Az. lawmaker raises concerns about Maricopa County election audit, Trump calls letter 'devastating'

Arizona State Senate President Karen Fann in a letter to Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Jack Sellers regarding the the Senate's audit of the 2020 general election said that material has been deleted, the county has failed to comply with subpoenas and there have been other issues like the county's failure to supply any ballot chain-of-custody information. 

"The first issue concerns Maricopa County’s apparent intent to renege on its previous commitment to comply fully with the legislative subpoenas issued on January 13, 2021, which, as you know, Judge Thomason found were valid and enforceable," Fann wrote. "As the audit has progressed, the Senate’s contractors have become aware of apparent omissions, inconsistencies, and anomalies relating to Maricopa County’s handling, organization, and storage of ballots," she also noted.

"We have recently discovered that the entire “Database” directory from the D drive of the machine 'EMSPrimary' has been deleted. This removes election related details that appear to have been covered by the subpoena. In addition, the main database for the Election Management System (EMS) Software, 'Results Tally and Reporting,' is not located anywhere on the EMSPrimary machine, even though all of the EMS Clients reference that machine as the location of the database. This suggests that the main database for all election related data for the November 2020 General Election has been removed," Fann wrote.

Fann invited Sellers and any officials or workers with knowledge of the issues raised in the letter to attend a meeting at the state Capitol on Tuesday which would be broadcast live to the public.

A Maricopa County Elections Department spokesperson said that "much of the letter is a misunderstanding of election operations."

Former President Donald Trump, who alleges that the 2020 election contest was tainted by fraud, described Fann's letter as "devastating." 

"A devastating letter written by Arizona Senate President Karen Fann on voting irregularities, and probably fraud, in Maricopa County during the 2020 Presidential Election. Even the database was illegally deleted after the subpoena to produce the information. Senate President Fann has invited Maricopa County officials to a public hearing on May 18 to allow them the opportunity to try to explain what happened to the missing databases, ballots, and other significant issues. The Fake News and Lamestream Media is doing everything they can not to cover this major story. They just refuse to talk or report about it. They don’t want the United States or World to see what is going on with our corrupt, third world election," Trump said.