. Over $60 million that my organization regranted 
to the states.
    Mr. Jordan. You got $60 million? And that is fine?
    Mr. Becker. It was all done transparently. We put out in 
March of this year----
    Mr. Jordan. The funds----
    Mr. Becker [continuing]. And I'm sure you've read it, 
Representative Jordan. We put out a report, a full transparent 
report listing all of the states that applied, 23 states--some 
of them very blue, like Connecticut; some of them very red, 
like South Carolina--the exact amounts that went to each state, 
and what the money went for.
    Mr. Jordan. So it was OK for private funds to be used? But 
I got a question here. It is OK for private funds to be used to 
run the election, it is not OK for private funds to be used to 
audit an election. Is that what you are saying?
    Mr. Becker. No. What I'm saying is transparency is 
paramount and that transparency should be done under any 
circumstances. Ideally, private funds wouldn't be used for 
election administration. What would----
    Mr. Jordan. I would like some transparency on how it----
    Mr. Becker. Madam Chair, may I----
    Mr. Jordan. I would like some transparency on how that $400 
million was used to run the election and exactly what your 
organization did with the over $50 million I think you said you 
received.
    Mr. Bennett, there were three numbers that were pointed out 
in the audit that I just want to get your reaction to. Oh, 
first of all, is auditing a bad thing? Auditing an election, is 
that a bad thing?
    Mr. Bennett. Absolutely not. In fact, it's already in state 
law that the counties do a limited audit. The Senate did a full 
forensic audit in this situation.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes, normally we think auditing is a good 
thing. It just keeps everything--it is accounting. It is an 
understanding of what actually took place. We normally do that. 
Why do Democrats hate audits?
    Mr. Bennett. You'd have to ask a Democrat. I don't know why 
they hate audits. To me, we have an auditor general office in 
the state of Arizona. Every state agency is audited every three 
or four years, some annually. Everyone seems to support that. I 
think audits of elections are warranted as well.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes, no kidding. I mean, they tried to audit 
the 2016 election. They are still trying to do it. They still 
haven't accepted the results from the 2016, but we are not 
allowed to ask questions and do a few audits on the 2020 
election.
    I have got three numbers I want to run by you that were in 
the actual audit of Arizona--23,344 mail-in ballots from a 
different address, 9,044 more ballots returned by a voter than 
were sent to that voter, and 5,295 ballots with the same name 
and birth date from a different county than were sent to the 
voter. Can you tell me about those three numbers and what those 
findings, what they may--just tell me what your thoughts on 
those three--those three numbers.
    Mr. Bennett. Well, the first number was the 23,000. My 
recollection is that 15,000 of those 23,000 were voters who 
moved within Maricopa County just prior to the election. That 
does not make them ineligible to vote in the county. So there's 
probably nothing wrong with those 15,000.
    There were 6,000 of that 23,000 that was thought by the 
auditors to be folks that moved out of Arizona just prior to 
the election and, if so, probably shouldn't have been allowed 
to vote. But when they looked at the voter registration of 
those 6,000, it was divided equally, 2,000 Republicans, about 
2,000 Democrats, and about 2,000 no party designation.
    So we don't know whether or not those--what the votes were 
on those ballots. But all----
    Mr. Jordan. Six thousand? That was 6,000 something?
    Mr. Bennett. That was about 6,000, yes.
    Mr. Jordan. OK.
    Mr. Bennett. The other two numbers that you mentioned are 
numbers that the auditors determined to be questionable based 
on their comparison of the final vote data released by Maricopa 
County, compared to commercial data bases. That has given rise 
to questions that Maricopa County says that they can answer.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has----
    Mr. Bennett. And so, as I said in my testimony, we welcome 
answers and verification of that from the county.
    Mr. Jordan. What about the 5,000----
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired, and 
maybe we can get these answers in writing on that.
    The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson, is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this very 
important hearing.
    My friends on the other side of the aisle claim that our 
democracy is strengthened when close elections are subjected to 
forensic audit by outside entities. And I think that all 
reasonable people would agree that if Maricopa County should 
have hired an outside entity to conduct a forensic audit of the 
Maricopa County 2020 Presidential election, then Doug Logan and 
the Cyber Ninjas should not have been the firm entrusted with 
that obligation.
    Why? Because the Arizona State Senate knew that Doug Logan 
and his business known as the Cyber Ninjas had absolutely no 
election or auditing experience or expertise, and they knew 
that Doug Logan was a well-known and notorious pro-Trump 
conspiracy extremist when they hired him to conduct the audit. 
Doug Logan and Cyber Ninjas were hired in a no-bid, sole-source 
process despite it being well known that Doug Logan was 
spreading false claims of election fraud on social media.
    The Arizona Senate also was well aware that Doug Logan was 
spreading QAnon theory, racist QAnon theory, and they knew that 
Doug Logan was intimately involved in promoting the Stop the 
Steal movement that was key to inciting the January 6 
insurrection, which was a violent attack on the U.S. Congress 
in an attempt to overthrow the results of the Presidential 
election that President Biden had won by the popular vote and 
also in an Electoral College landslide.
    The fact that the Arizona Senate entrusted their so-called 
audit to a partisan political hack like Doug Logan is revealing 
as to the true purpose of the so-called audit. The real reason 
why the Arizona Senate entrusted this process to Doug Logan and 
the Cyber Ninjas was to undermine public confidence in our 
elections while providing a false justification for efforts in 
Georgia with its infamous Senate Bill 202 and also in Arizona 
and other states around the country to pass laws making it 
harder to vote and easier for partisan officials like those in 
the Arizona Senate to subvert elections.
    And it has now been revealed that Doug Logan and the Cyber 
Ninjas took $5 million--excuse me, $7 million, over $7 million 
they took from private organizations connected to Donald Trump 
to fund their so-called audit. You know, America Project was 
one of those firms, run by Patrick Byrne, the former chief 
executive of Overstock.com, who has sought to overturn the 2020 
election based on unfounded conspiracy theories.
    America's Future is another private firm raising money from 
angry citizens misled by Donald Trump and his minions about him 
losing the election, the election having allegedly been stolen 
from him. America's Future has collected millions of dollars 
from Americans, and they used part of that money to give it to 
the Cyber Ninjas to conduct this sham audit which we are 
talking about here today.
    And America's Future is chaired by none other than the 
notorious Michael Flynn, President Trump's discredited and 
felonious first National Security Adviser. Michael Flynn, who 
has called for the military to rerun the 2020 election. Can you 
believe that?
    Cyber Ninjas also took money from----
    Mr. Biggs. Would the gentleman yield for a question?
    Mr. Johnson. Not at this time. I am speaking fact, and you 
will have some time when I finished to refute those facts. Do 
you disagree with anything that I have said?
    Mr. Biggs. Yes, thanks for yielding. Are you yielding time 
to me to respond? Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
    Yes. As public record, there were three bids for the 
audits. You said that it was a no-bid process.
    Mr. Johnson. Oh, OK. All right. Reclaiming----
    Mr. Biggs. There were three bids.
    Mr. Johnson. Reclaiming my time. OK, I knew I was going to 
get somebody to contest me on that. So it wasn't a no-bid 
contract. But the other allegations are much more severe that 
you choose not to contest because they are uncontestable.
    Do you contest the fact that America Project, run by 
Patrick Byrne, funded this audit? Do you contest the fact that 
Michael Flynn----
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. So are you yielding time for me to 
answer post--and I am sorry.
    Ms. Norton.[Presiding.] But his time has expired. He has no 
time to yield to you.
    Mr. Biggs. Sorry. Thank you, sir.
    Ms. Norton. And if that saves you from----
    Mr. Johnson. Having to answer.
    Ms. Norton. Yes, I bet you are.
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Norton. Your time has expired, sir, long time ago.
    Mr. Johnson. I yield back.
    Ms. Norton. I recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. 
Grothman, for five minutes.
    Mr. Grothman. Sure. It is too bad that we have to have this 
hearing. But nevertheless, I always think it is good to review 
the last election.
    I think absentee ballots, mail-in ballots are necessary for 
military folks, for people who are out of town. But 
nevertheless, it seems they were used more in this election 
than ever before. More, and perhaps they were unnecessary. I am 
always worried about them. Could somebody, maybe Mr. Bennett, 
tell us about how many mail-in ballots there were in this 
election compared to, say, the 2016 election?
    Mr. Bennett. In Maricopa County, there were about 1.9 
million ballots that were submitted by mail out of the 2.1 
million total.
    Mr. Grothman. Almost all were by mail?
    Mr. Bennett. Almost all what? I'm sorry.
    Mr. Grothman. All were by mail, you are saying?
    Mr. Bennett. About 1.9 million by mail, and a little shy of 
200,000 who voted at a polling or a voting center they now call 
it.
    Mr. Grothman. Could you compare that to four years ago?
    Mr. Bennett. Well, that ended up being about 88 percent 
vote by mail, which is up from about 80 percent four years ago.
    Is that about right, David?
    Mr. Grothman. OK. I have two concerns about vote by mail, 
and I am just wondering how you dealt with it in your audit. My 
first concern, you know, when you show up in person, you are 
right there. We know that Glenn Grothman is the one voting. He 
showed his driver's license and whatever.
    When you get somebody who votes by mail, you don't know 
whether it was really that person. Did somebody else get the 
mail and fill it out? You know, how did you in the audit deal 
with the concern that maybe people were filling out a ballot, 
but it wasn't the same person who should have been filling it 
out? How did you deal with that, or how did the auditors deal 
with that?
    Mr. Bennett. Well, the auditors dealt with the original 
ballots after they had been either voted in person or submitted 
by mail. They had, during the election, been separated from 
those envelopes. So the auditors did not have the envelopes 
themselves.
    There was a subcontractor, Dr. Shiva, who looked at the 
images of the envelope affidavit signatures, and that was part 
of his report as one of the five sub-reports for the audit. But 
the auditors did not have the physical envelopes.
    Mr. Grothman. The question I am trying to get here, if I 
have a ballot from Mary Smith at 123 Elm Street, and how do I 
know that it was really did Mary Smith even still live there or 
that Mary Smith was the one who filled that out? Did the audit 
do anything in that regard?
    Mr. Bennett. The audit did very little in that in the sense 
that we did not have the envelopes. The answer to your question 
is in Arizona, if the envelope is returned and the County 
Election Department can tell that it's a valid envelope that 
they had sent to a voter. There's a bar code where they can 
check, and it pulls up the voter's information. And then 
there's a signature box, which is the affidavit that that voter 
is verifying that that's their ballot inside.
    So in Arizona, we do it primarily by verifying the 
signature in the signature box as matching the voter 
registration information that the county has on record.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Next question I have, my other concern 
that I always wish we wouldn't have so many vote by mails, is, 
is somebody else influencing that person, right? If I vote in 
person, there is nobody next to me. There is nobody checking 
the box for me. There is no ``make sure you are going to vote 
for President Trump'' here.
    Is there any way we can check if there was undue influence 
of that nature?
    Mr. Bennett. Not to my knowledge, Congressman.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Do you think that is a flaw in the 
system, a flaw in having too many absentee ballots, and that we 
really will never know if, you know, people were--people's 
boyfriend or girlfriend said you have to fill it out this way 
or--we are never going to know that, right?
    Mr. Bennett. It's hard to know that. In Arizona, most 
counties--well, all counties put a line underneath that 
signature box, which invites the voter, if they did receive 
assistance from someone to help them cast their ballot, a name 
can be entered there and a phone number for contact.
    Mr. Grothman. Do you feel--or maybe I will even ask Mr. 
Sellers here. Because I think part of the purpose of this 
hearing is to see whether we should change the election laws in 
any way. Do you feel that those are--and this is nothing 
against you guys, how you administer. But do you feel that 
there is a flaw in absentee voting in the sense that I am not 
sure we can really ever know, you know, who filled out that 
ballot or if that person was being coached? And if those laws 
do not happen, wouldn't we have to vote in person?
    Mr. Bennett. I believe, Congressman, that we can make some 
significant improvements for voter identification purposes. A 
driver's license number or some other type of data that can be 
confirmed by the county to make sure that those vote by mail 
ballots were cast by the voters themselves.
    Ms. Norton. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
    Ms. Norton. The gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Welch, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Welch. I thank the chair.
    There is a frustration about having these hearings for me 
certainly, but probably for many of us, because we are 
accustomed to having the vote in the election occur, the votes 
be counted, and then the candidate who got the most votes be 
accepted as the leader of the country. That is in dispute now.
    And there are two elements here that are relevant. One is 
the role of President Trump himself, and the other is the role 
of social media. We know that President Trump used an enormous 
energy and effort to promote this--his theory that he won the 
election, and it was stolen. The call to the Georgia secretary 
of state, the invitation to the Capitol riot, all the folks who 
showed up on January 6, the pressure he put on the Justice 
Department, essentially threatening to fire Mr. Rosen and 
replace him with a loyalist.
    These lies, the assertion he made that he won the election 
and it was stolen was picked up by social media, and what we 
now have is a situation where we are having this hearing. And 
even today, Mr. Biggs won't even acknowledge that President 
Biden was the elected leader of this country, won't accept 
that. I am just going to state it. Not a hard question to 
answer.
    Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair, I would like an opportunity to 
respond since he mentioned me by name.
    Mr. Welch. The second, in fact, the majority of the 
Republicans--the majority of Republicans, according to polls, 
do not believe that Biden was elected. Why is that?
    Mr. Biggs. Point of order.
    Mr. Welch. Just because their party tried to----
    Ms. Norton. The gentleman has cited a point of order. Just 
a moment.
    Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair, I have been cited by name, and my 
statement has been misconstrued and actually misstated. If he 
is going to continue, I would like an opportunity to respond to 
that at some point.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Madam Chair, that is not a proper 
point of order. That is not a proper point of order.
    Ms. Norton. Not a proper point of order. Would the 
gentleman continue?
    Mr. Welch. Thank you.
    So we have the situation where the President, who is 
trusted by the folks who voted for him, is telling them a lie 
that he, in fact, won the election. So it is not surprising the 
majority of Republicans and candidates for Congress on the 
Republican Party are asserting that the election was stolen.
    So I want to ask a few questions, both about the big lie 
and also about media. The July 15 Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan 
claim there were 74,000 mail-in ballots that had been counted 
with no record of having been sent in, they were, in fact, as 
we know, in-person early ballots.
    Is that right, Mr. Sellers? I want to ask you about that.
    Mr. Sellers. I am sorry. Could you repeat the question?
    Mr. Welch. The mail-in ballots were claimed by President 
Trump to have mysteriously appeared. What, in fact, was the 
reality of that?
    Mr. Sellers. There is no reality of that. The--every 
portion of the election process was very, very carefully 
monitored and controlled.
    Mr. Welch. Did that theory that was spread by President 
Trump on social media make it more difficult for you to do your 
job in just a straightforward way?
    Mr. Sellers. Well, yes. But you know, 88 percent of the 
people in Arizona voted by mail, and that became a very 
important part of the efficiency of our election during a 
pandemic.
    Mr. Welch. Thank you.
    And Ms. Ramachandran, can you explain why conspiracy 
theories and disinformation about the election, something that 
has now pervaded our society, are so dangerous for our 
democracy?
    Ms. Ramachandran. Thank you so much for that question.
    Conspiracy theories and disinformation are dangerous for 
our democracy because they lay the groundwork for legitimizing 
future attempts to sabotage elections to reject the will of the 
voters. And these sham partisan reviews, like the one we've 
been seeing in Arizona, contribute to that disinformation and 
those lies because insinuations are made. They're not backed up 
by proper evidence, and then they get picked up and amplified, 
as you've described, on social media.
    So, for instance, I mentioned that Shiva Ayyadurai, one of 
the people that was hired by the Arizona Senate to look at 
ballot envelope images in this review, he conflated the 
envelope images with the actual ballots. And so he made a 
presentation to the Arizona Senate in which he falsely stated 
each of these voters submitted two ballots, when he was 
describing these images that he was looking at in a data file.
    Promptly the same day, that statement was picked up by 
Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers in which she said that there 
were double votes, there were double--duplicate votes, that 
sort of thing, on Twitter and insinuated that there was fraud. 
So that's the relationship between these sham reviews and this 
disinformation campaign.
    Mr. Welch. So a final question. In addition to having 
whoever is the candidates are accept the outcome of the 
election, is it time for us to have some rules that apply to 
social media with respect to the spreading of false 
information?
    That is to you, Ms. Ramachandran. Thank you.
    Ms. Ramachandran. Thank you. Thank you for that question.
    In a report that the Brennan Center published a little bit 
earlier this year describing attacks on election officials, we 
made a number of recommendations for the problem of 
disinformation on social media. One of those recommendations is 
for social media companies to amplify the true information that 
is provided by trusted election officials so that they're not 
sort of drowned out by all of this disinformation.
    Mr. Welch. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney.[Presiding.] The gentleman's time has 
expired. He yields back.
    I now yield to the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Comer.
    Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair?
    Chairwoman Maloney. Mr. Comer, you are now recognized.
    Mr. Comer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    If there were no irregularities, as the Democrats on the 
committee have indicated today, with the past election, I 
wonder if the Democrats on the committee would take back all 
the conspiracy theories that they spread about the U.S. Postal 
Service sabotaging absentee ballots. Because that was a 
mainstay in this hearing--in this committee for many months 
prior to the election.
    But then, poof, once the absentee ballots went 
overwhelmingly for Mr. Biden, it seems that, you know, there is 
not a peep. I wonder if the Democrats on this committee, Madam 
Chair, will take that back, and would they issue a formal 
apology to all the postal workers and the postal unions who 
were very offended by the accusation that they would sabotage 
an election?
    Chairwoman Maloney. This is a very serious conversation 
about the integrity of our elections, and you are trying to 
change the subject. And I am focused on this.
    Mr. Comer. Madam Chair, I am talking about the 
irregularities in the election. But Madam Chair, obviously, I 
am going to take that as a no. Again, I think it is terrible 
what--what the Democrats on this committee assumed that the 
postal workers would do to the election. But with that, I would 
yield the balance of my time to Mr. Gosar from Arizona.
    Mr. Raskin. Would the gentleman yield? Would the gentleman 
yield? Would the gentleman yield for a response?
    Mr. Comer. I yield the balance of my time. You can have 
time if someone will yield to you, Mr. Raskin. I yield the 
balance of my time to Mr. Gosar from Arizona.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Mr. Biggs. Mr. Biggs is recognized. He 
means Mr. Biggs.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I think he yielded to Gosar, but I will go ahead and take 
briefly to calling into question the testimony of the gentleman 
from out of town that said, mischaracterized the colloquy that 
I was engaged in. When I was engaged in that colloquy, Madam 
Chair, what I said very clearly was, as to the state of 
Arizona, the production and the outcome of the audits, I don't 
know who won in Arizona because there are a lot of questions 
and anomalies that have arisen through the audit that were not 
answered.
    And so, with that, I will yield back to Mr. Comer, who I 
think yielded to Gosar.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back, and I 
recognize Ms. Bush.
    Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair?
    Chairwoman Maloney. There is still time?
    Mr. Biggs. Yes, there is still time, and I was yielding 
to--see, Mr. Comer originally yielded to Mr. Gosar, but you 
gave to me. So I took it.
    Chairwoman Maloney. So it goes to Mr. Gosar now?
    Mr. Comer. I have three minutes remaining to Mr. Gosar.
    Chairwoman Maloney. OK. Mr. Gosar, you are recognized, Mr. 
Gosar. Are you on?
    Mr. Biggs. You are muted, Paul.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Please unmute.
    Mr. Gosar. Can you hear me now?
    Chairwoman Maloney. Yes.
    Mr. Gosar. OK. Mr. Gates, I wanted to hear, I think you 
stated that the County Board of Supervisors really tried to 
work with Senator Fann. Is that true?
    Mr. Gates. My apologies, Congressman. My testimony was that 
we received the subpoena from the State Senate. We----
    Mr. Gosar. I know. But you--I have a short amount of time 
here.
    Mr. Gates. Yes.
    Mr. Gosar. You tried to work with her? That is a simple 
question, yes or no?
    Mr. Gates. I believe that we tried to work with them, yes.
    Mr. Gosar. OK. So, so, Mr. Bennett, so in compliance with 
that--those subpoenas, it was said that everything was given to 
the audit team. Can you discuss the routers and the signature 
envelopes that to this day have not been given, in fact, they 
have obstructed every single way to be able to validate and 
have more information to this audit team? Can you address that, 
Mr. Bennett?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes. As to the routers, I was told personally 
by one of the staff in the county attorney's office that they 
would provide those routers when they delivered the ballots and 
the machines. When that did not occur, I was told in person 
that they would provide virtual access to the routers within 
the next couple of weeks.
    When that didn't happen, we were then told that there was a 
problem within the county to secure Sheriff's Department Social 
Security numbers and county health records and that we would 
not have access to them at all. I believe that just within the 
last few weeks, the Senate and the county have come to an 
agreement to jointly appoint a Special Master to allow the 
routers and the splunk logs and all of the other things to be 
looked at as far as the Internet connectivity.
    As to the ballot envelopes, was that your second question, 
Mr. Gosar?
    Mr. Gosar. Yes, it was.
    Mr. Bennett. To my recollection, the ballot envelopes were 
not on the January subpoena, and--but the images of the ballots 
were, and those were eventually----
    Mr. Gosar. Let me direct you. My understanding is the court 
order from the judge said all information pertaining to the 
election was mandated from the accountant to the oversight of 
the Senate. Is that not true?
    Mr. Bennett. I was not at that hearing. So I would defer to 
yourself or others that may know better than I.
    Mr. Gosar. I understand that--I understand those were the 
premises. You know, this wasn't a lose-lose situation. And it 
was a win-win situation because trust is a series of promises 
kept. What better way to keep up the trust in your voters is by 
being transparent?
    That is why I find it very disheartening from the actions 
of the County Board of Supervisors and their attorneys fighting 
and kicking every step of the way. So the last thing I would 
like to make sure is that everybody----
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Gosar [continuing]. On this committee should watch 
``Kill Chain.'' I hope everybody watches ``Kill Chain.''
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired. The 
gentlelady from Missouri, Ms. Bush, is recognized. Ms. Bush?
    Ms. Bush. St. Louis. And I thank you, Madam Chair, for 
convening this hearing.
    Although the audit in Arizona failed to uncover any 
evidence of widespread fraud, it was successful in achieving 
its bigger goal, to pave the way for election subversion laws 
that are spreading across this country. We have all talked a 
lot about voter suppression in recent months, as the House has 
considered historic legislation, but the threat of election 
subversion has received far less attention.
    So I would like to hear from our experts, and I know going 
over this again, just to be clear, just having a very clear 
understanding for me what election subversion is and how this 
audit has fueled it and what Congress can do to address it.
    So, Ms. Ramachandran, briefly can you explain what election 
subversion is, just so we can be a little more clear, and how 
it differs from voter suppression, the difference?
    Ms. Ramachandran. Sure, and thank you for that question.
    I'm sure that different people would have slightly 
different definitions of all of these terms. But to me, 
election subversion is what occurs when someone tries to change 
the outcome of an election or manipulate the outcome of an 
election that does not reflect the true will of the voters. And 
of course, suppressing votes is one indirect way of doing that.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you.
    How has the Cyber Ninjas' partisan audit laid the 
groundwork for more election subversion laws, if you could 
answer that?
    Ms. Ramachandran. Thank you for that question.
    The Cyber Ninjas' review has laid the groundwork for these 
laws because they've made insinuations of fraud. For instance--
that we've seen repeated here today, actually. For instance, 
they implied that perhaps some voters had voted more than once 
in multiple counties. They implied that some voters who had 
moved from their residence and insinuated they were no longer 
eligible to vote had voted.
    They implied that, you know, that the county was not 
keeping up its list maintenance properly despite their 
membership in the ERIC data base that the other witness 
mentioned. And through all of those implications, they justify 
future legislation that would propose undermining the will of 
the voters.
    So it fortunately did not pass, but there was a bill 
proposed in Arizona that would have permitted the state 
legislature to simply pick electors for President that were not 
the ones that the voters voted for. That kind of outrageous 
bill is the sort of thing these insinuations unfortunately lead 
to.
    Ms. Bush. Yes, yes. Thank you for bringing that up.
    The Brennan Center has found that in this year alone more 
than 200 bills containing election subversion provisions have 
been introduced in state legislatures across the country, and 
24 of those bills have been enacted into law. How are these 
laws being used to subvert the legitimate election results? I 
know you kind of touched on it, but we know that they are 
extremely dangerous. So can you go a little bit further into 
that?
    Ms. Ramachandran. Thank you so much for that question.
    I do have to apologize. It's a large effort to track all of 
these laws across the states, and I am certainly not the sort 
of primary lead on that effort at the Brennan Center. But I am 
familiar with my colleagues' work and the fact that there is a 
whole host of laws that make it harder to vote that have been 
popping up all over the country.
    Ms. Bush. Yes. And as you brought up, two months into the 
Cyber Ninjas' partisan audit in Arizona, HB 2720 was introduced 
by State Representative Shawnna Bolick on May 24, 2021. So, Ms. 
Ramachandran, could you please explain what impact this 
particular bill would have on voters in Arizona, particularly 
Black, Brown, and Indigenous voters?
    Ms. Ramachandran. Thank you so much for that question.
    If that sort of legislation were ever to pass in Arizona, 
the impacts would be severe because the voters would be at risk 
of having their choices not respected in the election for 
President. There would be a risk that the state legislature 
would attempt to choose a different slate of electors than the 
slate that received the most votes merely because they did not 
like the outcome of the election. And obviously, that would 
be--that means risking the disenfranchisement of millions of 
voters in Arizona, if that were ever--ever to come to fruition.
    Ms. Bush. So this bill would allow the state legislature to 
override the popular vote in Presidential elections up through 
Inauguration Day, which is a blatant display of white 
supremacy. It is profoundly dangerous for the survival of 
American democracy.
    If the people who run our elections do not believe in 
counting people's votes, it is clear that the threat of 
election subversion is present and grave. We must continue our 
oversight work to expose this audit and prevent anti-democratic 
election subversion laws from spreading any further.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentlelady yields back. The 
gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Gibbs, is recognized. Mr. Gibbs?
    Mr. Gibbs. Madam Chairman, Chairwoman?
    Chairwoman Maloney. Yes.
    Mr. Gibbs. I ask unanimous consent for a letter that I sent 
to you and the committee from myself to be entered into the 
record.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Without objection.
    Mr. Gibbs. Thank you.
    In this letter, I talk about disappointment for the work of 
this Committee on Oversight and Reform as performed under your 
leadership. Congressional oversight is one of the most 
important responsibilities of the U.S. Congress, and we are 
responsible for investigating alleged instances of poor 
administration, arbitrary and capricious behavior, abuse, 
waste, and dishonesty and fraud.
    Since the beginning of the Biden administration, our 
country has been faced with multiple crises and failures of 
executive leadership, and yet you have not allowed our 
committee to conduct oversight in these pressing issues. We 
have not examined the policies and decisions which have led to 
the Southern border crisis, where apprehensions were up almost 
500 percent compared to last year.
    Recently, former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Rodney 
Scott wrote a letter to the Senate and House leadership stating 
multiple options have been given to the Biden administration by 
Civil Service staff within Customs and Border Patrol, 
Immigration, and Department of Homeland Security on border 
security, but every recommendation has been similarly rejected.
    Last week, the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties 
Subcommittee conducted Part 6 of its hearing titled, 
``Confronting Violent White Supremacy.'' But you have yet to 
hold a hearing on the summer violence perpetuated by Antifa-
associated groups in 2020 during which dozens of people were 
killed or injured, over 62,000 National Guard personnel were 
activated and at least 14,000 people were arrested, and 
approximately $2 billion worth of property damaged.
    Additionally, you continue to waste this committee's time 
examining state laws regarding abortion. A week after the House 
of Representatives passed the so-called Women's Health 
Protection Act, legislation to expand the right to kill a baby 
in the womb up until the day it is born. This committee does 
not have jurisdiction over state laws. The Supreme Court has 
the power to decide if state laws regarding abortion are 
constitutional and is already set to review the 15-week 
abortion ban law passed in Mississippi.
    Finally, on the ongoing national security and humanitarian 
crisis in Afghanistan, it is unbelievable that we have yet to 
hold a public, I meant public hearing, including with Secretary 
of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. 
The American people deserve to have those responsible for the 
disastrous events that transpired in Afghanistan and for the 
loss of 13 of our service members held accountable.
    Instead of working to address any of these crises, you have 
decided to waste this committee's time by holding a hearing 
trying to bring private contractors fulfilling a contractual 
obligation which they were hired by the Arizona State Senate. 
The audit was conducted in a timely manner at minimal cost to 
taxpayers in Arizona.
    This is compared to the congressional Democrats spending 
two years perpetuating false accusations of election 
irregularities in the 2016 Presidential election where Mueller, 
the special counsel, spent nearly $32 million investigating 
President Trump, during which they found no evidence or 
collusion with Russia. And I would add in recent declassified 
documents, they knew from the beginning, nearly the beginning, 
that was fraud that was being laid on the American people and 
the allegations were untrue.
    I implore you to stop using this committee for political 
messages to divide this country further and instead work 
urgently to address the issues caused by the current 
administration.
    Mr. Bennett, in your testimony, you talked about the audit 
may have confirmed the results of other things that deal--not 
just the numbers. You talked about missing or unmatched 
signatures on ballot envelope affidavits, missing serial 
numbers, matching duplicate ballots from the originals. And you 
also talk in your testimony about the lack of cooperation and 
unwillingness for the local Board of Election officials to work 
in the audit to get these answers.
    The question is, Mr. Bennett, did you get any answers of 
how many, what kind of numbers we are looking at of missing or 
unmatched signatures, missing serial numbers, voter 
registration abnormalities, Mr. Bennett?
    Mr. Bennett. I would say that the audit did not receive 
those answers, but the audit report has gone to the Senate. The 
Senate has forwarded that on to the state attorney general, who 
I think is going to be working through his Election Integrity 
Unit directly with the county to get answers to those 
questions.
    For example, I believe the county reported that they 
rejected about 1,400 envelopes for lack of signatures. The 
subcontractor that worked for the audit thought that there 
could be as many as 3,500 to 4,000 either missing signatures or 
just scribbles. Those kinds of things will be worked out, I 
think, between the attorney general's office and the county as 
to whether they have justification for the envelopes that they 
opened and processed or not.
    Mr. Gibbs. And I think to--you know, asking for questions, 
especially in closely held elections, and have audits and 
review is a good thing and how to we ought to proceed, 
particularly going forward.
    And I am out of time. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. The 
gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, is now 
recognized.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want 
to thank all of our witnesses for appearing before the 
committee.
    Given the election experts here, in a moment I want to 
discuss the methodology that the Cyber Ninjas used to come to 
the conclusions in its report. But first, Mr. Gates, how would 
you respond to Representative Gosar and Mr. Bennett's 
allegation that the county hasn't cooperated with the auditors? 
In particular, why were you concerned about turning over 
routers to Cyber Ninjas?
    Mr. Gates. Yes. So the issue of the routers is we had grave 
concerns from our sheriff and others at the county level that 
if we were to turn those routers over, it basically would have 
provided a road map for even a decent hacker to get into our 
systems. So, one, there were significant cybersecurity 
concerns.
    Second, this would have basically brought down our 
operations at the county, and we are the fourth-largest county 
in the country. We've got to provide services to our residents 
every day. And then, additionally, there would have been a cost 
in putting that network back together.
    That's why we came to an agreement, as Mr. Bennett 
mentioned, with President Fann. And in that agreement, by the 
way, President Fann signed it, saying that the county has fully 
complied with the subpoena. But just so that, you know, we 
wouldn't have these cybersecurity concerns, we have jointly 
agreed on former Congressman John Shadegg serving as the 
Special Master.
    Cyber Ninjas can ask questions about the routers and what 
went on there, and Congressman Shadegg will consult with IT 
experts, and they'll be able to provide answers to those 
questions.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Seems like a pretty basic principle 
of election integrity that the keeper of the routers and the 
protector of the integrity of our elections shouldn't be 
turning over the routers to a private organization that has 
absolutely no expertise in conducting audits. And that's really 
the premise of the rest of my questions.
    Mr. Becker, can you briefly describe how the method Cyber 
Ninjas used to count ballots differed from standard procedures? 
And really, what was the acceptable error rate for that 
process, and what error rate is typically permissible in 
standard audit procedure?
    Mr. Becker. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    So, in general, the way audits are conducted--and there is 
an established set of best practices for these, and these have 
been done extensively in many states and were done in 
extensively many states, including Arizona in 2020. Is that 
generally there is a statistical random sampling of the ballots 
that is taken. They are reviewed by nonpartisan or bipartisan 
teams and observed by observers from all of the parties in the 
campaigns while this process is going on, and those tallies are 
then checked against the official tallies.
    This process is entirely transparent from start to finish, 
and very importantly, it is designed and defined well in 
advance of the election before anybody knows what the outcome 
of the election is. Georgia is a great example of that, where 
they literally counted every single paper ballot by hand, first 
time they had paper ballots in Georgia in two decades.
    When you're spinning ballots around on colored lazy Susans, 
being observed by people who don't have adequate training, who 
have no experience in elections, where there are severe 
limitations on the ability of observers from across the 
political spectrum to view them, you're going to have 
significant problems with that process. The error rate is going 
to be extremely high.
    And yet even with a high error rate and with an invalid 
process, what we saw was they could determine--they reached--
they found no evidence that indicated that Maricopa County's 
processes yielded the wrong result. In fact, they--again, I 
would say this didn't confirm the result in any way because it 
was unnecessary. It was already confirmed under Arizona law, as 
written by the Arizona Senate in advance of the election.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
    An audit, when run well, verifies the results of an 
election and assures voters that their vote has been counted. 
But this circus didn't meet those basic standards because it 
wasn't really an audit. It was a gaslighting exercise funded by 
dark money groups who want to promote the big lie and undermine 
confidence in our elections.
    This conspiratorial worldview also infects Republicans in 
my home state of Florida, where a pending bill in the state 
legislature would conduct a forensic audit of the 2020 
election, but of course, only in counties that Biden won. And 
this effort is especially puzzling, given that the noted Trump 
lackey, Governor Ron DeSantis, heaped praise on the 2020 
election process.
    These so-called audits aren't about unearthing facts. They 
are about ginning up justification for repressive voting rights 
laws that prevent Black and Brown people from access to the 
voting booth and helping Republicans lay the groundwork for 
setting aside the work of local elections officials so they can 
possibly usurp future elections. These are democracy corrosion 
exercises, nothing more.
    So thank you very much for your testimony, and I hope the 
committee remains continued--and I trust that we will--
continued to election integrity, not promoting the big lie, as 
our colleagues have been doing since the end of the election.
    I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The lady yields back. The gentleman 
from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins, is recognized for five minutes. 
Mr. Higgins?
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    How dare we? How dare we? How dare the sovereign states and 
free Americans challenge the oppressive, omniscient authority 
of the all-powerful national Democratic machine? How dare we 
exercise our legal and constitutional rights to question 
irregularities of an incredibly significant election?
    We have thousands of affidavits signed by American citizens 
regarding very suspicious election irregularities on the days 
and weeks leading up to the 2020 election and specific shocking 
observations of electoral sabotage on Election Day itself. 
Well, my colleagues summarily dismiss the sworn affidavits of 
American citizens as liars and conspiracy theorists, yet an 
illegal alien crossing our border with a scripted plea for 
asylum taped to his head, he is seen as a paragon of virtue.
    The 2020 Presidential election was, indeed, compromised. We 
don't know how much because investigations take time. Yet as of 
January 20, 2021, Joe Biden was, indeed, our inaugurated 
President.
    Listen good. On January 20, 2025, we are going to fix that. 
And Democrats will have an opportunity to deal with the re-
election and newly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump again, 
and I have no doubt that my Democratic colleagues across the 
aisle will object.
    Madam Chair, I yield the remainder of my time to my friend, 
colleague, and gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs.
    Mr. Biggs. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
    You know, I am straining out a gnat, and I am just going to 
go back, Mr. Gates. I am just going to tell you that Bob 
Christie of the AP--and you know who Bob is, and I know who Bob 
is--of Arizona, on February 5 said that the County Board of 
Supervisors asked the court Friday to quash a State Senate 
subpoena.
    Well, you and I can continue that conversation offline, but 
we got so much more to go, I am straining out a gnat. But that 
just--I don't know, it is just bugging me, OK? Just wanted to 
make sure we get that out somewhere.
    So, Mr. Bennett, what is the standard error rate on audits 
run by Maricopa County?
    Mr. Bennett. The stand--well, in Arizona state law, when 
you do a hand count, it's a very limited hand count.
    Mr. Biggs. And that is the audit that we are talking about 
here? That they claimed that they did?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes. For example, in this election, the--the 
total number of ballots processed by Maricopa County ended up 
being processed in 10,341 batches, most of them at 200 per 
batch. As the first mail-in returns were coming in, before 
election and before being counted, 52 batches were set aside as 
potential batches to hand count verify.
    Twenty-six of those 52 were randomly selected through a 
process that's stipulated in state law, and it was those 26 
batches, totaling about 5,000 mail-in ballots, that were hand 
counted and compared with the tally by the election machines 
that Maricopa had run. And in this election, they--their hand 
count audit, as it's called in Arizona, matched exactly. They 
said there was no difference between the machine count of those 
5,000 ballots and the hand count done by bipartisan teams.
    But that's 26 batches of ballots out of 10,341. It's very 
front loaded, and it's not a random sample of all 10,341 
batches.
    Mr. Biggs. Just I guess that is part of the essence of 
this. It is not even a random sample?
    Mr. Bennett. Correct.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes. And so that changes the nature of what you 
are looking at. You are looking at, with a full forensic audit, 
you are trying to get at everything you can?
    Mr. Bennett. Mm-hmm, yes.
    Mr. Biggs. So, and what I am trying to understand is, if I 
understand right, there were chain of custody issues and other 
statutory violations that you mentioned in your opening 
statement. I am trying to understand if my colleagues--not my 
colleagues, but my friends over here from Arizona are saying 
they are OK with those laws, those statutory violations.
    And I will just--Chairman Sellers, you got your mask off. 
So I guess you are ready to go. So I will ask you. Are you OK 
with those statutory violations?
    Mr. Sellers. I, frankly, don't believe there were any 
statutory violations. We, before----
    Mr. Biggs. So you don't think the chain of custody, you 
don't think that was a violation at all?
    Mr. Sellers. We were very, very careful with our chain of 
custody. I can't speak for what happened after it left our 
chain of custody because the Arizona Senate signed off, 
accepting responsibility, once we delivered the ballots----
    Mr. Biggs. But the testimony today is that you had chain of 
custody problems that were inherent in what you delivered. You 
don't--didn't see that?
    Mr. Sellers. I disagree with that.
    Mr. Biggs. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired. The 
gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, is recognized for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Madam Chair, for doing this very 
important hearing.
    There are two things that should make us really nervous 
about this fishing expedition, this sham audit that was 
conducted by Cyber Ninjas. One is that Cyber Ninjas doesn't 
really have the qualifications to conduct this kind of an audit 
in an authentic fashion, and so that is obviously a source of 
real concern.
    The other is how this thing was funded. And I know a couple 
of my colleagues have already referred to it, but I would like 
to go into that a little bit more. We know the Arizona Senate 
only agreed to pay Cyber Ninjas I think $150,000 for the audit, 
which was far short of what was ultimately needed to conduct 
this thing.
    Instead, what happened was the Republican Party in Arizona 
went out to raise funds from dark money groups, these 501(c)(4) 
groups with ties to President Trump and ties to the big lie 
narrative, and they raised $6.7 million from those groups, 
which was 98 percent of the cost of the audit overall.
    Ms. Ramachandran, does the public have visibility into the 
donors who contributed to these 501(c)(4) groups?
    Ms. Ramachandran. Thank you so much for that question.
    No. There's been minimal transparency into the donors. 
There's been a small amount of disclosure from Mr. Logan about 
some of the top groups, the top (c)(4)'s that you mention. As 
far as, you know, who--who, in turn, has donated to those 
groups, I'm not aware of any publicity on that front.
    Mr. Sarbanes. And are legitimate election audits usually 
funded by dark money groups? Why or why not?
    Ms. Ramachandran. Thank you. Legitimate election audits are 
usually performed by election officials with members of the 
political parties present, observing and with meetings open to 
the public. They're not very costly. They are generally funded 
from within the budget for the elections office, and it would 
be ideal for them to continue to be funded in that way.
    I know that in the Freedom to Vote Act, Congress has called 
for risk-limiting audits and has also called for appropriations 
to help support election officials and move them toward those 
audits.
    Mr. Sarbanes. Thanks very much. That is how it ought to--
that is how it ought to operate.
    You know, if you look at some of these groups that funded 
the audit, this sham audit, you have got a nonprofit chaired by 
former National Security Adviser for Donald Trump, Michael 
Flynn. That was $1 million coming in from that group. Former 
Trump lawyer Sidney Powell's group provided over $500,000 to 
support this inquiry that was conducted. Patrick Byrne--we 
heard this before from my colleague Congressman Hank Johnson--
prominent businessman supporter of former President Trump, 
heads a group that contributed over $3.4 million to this audit.
    All three of these individuals, the ones I just mentioned, 
by the way, in December--last December, Ms. Powell, Mr. Flynn, 
Mr. Byrne--took part in an Oval Office meeting where they 
reportedly encouraged President Trump to take steps to overturn 
the election, including by seizing Dominion voting machines.
    So, Ms. Ramachandran, would you question the impartiality 
of any audit that was primarily funded by groups headed by 
these three individuals?
    Ms. Ramachandran. Absolutely I would question the 
impartiality, and I would add that objectivity is a minimal 
standard that's required for an audit to provide confidence for 
the public.
    Mr. Sarbanes. I have to say Mr. Bennett made a comment 
apparently that he told reporters it doesn't matter who paid 
for it when he was referring to the audit. But I disagree with 
that completely. It matters a great deal.
    When your salary and your security and 98 percent of the 
entire audit is paid for by people who want to overturn the 
election and maybe even a losing candidate himself--because we 
know Donald Trump was certainly interested in getting in there 
and supporting these efforts--that should make everyone 
question its impartiality and its results.
    I am glad you mentioned the Freedom to Vote Act. This is 
another reason why we have to pass it, to shine a light on this 
dark money in politics, require all organizations involved in 
political activity to disclose their donors. The current system 
allows big money contributor special interests to hide the 
source of their political spending.
    We have to fix that. We need to do it for the public and to 
lift up the credibility of our political system. So passing the 
Freedom to Vote Act would certainly help that.
    Thanks very much, Madam Chair, and I yield back my time.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. The 
gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Norman, is now recognized. 
Mr. Norman?
    Mr. Norman. Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney.
    Let me just say, you know, I have heard a couple of 
statements made, the fact that undermining democracy, and I 
have heard my good friend Mr. Raskin say this is the most 
important hearing. You know, the hearing that we should be 
having now is the crisis on the border. The polls show people 
are fed up with the 8 million immigrants that are coming in 
here intentionally by the Democrats.
    We undermine democracy by our military leaving Afghanistan, 
having the 13 Marines die, leaving Americans behind. We 
undermine democracy by intending to stack the Supreme Court. 
And it goes on and on. So I wish we would have that.
    And the other good thing, the one good thing about this 
hearing that is crystal clear, Democrats do not want voter ID. 
They just don't want it because that gives them a chance to do 
the mail-in ballots, which can be altered. It is showing it in 
this--the testimony that is given.
    I would like to yield the balance of my time to Congressman 
Barr. Andy?
    Mr. Biggs. Yes? You mean Biggs, right? Not Andy Barr.
    Mr. Norman. Biggs. Biggs. I am sorry. I am sorry.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Biggs. Boy, that hurts, but it hurts Mr. Barr far worse 
than it hurts me. I am sorry about that, Mr. Barr.
    Thank you, Mr. Norman. Appreciate that very much.
    So I am going to direct a few of these questions. I am 
going to ask the Arizona folks here these questions. So I will 
start with Mr. Bennett, and then we will try to work on down so 
everybody can get there.
    Is it standard practice to delete files off a server after 
an election, Mr. Bennett?
    Mr. Bennett. I hope not.
    Mr. Biggs. So, Mr. Gates, will you agree with that?
    Mr. Gates. I would say that it is appropriate to maintain 
files, and that's exactly what we did. We deleted--the deleted 
files have been discussed. They were archived.
    Mr. Biggs. So you admit that you guys did delete--Maricopa 
County did delete files off the server after the election?
    Mr. Gates. That were--that are archived.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes, and so when you released these servers and 
this information to the auditors to begin with, they didn't 
have access to those archived files at first. Is that fair to 
say?
    Mr. Gates. They did not subpoena those. That's correct.
    Mr. Biggs. OK. So, so you didn't feel obligated to turn 
that over then to them?
    Mr. Gates. We responded to the subpoena.
    Mr. Biggs. OK. Mr. Bennett, your response to that?
    Mr. Bennett. I find it, frankly, laughable to suggest that 
a county, in response to a subpoena, could say we will delete 
files from the hard drives and materials that we give to the 
auditors because we have those files archived on data that we 
did not give to the auditors, when the subpoena said turn over 
all the records related to the election.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes, see, that is the way I read the subpoena is 
more broadly than the county read it, for sure.
    So, so your Twitter account mentions that the purging of 
the 2020 election data base in the beginning of February is a 
standard practice. Can you please confirm for me that that is 
what you do for all elections, after all elections that you do 
that?
    Mr. Gates. I cannot confirm that for you today, but we can 
certainly get you that answer, Congressman.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, can you confirm that today or not?
    Mr. Sellers. I really can't confirm that either today. I 
just know that because there is limited space on these servers, 
when you have to run another election, then you have to make 
room for the additional election data.
    Mr. Biggs. So, so was there additional--was there still--
well, let me just rephrase this. If that is the standard 
practice, which is kind of--I don't think you guys are saying 
that you know for sure, but the chairman just intimated that 
that is the case, can you explain to me why data was still 
present for prior elections on the data base, in and of itself?
    Mr. Gates. Yes, again, I don't have an answer to that 
question, but we'll certainly get you an answer for it, 
Congressman.
    Mr. Biggs. OK. All right. I would appreciate it if you 
would get me that information.
    Mr. Sellers. And I do think that it's important that our 
recorder has suggested that he will be answering every question 
in a timely fashion.
    Mr. Biggs. That is the same recorder that campaigned that 
Adrian Fontes was incompetent and called him a criminal? And he 
was the guy that was running the 2020 election, and you 
actually hired someone to oversee Mr. Fontes because you guys 
didn't trust Mr. Fontes as well. Is that the same guy, Steve--
is that the same Stephen Richer?
    Mr. Gates. Yes, I wouldn't--I wouldn't put it that way 
exactly. But what we did was we did have statutory in--as you 
know, Congressman, Boards of Supervisors have responsibility 
for Election Day operations, and we took that back so that we 
would have four Republicans and two Democrats overseeing the 
2020 election. We thought that was important.
    Mr. Biggs. I will yield back. Thanks.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman from California, Ro 
Khanna, is now recognized. Ro Khanna?
    Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Mr. Bennett, you testified that the most significant 
finding of the audit is that the hand count of the physical 
ballots very closely matches the county's official results in 
the President and U.S. Senate races. That finding is 
frustrating to many who expected the audit to prove a different 
election result.
    I appreciate your honesty in that. So I just wanted to get 
a few things straight under oath, and please be brief since my 
time is limited.
    Mr. Bennett, given your statement, did Cyber Ninjas' hand 
count show that Joe Biden won more votes than Donald Trump in 
Maricopa County?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes. If I heard your question correctly, did 
the audit show that Mr. Biden got more votes in Maricopa County 
than Mr. Trump?
    Mr. Khanna. Yes. Did Cyber Ninjas--yes.
    Mr. Bennett. Yes, the audit--the audit--the audit shows 
that.
    Mr. Khanna. Do you have any reason to believe today that 
Joe Biden did not win the state of Arizona?
    Mr. Bennett. Not other than the, you know, questioned 
ballots, questioned envelopes.
    Mr. Khanna. I mean, do you think he is the legitimate--
legitimately elected President?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes.
    Mr. Khanna. So when President Trump says we won the Arizona 
forensic audit yesterday at a level that you wouldn't believe 
and said of President Biden he didn't win Arizona, he lost in 
Arizona based on the forensic audit, that is false. Correct? I 
mean, I am not asking you to pick a fight with the former 
President. I just want to make sure that people understand what 
the record is, that that is not a true statement. Correct?
    Mr. Bennett. I would not characterize it that way. I was 
asked by the Senate to be the liaison to the Maricopa audit, 
and the Maricopa audit found that the results were very similar 
to what Maricopa County canvassed in the official results.
    Mr. Khanna. So if anyone, including the former President, 
was saying that the audit somehow suggests that Donald Trump 
won the Arizona election, that would be a wrong and false 
interpretation of the audit. Correct?
    Mr. Bennett. I would say that he's probably making that 
statement based on his opinion of other things in the audit. I 
can't begin to----
    Mr. Khanna. But it would be--it would be--it is not your 
characterization of the audit?
    Mr. Bennett. Correct.
    Mr. Khanna. Well, then I don't think we have to have a post 
modern version of truth. There is truth and falsehood, and I 
don't think everyone just gets to make their own 
interpretation.
    Let me ask you this. Is it true that Cyber Ninjas found no 
bamboo fibers or watermarks placed by the Trump campaign on 
paper ballots or suspicious folds that show that ballots were 
fake or evidence for any of the conspiracy theories about 
changing the ballots that have been circulating online?
    Mr. Bennett. Did they do what about bamboo fibers, 
Congressman?
    Mr. Khanna. That they found no bamboo fibers or watermarks? 
This is one of the conspiracy theories.
    Mr. Bennett. To my knowledge----
    Mr. Khanna. I know it is----
    Mr. Bennett. To my knowledge, I never witnessed any 
evidence that they were specifically looking for bamboo fibers.
    Mr. Khanna. I appreciate that. And the report said that 
there was no evidence that the paper ballots had been tampered 
with. Correct?
    Mr. Bennett. I did witness on the floor of the audit that 
there were some paper ballots that were of concern as to 
whether they were authentic. So to say that none were I think 
would be incorrect.
    Mr. Khanna. But none that would materially affect your 
judgment, right, your earlier testimony that you thought Biden, 
President Biden legitimately got more votes than Donald Trump. 
Correct?
    Mr. Bennett. It would not change that outcome. Correct.
    Mr. Khanna. So far, Cyber Ninjas has refused to provide any 
meaningful documents to this committee, and it turned over just 
four documents to the Arizona Senate despite a court order. You 
know, you seem like someone who believes in the rule of law. Do 
you agree that Cyber Ninjas should obey court orders and 
requests from Congress?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes.
    Mr. Khanna. Let me ask you this, Mr. Bennett, because, you 
know, we come from different parties, different views, but you 
seem like you are trying to do a decent job in terms of the 
election. And it is all we have in our democracy, and you have 
people really concerned about whether the democratic system is 
going to continue in the robust way that we have had for 200 
years.
    Let me ask you just two final questions, and you can answer 
them both. One, do you think that there would ever be grounds 
for a state legislature to overturn votes if a candidate for 
President wins the popular vote in that state, or do you think 
that is going down a very dangerous road?
    And two, do you think it is healthy--put aside being a 
Republican or whether you voted for Trump or Biden. Do you 
think all of this conspiracy theory is healthy for our 
democracy? I mean, we have a legitimate President. And when 
half the country is saying that he is not elected President, 
does that help America stay a great nation in the 21st century?
    Mr. Bennett. Let me answer your second question first, 
Congressman. I do not consider it healthy for the number of 
references that have occurred even in this hearing alone that 
this was a hyperpartisan audit. The first thing that I did 
after being asked by the State Senate to be the liaison was to 
call the state Democrat chairman and ask that a co-chair, a co-
liaison be assigned who is a Democrat. I was refused four 
times.
    I called several prominent Democrats personally, all who 
either refused or told me after checking with state Democrat 
leaders that they should not. And so----
    Mr. Khanna. Mr. Bennett, I don't want to interrupt. I am 
not even trying to answer--maybe that is part of the point. I 
am not even trying to go at whether the auditors--I am just 
saying even some credibility--how do we get----
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired. The 
gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman may answer him in 
writing.
    The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Sessions, is recognized for 
five minutes. Mr. Sessions?
    Mr. Sessions. Madam Chairman, thank you very much.
    Mr. Gates, I am interested in going back to some 
conversation of several members, several members back. When an 
audit was done and prepared, did you follow these same 
procedures that under law would have been required from the 
time a ballot came in and you looked at the envelope and then 
placed that to make sure that it was the correct person and 
looked at that process that I understand is--has eight or nine 
different characteristics to it to ensure accuracy?
    Mr. Gates. So which audit were you talking about, 
Congressman?
    Mr. Sessions. So let me go back. At the time that Maricopa 
County did their audit or the audit that was performed by your 
county, whether that is you or the county, did you follow the 
same procedures in looking at the law that would have been 
followed by the people running the election?
    Mr. Gates. Well, I want to make sure that everyone 
understands the audits that we did. So we ran two audits. We 
authorized two audits that were run by certified voting 
technology companies.
    Now, you know, as Mr. Bennett referenced, at that point, 
you don't get to have any examination of the envelopes because 
the ballots have already come out. And in fact, the audits that 
we did were more focused on the machines themselves, on whether 
there was malware attached to the machines, whether there had 
been hacking, whether the machines had been connected to the 
Internet. Because there's been a lot of questions about that.
    So I want to be clear that the nature of the audit, the two 
audits that we authorized didn't involve the full process 
because, frankly, you're unable to do that because when the 
ballot comes out of the envelope, it's separated.
    Does that answer your question?
    Mr. Sessions. Well, it is your answer. I think you are 
trying to help me. What I am suggesting to you is, is there a 
process that is normally followed by the elections 
administrators or workers at the time they receive a mail-in 
ballot? Is there a process?
    Mr. Gates. Oh. Yes. No, there absolutely is a process. I 
apologize.
    So there's been some discussion about voter ID as it 
relates to mail-in ballots, and that's something, as an elected 
official, I've been concerned about over the years. And we 
currently have signature verification, and that's what happens 
when the ballot comes in. It does have--when the mail-in ballot 
comes in, it has a signature on it, and then the signature----
    Mr. Sessions. OK. So you and I have worked really well 
together. Was that process followed in the audits that you did?
    Mr. Gates. So, again, I want to be clear. I'm not trying to 
be obtuse, but that particular portion, the signature 
verification, was not part of our audit because the ballot had 
come out, it separated from the envelope itself.
    Mr. Sessions. OK. And I want to come back to that. I've got 
a question. Was there at any point in early voting an 
indication that was given by election officials that there 
would be no verification or audit process like what was given 
in Georgia that was given by election officials to say to 
people all the ballots will be counted?
    Mr. Gates. I'm not aware of any indication given from 
Maricopa County that we would not do the normal signature 
verification on mail-in ballots and voter ID check for Election 
Day voters.
    Mr. Sessions. So you believe then that there was no 
information given, public information that would have swayed 
anyone to think that the full, what are there, eight or nine 
different verification steps by a mail-in ballot person who is 
processing that, they check a number of things?
    Mr. Gates. Correct. Yes, I'm not aware of--well, go ahead.
    Mr. Sessions. OK. Well, no, you answered the question. OK, 
I have got 10 seconds left.
    Mr. Becker, there was a reference a minute ago to Internet. 
Is there any state that allows an Internet process to be 
utilized, or said another way, would it be against the law in 
Arizona for the Internet to have been used?
    Mr. Becker. So I have no information at all that Arizona, 
which has been using the same very verified paper processes for 
years with extensive mail balloting, as Secretary Bennett 
pointed out, that there was anything connected to the Internet. 
The most extensive use of even a small number of ballots that 
may have been transmitted over the Internet that I know of is 
in West Virginia, where they have been using a pilot program 
there to allow for primarily military and overseas voters to 
transmit their ballots over the Internet.
    Mr. Sessions. So during the process of the early voting and 
day of election, in your opinion, use of the Internet, by and 
large--except for West Virginia--would not have been allowed by 
law?
    Mr. Becker. So I'm not as much of an expert on Arizona law 
as the gentlemen that I'm sitting up here with, but I would----
    Mr. Sessions. No, I just said across the country.
    Mr. Becker. But what I'd tell you is I have--I know Arizona 
election procedures extensively. I've not seen any evidence 
that that did exist or could exist.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Maloney. And now the gentlelady from Michigan, 
Ms. Tlaib, is recognized.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Chairwoman. Thank you so much 
to all of you being here. I think this is so incredibly 
important.
    I know that in my community, we witnessed firsthand the 
radical backers of the former forever-impeached President's 
attempt to prevent votes from being counted in one of the most 
beautiful blackest cities in the country, the city of Detroit. 
But we all know it didn't stop there.
    Ever since Donald Trump was voted out of office by an 
overwhelmingly majority of voters in our country, he and his 
allies, led on the ground by Arizona State Senator--Senate 
President Karen Fann, have sought to turn Arizona into the 
poster child for their efforts to push false election fraud 
claims that failed elsewhere.
    Before their attempt, Chairwoman, to overturn the election, 
before it even started, I believe Senator Fann told the people 
of Arizona that it would be a ``big step in returning trust and 
confidence in our election process.'' Again, when the report 
was released, she said, ``This is not about Trump. This is not 
about overturning the election.''
    But you all should know that as early as December 2020, she 
bragged that she was working with Rudy Giuliani and the 
President to get ``forensic audit,'' which, you know, in 
Detroit, we call that voter suppression tactic, the so-called 
forensic audit in Arizona.
    Supervisor Gates, as you know, you are under oath, yes or 
no, do you believe the so-called audit was about restoring 
``trust and confidence in our election process?''
    Mr. Gates. So I believe that some of the people who were 
involved in this, you know, some good volunteers who got 
involved, I think that really was what they were focused on.
    But unfortunately, I do believe that a lot of people who 
led this, that was not their major focus was restoring 
confidence. Instead, I think it was more on raising doubts, and 
I think we're seeing that again today, quite frankly.
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes, they misled so many of our American people 
that really fell for it.
    You know, Chairman Sellers, was it your impression that 
Senator Fann was willing to work with you to conduct a fair and 
impartial so-called audit of the votes in Maricopa County to 
help restore trust in the elections process. Yes or no?
    Mr. Sellers. Well, I can't give just a simple yes or no 
answer because I've known President Fann for a number of years, 
and she and I had a lot of private meetings to try to resolve 
some of the issues that were coming up. And early on 
especially, I truly believed that her approach was to simply 
say there are questions from a number of our constituents that 
we need answers for, and I said I'm willing to work with you to 
get those.
    Ms. Tlaib. Well, we all know, although based on completely 
unreliable procedures, that Joe Biden actually won by more 
votes in Arizona than initially reported after it was done. Is 
that correct?
    Mr. Sellers. Well, that's what the results from this----
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes, he won more votes. Is that correct? At the 
end, it showed that he won more votes than it was initially 
reported in Arizona. Is that correct?
    Mr. Sellers. I can't verify the results that the Cyber 
Ninjas got in their report.
    Ms. Tlaib. OK. Well, Secretary Bennett, is that correct?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes. The hand count done by the audit 
increased----
    Ms. Tlaib. Hand count. Remember, not Internet, y'all. Hand 
count.
    Mr. Bennett. The hand count done by the audit reflected an 
increase in 350 votes as the margin Biden won in Maricopa 
County.
    Ms. Tlaib. So yet after the report was published, the 
former forever-impeached President issued a statement claiming, 
I quote, and I think my colleague said, ``It is clear in 
Arizona that they must decertify the election. You heard the 
numbers. It is a disgrace. We won the Arizona forensic audit 
yesterday on a level you wouldn't believe.''
    I mean, make no mistake, democracy is dying in America, 
folks. Fascism is here. We all must stand up against it, and we 
all--it is so incredibly important. I am asking, urging my 
colleagues, especially my Republican colleagues, to reject this 
lunacy, these complete lies, and we have to be committed to our 
causes --I apologize, committed to our democracy.
    I will end with two questions. Very quickly, Mr. Becker. 
First, do partisan attempts to overturn the will of the people 
like the one in Arizona and the efforts being planned in other 
states restore faith and confidence in America's elections? And 
the second, do you believe----
    Mr. Becker. No, we're seeing----
    Ms. Tlaib. The second, do you----
    Mr. Becker. No, we're seeing them having disastrous 
consequences----
    Ms. Tlaib. Absolutely.
    Mr. Becker [continuing]. And it appears--yes.
    Ms. Tlaib. And do you believe--and I am sorry because I 
only have 10 seconds. Do you believe efforts like this are 
intended to lay the groundwork for states to pass laws that 
intentionally make it more difficult for some people to vote?
    Mr. Becker. I don't know what the intentions are, but the 
effects of this are that it is actually deterring many people 
from voting, particularly Republicans, it appears, because they 
are believing a lot of these lies about--falsehoods about the 
integrity of the process.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, and I yield, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The lady's time has expired. And at the 
request of a witness, we will take a very brief bathroom break.
    The committee stands in recess for three minutes.
    [Recess.]
    Chairwoman Maloney. The committee will come to order. The 
gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Clyde, is recognized.
    Mr. Clyde. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    It is no secret that this country faces an uphill battle in 
restoring trust and integrity in our elections. Now Democrats 
claimed Republicans did not win races fairly in 2000 and again 
in 2004. And since 2016, we listened to the left repeat the big 
lie that Russia stole the election. That lie has been repeated 
now for almost five years.
    Now those same voices are simply beside themselves that 
Republicans would dare ask for integrity in our election 
process. So the question is when do we stop pointing fingers 
and start carrying out our duty to ensure our constituents can 
trust our elections?
    Building trust starts with taking steps to verify that all 
votes are legal and cast by eligible voters. Building trust 
does not start by harassing a private company doing a job that 
it was contracted to do.
    Nor does it start by violating the Tenth Amendment, 
federalism, and the rule of law by stepping in with a ``the 
Feds know best'' attitude. The Federal Government does not and 
should not have a say over how the state of Arizona carries out 
its elections, nor should it actively work to prohibit Arizona, 
or any state for that matter, from carrying out a forensic 
audit to verify the integrity of its election laws and to 
restore public trust at the polling booth.
    We need less Federal involvement in our elections, not 
more. The American people, and specifically, for today's 
hearing, those from Arizona, deserve to be able to cast votes 
with confidence and trust in an electoral process and outcome, 
irrespective of which candidate or party wins. Every legal vote 
must be counted, and those that are illegal must be set aside. 
We cannot allow any voter's legal vote to be invalidated and 
canceled by an illegal vote.
    I find it important to remind my friends on both sides of 
the aisle and our witnesses of the fact that we can take $100 
in $1 bills and count it as many times as we want, and the 
count will remain the same, 100. But if many of those bills are 
counterfeit, you may have 100 pieces of paper in your pocket, 
but you sure don't have $100 in legal tender.
    That is the real issue here today. It is not just the 
count. It is the counting of legal votes. Illegal and 
counterfeit votes must be tossed out. That is a common sense 
rule that must be followed in Arizona, Georgia, and all other 
elections.
    Thankfully, my home state of Georgia has worked to fix the 
serious problems that plagued our state's election process, 
such as signature discrepancies on absentee ballots, off-hour 
ballot counting, and unsecured ballot drop boxes, just to name 
a few, so that voters can trust the process. I will do 
everything in my power to ensure that Washington keeps its 
hands off Georgia's election laws and that our state's Tenth 
Amendment rights are not seized by the Federal Government.
    With that, I yield the remainder of my time to Mr. Biggs, 
so he, too, can keep Washington and this committee out of the 
business of the people of Arizona.
    Mr. Biggs. Thanks. I thank the gentleman from Georgia.
    So this is a question for Vice Chairman Gates and Chairman 
Sellers. So either one of you can answer it. Don't need both, 
but just either one. So I am trying to understand because it 
gets on the thematic thing that we were talking about just a 
moment ago.
    I am trying to understand how the auditors, whether the 
auditors you hired or the auditors that work for the State 
Senate, how were they able to do any type of validation of the 
2020 results if the data base was actually cleared before they 
got started?
    Mr. Gates. And again, that--well, again, that's something 
that I would prefer if we can provide a followup answer to you 
on that. But again, this was--this was all available, and I 
believe--I believe there may have been a public records 
request? I'm not sure if there was on that.
    But you know, we can----
    Mr. Biggs. But you had actually cleared the servers, and 
you backed them up to the--to the archive, you said. So just to 
change slightly, the auditors hired by y'all to do the audit, 
they were not FEC-certified forensic auditors, right? They 
were----
    Mr. Gates. They are--they were from--they were certified to 
operate on these machines, and----
    Mr. Biggs. But not audit----
    Mr. Gates [continuing]. They're voting system--they're from 
voting system laboratories.
    Mr. Biggs. Right. But they are not auditors. They are not 
certified auditors because the FEC doesn't actually certify any 
forensic auditors for elections. Is that correct?
    Mr. Gates. They are people who understand how election 
machines work. They have significant experience.
    Mr. Biggs. OK. So I am going to ask you a yes or no 
question because--because you and I can bounce around here. The 
FEC does not certify full forensic auditors at all?
    Mr. Gates. I'd--I believe that--I believe that's--oh, it's 
the EAC that certifies them.
    Mr. Biggs. They are not--they don't certify--EAC doesn't 
certify full forensic auditors?
    Mr. Gates. That term, that ``full forensic auditor,'' I'm 
not familiar. I don't think I've ever----
    Mr. Biggs. They don't--they don't do--they don't do 
forensic auditors. They don't certify. What they certify is 
deals with the machines themselves and tabulators and whether 
they can operate on those machines, right?
    Mr. Gates. And whether they've been tampered with and 
connected to the Internet.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired. And 
without objection, Mr. Stanton is authorized to participate in 
today's hearing. Mr. Stanton, you are now recognized.
    Mr. Stanton. Madam Chair, thank you for allowing me to 
participate in today's important hearing.
    I am very disappointed that Mr. Logan declined to appear 
here today to address questions about how the Cyber Ninjas firm 
was selected to conduct a multi-million dollar, month-long 
partisan audit. I suspect the reason he isn't here is because 
he does not have good answers, that his involvement is one of 
the reasons the so-called audit was a fraud from the beginning.
    Mr. Logan has a history of spreading baseless conspiracy 
theories about the election and may be one of the reasons why 
he was chosen to advance the false narrative by Mr. Trump's 
loyal followers in Arizona. I would like to walk through a 
little of that history right now.
    On November 19, 2020, Mr. Logan tweeted, ``Dominion servers 
in German were grabbed by the good guys in Germany.'' Dominion 
is a company that makes election servers.
    Mr. Logan was apparently referring to the theory spread by 
gateway pundit as well as convicted felon and former Trump aide 
George Papadopoulos that the U.S. military seized Dominion 
servers in Europe following the election.
    Mr. Becker, were Dominion election servers seized by the 
U.S. military in Germany or anywhere in Europe after the 
election?
    Mr. Becker. There is zero evidence to support any part of 
that allegation, including the idea that there were Dominion 
servers in Germany at any time.
    Mr. Stanton. Thank you.
    For the record, USA Today, the Associated Press, and 
Reuters all fact checked this claim and rated it false. 
According to USA Today, ``The U.S. Army denied performing such 
a raid, and the company whose purported servers were seized 
didn't even have servers in Germany.''
    The week before January 6, Mr. Logan prepared a document 
for the recently sanctioned Trump lawyer Sidney Powell to help 
Republican Senators who wanted to object to the certification 
of the election. This document's central claim was that 
Dominion's core software ``originates from intellectual 
property of Smartmatic, a company that was founded in Communist 
Venezuela with links to Chavez.''
    Mr. Becker, you are an expert in this field and have 
studied elections. Are you aware of any evidence to suggest 
that Dominion's core software originates from a company with 
ties to former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez?
    Mr. Becker. There is absolutely no connection between 
Dominion or any other software vendor in the United States and 
Hugo Chavez or the Nation of Venezuela, to my knowledge--or to 
anybody's knowledge, for that matter.
    Mr. Stanton. Thank you.
    And I want to point out for the record that even the Trump 
campaign knew this conspiracy was baseless. According an 
internal memo prepared for the campaign in mid November 2020, 
Trump campaign lawyers stated that Dominion has no direct ties 
to Venezuela.
    More recently, this summer, while the fraudulent audit in 
Arizona was taking place, Mr. Logan starred in a film called 
``The Deep Rig,'' which sought to prove that the 2020 
Presidential election was rigged against Donald Trump. In the 
film, Mr. Logan states without any supported evidence that the 
CIA or former members of the intelligence agency may be 
spreading disinformation around election fraud.
    Mr. Becker, is there any evidence supporting the theory 
that the CIA officers spread disinformation about election 
fraud? Any at all?
    Mr. Becker. There is zero evidence of that.
    Mr. Stanton. These conspiracy theories are all completely 
groundless, and yet Mr. Logan has publicly espoused them. If 
this was the person that Trump loyalists and Arizona Senate 
believed was the right person for the job, it is pretty clear 
that their goal was not to conduct an honest audit.
    If Mr. Logan were here today, we would ask him whether he 
still believes these conspiracy theories. We would also ask him 
how he could possibly conduct a fair and impartial audit when 
he has already made up his mind on the basis of debunked 
Internet conspiracy theories nearly eight months ago.
    We can't ask these questions because Mr. Logan 
unfortunately declined this committee's invitation to defend 
his work under oath.
    I yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. The gentleman yields back.
    And before we close, I want to offer Mr. Biggs an 
opportunity to offer any closing remarks you may have. Mr. 
Biggs, you are now recognized.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    As an old trial lawyer, I just got to know how long you are 
going to give me? Oh, as long as I want. OK. My flight doesn't 
leave for a couple hours. I can just go on.
    Anyway, thanks. Thanks, Madam Chair. Appreciate it very 
much.
    I agree with so much of what colleagues on my side of the 
aisle have been saying today that this is an unnecessary 
encroachment into Arizona's travails, if I can put it that way, 
over the audit and our election system. The Constitution leaves 
that to us. If there was some kind of something that was 
materially violative of civil rights, then maybe that would 
have warranted this, but I am going to just go through a few 
things that I think are so important.
    Not the least of which is the fact that in September of 
this year--excuse me, last year, September of last year before 
the election took place, polling data showed that only 22 
percent of Americans thought that the Presidential election of 
2020 would be free and fair. Only 22 percent.
    That was consistent with polling in 2012, 2008, 2004, and 
the last time that my Democratic colleagues believed that they 
legitimately lost an election was 1988. That is what the 
polling--that is what the polling indicated. What we have heard 
called the ``big lie'' over and over today by our friends from 
the left and the Democrats is something that they set the gold 
standard for in 2016 over the last four years.
    The question of the audit, as I mentioned early on, was 
bizarre to me because my colleagues across the aisle want it 
both ways. So they repeatedly, as one of them said, it is 
shameful, it is shameful that we had this audit. They kept 
going on and on.
    The last gentleman just ripped Doug Logan. I don't know Mr. 
Logan. I don't know his history. They ripped that. They ripped 
the dark money. The funding sources, they had problems with. 
They ripped everything they possibly could about the audit, and 
at the same time that they were attacking the audit, they 
simultaneously argued that it buttressed their position as to 
who won the election.
    I view that as specious, inconsistent, fallacious. I was 
asked who won in Arizona? I don't know because there were 
statutory issues with this election. No election is ever 
perfect. But in my mind, we have not resolved the issues that 
took place at this time.
    I had more questions to ask. We don't have time to ask more 
questions. I am going to go without asking those questions and 
maybe submit them in writing. Maybe we can get answers in 
writing.
    There is so much underlying this and this notion that this 
was a fraudulent effort to get at the root of this election I 
think is--that is abhorrent in and of itself. We should have 
welcomed an audit. I regrettably have to say that, in my view, 
watching from outside, it certainly looked to me like the board 
was obfuscating and trying to prevent an audit.
    My recommendation early on was just do a full and complete 
audit. Get it over and done with. Resolve it. That is what I 
said in November. Resolve that issue. Put this thing to bed.
    And here we sit almost a full year later, and people still 
have questions about election integrity. I don't know how we 
are going to resolve that, but I do know that this continued--
this continued antagonism toward this audit, while at the same 
time saying, well, it proves what we said, but it stinks, that 
is ludicrous. I would hope that we can have audits, meaningful 
audits.
    The audit that was conducted statutorily by Maricopa 
County, that was a statutory audit. But that really wasn't an 
audit. Nobody here would say, oh, yes, that is a full and 
complete audit. No, none of us would say that. It just isn't. 
It is meant to provide some kind of statistical reference 
point.
    And as Mr. Bennett, former secretary of state of Arizona, 
pointed out, it simply was not even with a random sample. I had 
people who worked in polling locations who told me they came up 
and said they were concerned. I had people who worked on those 
boxes who said they were concerned.
    I think there are legitimate concerns, and I am not sure 
that the audit revealed those. But I can tell you what, both 
sides are further entrenched today than they were 6, 8, 10 
months ago in Arizona. And that is--that is a shame. It is a 
shame, and I don't know how we are going to resolve that.
    I am going to yield one minute to Paul Gosar from Arizona.
    Mr. Gosar. Madam Chairwoman, I would like to just ask 
unanimous consent to submit several transcripts to the record 
of Democrat and Republican Senators and many others raising the 
same concerns as myself and my constituents. I ask--and several 
articles to the record.
    Chairwoman Maloney. Without objection.
    Mr. Gosar. The last thing--aspect is to really hit home 
that Mr. Biggs made a very great point, is Code 52 U.S. 271. It 
was passed by a Democrat majority over 50 years ago, and it 
supports audits. It encourages audits and their findings.
    There is plenty of unanswered questions here. I talked 
about it earlier. Trust is a series of promises kept. The way 
you keep trust with the American people, with Arizonans, is be 
transparent. That solves that.
    And when you look back at my testimony on January 6, that 
is what I asked for. I asked for a 10-day moratorium to let any 
state have 10 days to look at an audit, to do it right. Look at 
``Kill Chain.'' Please, please take the time to watch ``Kill 
Chain.'' It is hardly a conservative group that points it out.
    But this isn't a Republican or a Democratic issue. This is 
an American issue. Getting it right that when I cast my ballot 
for whoever is there that I cast it for, it goes there 
appropriately. And electronic, hand manipulation doesn't skew 
that aspect. That is all we are asking.
    So from that standpoint, I love the conversation back and 
forth, but I don't think people are bad like we intended. You 
know, even Mr. Raskin introduced legislation because he saw 
electronic manipulation and problems. And it goes both ways. 
Whether it be 2016, 2018, 2020, there is plenty to go around. 
So why not get it right this time?
    Why not be transparent? That is how you gain trust with the 
American people. Trust is transparency.
    Madam Chairwoman, thank you for the indulgence. I 
appreciate it, and I yield back.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. And Madam Chair, I have some articles 
that I would submit.
    Chairwoman Maloney. I recognize you for purpose of putting 
items in the record.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you so much.
    The one is a piece from February 26, 2021, Arizona 
Republic. Another one from Representative Shawnna Bolick, dated 
February 2021, Washington Examiner. One from Glenn Greenwald, 
September 27. One letter from Madam Chair to Honorable Trey 
Gowdy, dated April 5, 2018. Another one from Representative 
Gerry Connolly, dated January 29, 2018. And the last one from 
the Baltimore Sun, dated January 5, 2017, entitled ``Rep. Jamie 
Raskin Not Seeing Electoral College Challenge for Trump.''
    Chairwoman Maloney. Without objection.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Maloney. OK. We have been told that Mr. Keller 
has logged on. Mr. Keller is now recognized for five minutes. 
Mr. Keller?
    Mr. Keller. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you very much 
to all our witnesses for taking time to testify before the 
committee today.
    Before addressing the subject of this hearing, I would like 
to take a moment to urge the majority to use its oversight 
power to focus on any of the numerous crises facing our 
country, be it rampant inflation, the crisis on our Southern 
border, the irresponsible way in which the Biden administration 
pulled out of Afghanistan, skyrocketing energy prices, or the 
staggering national debt, just to name a few.
    The price of natural gas alone is at a 10-year high. This 
must be addressed before winter sets in and Americans have to 
make difficult financial decisions just to heat their homes.
    The integrity of our elections is directly linked to the 
integrity of our democratic system of government at the local, 
state, or Federal level. While proper election protocol is 
essential, the matter of Arizona election audits is 
fundamentally a state issue. This is the second time in the 
course of a week that this committee has raised issues firmly 
in the states' jurisdiction into the Federal arena.
    Rather than attacking a private company for fulfilling its 
contract in conducting an election audit, this committee should 
be directing any objection about the audit to its originators, 
the Arizona State Senate. One thing that all voters, regardless 
of party affiliation, can agree upon is that we must have 
election integrity. That is the only way to ensure trust in our 
elections, faith that our elected officials have been 
righteously elected, and confidence in our government.
    I would just again encourage the majority party to take a 
look at the issues that lie squarely within the jurisdiction of 
the Oversight and Reform Committee. Believe me, there are 
plenty of Federal agencies that need oversight and reform. We 
should be focused on those, and the states, where they have 
issues, should focus on making sure that they address those 
issues.
    We certainly aren't going to call in, you know, the Arizona 
Department of Revenue and investigate how they handle their 
state income tax collection. If we have an issue at the Federal 
level, we should be dealing with that. But issues that are 
within the states' jurisdictions, we should actually go back to 
those states and follow the Constitution and do exactly--and 
have them address those issues.
    With that, Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my 
time.
    Mr. Biggs. I will take your time.
    Mr. Keller. All right. I yield to Mr. Biggs.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Keller. Appreciate that.
    So I am going to be able to ask a couple of the questions 
that I didn't think I was going to be able to ask.
    So I was looking at your website called justthefacts.vote. 
And on Myth No. 4, I found that it said that the county does 
not change its--that the county does not change its Election 
Management System--that it is false that the county does not 
change its Election Management System passwords. I assume that 
what you are asserting then is that you regularly change the 
passwords for your EMS server, for the server for EMS?
    Mr. Gates. Yes, my--I'm not sure what you mean by 
``regularly,'' but it is something that is changed.
    Mr. Biggs. So would you then be surprised, I guess, that 
the records from CyFIR clearly indicate that all accounts have 
the same password, and even the username was the same and has 
not been changed since the EMS server was set up?
    Mr. Gates. Yes, again, I don't--I don't have that in front 
of me. So I'm not sure what the basis of that is.
    Mr. Biggs. If that were--if that were true, that would be 
concerning about cybersecurity, would it not?
    Mr. Gates. No. No, that would not be concerning about 
cybersecurity because, Congressman, I think, as you understand, 
the EMS is not connected to--as relates to cybersecurity, it's 
not connected to the Internet in any way. It's an air gap 
system. We held--we did two audits that confirmed that these 
machines that were used in the 2020 general election were never 
connected to the Internet.
    Mr. Biggs. And that is your--that is your assertion here 
today? OK.
    Mr. Gates. That is. Yes.
    Mr. Biggs. OK. All right.
    Mr. Gates. Based upon certified folks that took at that as 
well.
    Mr. Biggs. And how is the paper--so let us talk about paper 
for a second. Myth 8, vote-secure paper does not have a special 
coating to prevent bleed-through. Are you saying that only 
vote-secure paper was utilized in the 2020 general election?
    Mr. Gates. Yes. Vote-secure paper was utilized, but it is a 
fact that you can have bleed-throughs. Bleed-throughs, and 
that's why we made sure we redesigned the ballot, so that if 
there was a race on side of the piece of paper, it wouldn't 
bleed through and show up as a vote on the other side, on the 
election on the other side.
    Mr. Biggs. OK. I hope to be able to ask Mr. Bennett about 
that.
    Thank you.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. I am now 
told that Mr. Fallon has logged in, and Mr. Fallon, do you wish 
to ask questions?
    Mr. Fallon. Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.
    Chairwoman Maloney. OK, you are recognized.
    Mr. Fallon. Thank you.
    I dream of the day that we have hearings in this esteemed 
committee on the crisis, not really even a crisis, but the 
catastrophe on the border. Being from a border state, I believe 
now that this administration made all other 49 states border 
states as well.
    But Madam Chair, I would like to yield the balance of my 
time to my colleague and friend from Arizona, Mr. Biggs.
    Mr. Biggs. I thank the gentleman. Thanks, Mr. Fallon.
    So, Mr. Bennett, let us talk about the paper. You heard the 
testimony from Vice Chairman Gates. Can you please respond to 
us about the paper that you found in the audit--that the 
auditors found in the audit?
    Mr. Bennett. What I was informed of is that there appeared 
to be 10 different sources or types of paper used for the 
ballots. I personally witnessed the fact that on some ballots, 
there was a fair amount of bleed-through from one side to the 
other.
    But as Mr. Gates mentioned, one of the things that you're 
supposed to do in setting up your election in Arizona is align 
the ballots so that if there is bleed-through from front to 
back or vice versa, that no corresponding ovals are affected. 
And it's my understanding that even though we found bleed-
through, we did not find that bleed-through overlapping an oval 
on the other side.
    Mr. Biggs. So, to your knowledge, there was no encroachment 
from one side to the other and----
    Mr. Bennett. That is my--that's my understanding.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Can you add on here to whether there 
was any issues with regard to the use of the same password and 
usernames in some of these servers?
    Mr. Bennett. I can simply repeat the testimony of Mr. Ben 
Cotton, the CEO of CyFIR, the company that looked at the 
equipment, who said that their evidence showed that they--that 
the county used common usernames and passwords, and that I 
think there was more than one, but as required by state law and 
election procedures manuals in Arizona, they did not use unique 
usernames and passwords.
    So that if there was a question related to who did what in 
the Election Management System, not a cybersecurity issue, as 
Mr. Gates mentioned, but the purpose for having unique 
usernames and passwords is so that if you have things happen 
within an election, you can tell who did it. And he said that 
the use of common usernames and passwords make that impossible 
to detect.
    Mr. Biggs. So you wouldn't know necessarily who was even 
logging in because the usernames are not discrete?
    Mr. Bennett. Correct.
    Mr. Biggs. Explain to us the election procedure manual and 
its relationship vis-a-vis statute.
    Mr. Bennett. The election procedures manual is specifically 
authorized in state law. It is under the direction of the 
secretary of state's office, which I occupied for six years. I 
did three of them during my six years. It's adopted in the off-
election years, also has to have the consent of the attorney 
general and the Governor to sign off on the election procedures 
manual. It has the effect of law, as is dictated in state 
statute itself.
    Mr. Biggs. So if there is an issue with compliance with the 
procedures manual, that is a statutory violation because----
    Mr. Bennett. Yes.
    Mr. Biggs [continuing]. It is a law?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Biggs. So my understanding is that the--is that the 
Senate president attempted to reach out and attempted to work 
with the county, but that for whatever reason an impasse was 
reached, and the subpoenas were issued, and the ultimate issue 
is compliance and whether there was contempt on the part of the 
board in responding to those subpoenas. Mr. Sellers?
    Mr. Sellers. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I had met 
personally with the Senate president numerous times, telling 
her that if there were--if there were serious issues or 
questions that needed to be answered, I wanted to help get 
those answers.
    And she felt that--well, and I'll back up a little bit. 
Because the two additional audits we did after the election was 
over were really done to answer questions that had been given 
to us by the--by the Arizona Senate.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. I thank the gentlelady.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. And I now 
recognize myself.
    People are coming in and logging in at the end here. Our 
good friend, committee member Jackie Speier is now recognized 
for five minutes for questions.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    And I have been on for a good part. I am also in the middle 
of an Intelligence Committee hearing, but I did want to get 
back on since there are still questions that need to be 
answered.
    Let me ask you, Mr. Bennett, you have been a public 
servant. Do you condemn political violence in this country, 
including attacks on elected officials and elected 
representatives?
    Mr. Bennett. Of course. I've had----
    Ms. Speier. Of course----
    Mr. Bennett. I've had death threats myself.
    Ms. Speier. OK. So you know that Chairman Sellers and 
Supervisor Gates and their staff have received threats against 
their safety. The District of Columbia experienced political 
violence on numerous occasions in the weeks following the 
election.
    I was one of the members in the House Gallery lying on the 
floor when the shots rang out, thinking that I was going to die 
that day. So making sure that we quell violence is critical.
    With that in mind, it is very important that we identify 
those organizations that have sought to further inflame 
tensions. One of those groups is Look Ahead America. On 
September 24, this group held a rally in Arizona in which 
nearly half of the attendees were Proud Boys, which is an 
organization identified as a far-right neo-Fascist group.
    Have you ever heard of the organization Look Ahead America, 
yes or no?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Speier. And you know this group has been associated 
with violent hard-right activities for a long time?
    Mr. Bennett. I'm not aware of that, ma'am.
    Ms. Speier. The group tweeted that it would participate in 
a conference hosted by Nick Fuentes, a well-known neo-Nazi.
    You are currently listed on Look Ahead America's 
``leadership'' page, as it is, as its state chairman. According 
to the page, you are fifth-highest ranking individual in this 
organization. I am kind of astonished that you would be 
associated with a group such as this, let alone take a 
leadership role.
    Your biography on the group's website notes that you serve 
as ``Senate liaison for Maricopa County 2020 election audit.'' 
Now, Mr. Bennett, you said a few weeks ago that you are on a 
``leave of absence'' from this organization to focus on 
election review. Is this true?
    Mr. Bennett. Yes, I was working on a voter registration 
project in Arizona known as AZ51. AZ51, connected with Look 
Ahead America, who wanted to help that process in Arizona, and 
AZ51 decided to transition the voter registration project over 
to Look Ahead Arizona, which was formed by Look Ahead America.
    So I'm--I'm with Look Ahead Arizona, which is an affiliate 
of Look Ahead America. But I have been on leave of absence, as 
I've been contributing my time to the audit without pay.
    Ms. Speier. All right. So you have been trying to establish 
some independence. Is that correct?
    Mr. Bennett. Independence from whom?
    Ms. Speier. From the organization, since you are on a leave 
of absence?
    Mr. Bennett. I was already involved in the audit, 
Congresswoman, when the AZ51 voter registration project 
transitioned to Look Ahead Arizona. So I'm not trying to 
establish independence. I already was involved in the audit 
when that transition occurred.
    Ms. Speier. All right. But in a September 7 Arizona 
Republic article, you said, ``I still consult with Matt on, you 
know, who does he need to talk to around the state and help 
with efforts of Look Ahead Arizona and voter registration.''
    Matt, I believe, is the executive director of Look Ahead 
America. It seems difficult that you could claim that you are 
on a leave of absence from the group but are still consulting 
with it and actually recommending who the group's executive 
director should be meeting with.
    So I really am concerned that, as an elected official, as 
someone who you admittedly say you have had death threats, to 
all of us and to the Arizona county supervisors who have 
experienced death threats, why an engagement with groups like 
the Proud Boys, who were part of this effort in Arizona prior 
to the election, would somehow not be recognized by you as 
antithetical to quelling violence and, in fact, encouraging it?
    And with that, Madam Chair, I will yield back.
    Chairwoman Maloney. The gentlelady yields back. And I 
believe that concludes all of the members that want to ask 
questions. I will now proceed with my closing remarks.
    I want to thank all of the witnesses today for helping our 
committee understand the facts about the so-called audit in 
Arizona and all of my colleagues who participated. In 
particular, thank you to Mr. Sellers and to Mr. Gates and to 
the other elected officials who endured months of abuse, 
insults, and threats for simply doing your job. Thank you for 
having the courage to speak the truth today and to testify 
before the committee.
    The committee had also wanted to hear from Cyber Ninjas, 
but Doug Logan refused to appear today to testify under oath. 
That is probably because the facts about his audit is they are 
so damning. This audit was designed to find fraud, but it 
didn't find any fraud.
    It was backed by millions of dollars, $6.7 million, from 
partisan dark money groups, and it spent a year studying the 
election. But in the end, Cyber Ninjas came up with absolutely 
nothing--no fraud, no missing votes from Trump, no change in 
the election outcome.
    So now, even after this huge audit, some of my colleagues 
are refusing to accept even their own biased audit, claiming 
that there is still uncertainty about the election in Arizona. 
Donald Trump is even claiming the audit showed he won.
    A nonpartisan fact checker rated that claim as absolutely 
false and gave him the designation of ``pants on fire,'' and I 
ask permission to put the statement and the article about it in 
the record.
    Chairwoman Maloney. And so let us be clear. Donald Trump 
did not win in Arizona, and he did not win the election. He 
lost. And in the Cyber Ninjas audit, he lost. But unless Trump 
and his admirers are willing to admit this truth and respect 
the will of the American voters, our democracy is at serious 
risk, as Mr. Sellers and Mr. Gates testified.
    The barrage of lies about the 2020 election has inflicted 
grave damage already. These lies are undermining public 
confidence in our elections. They are fostering efforts across 
the country to hold more partisan audits and pass anti-
democratic laws to suppress votes and allow elected officials 
to overturn elections when their preferred candidates lose.
    Free and fair elections are the foundation of our 
democracy, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. All of 
us should care about these threats to our elections.
    This committee will use every tool at its disposal to fight 
back against the lies and conspiracy theories that have been 
allowed to grow for too long in our country. I ask like-minded 
Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, to join us in this 
fight. We all have an obligation to stand up for the democratic 
values that we all hold so dear.
    With that, I, in closing, want to thank our panelists for 
their remarks. I commend my colleagues for their participation.
    And without objection, all members have five legislative 
days within which to submit materials and to submit additional 
written questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses for their response. I ask our 
witnesses to please respond as promptly as you are able.
    This meeting is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:48 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                            [all]