I give this report from the audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, a little more weight for two reasons: First, Patrick Howley is generally accurate in his reporting by disposition; and second, the source of the information is on record, not anonymous.
If this reporting turns out to be accurate, this will be an explosive development. However, that said, if this report is accurate… this is likely the reason why Maricopa County officials have been fighting the audit, hiring lawyers and positioning themselves in an attempt to undermine the chain-of-custody of the ballots.
Remember, the county Board of Supervisors would not let the State Senate audit take place in their tabulations center. In an effort to block and stall the audit, the county officials forced the audit organizers to transfer the tabulation machines and truckloads of ballots to the Veterans Coliseum. Then the board of supervisors held closed-door meetings (shutting out the public) with their lawyers.
ARIZONA – Several hundred thousand votes that were counted in Maricopa County, Arizona are associated with missing ballots, according to an audit organizer who is speaking regularly with people on the audit floor.
“We found a ballot shortage, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the votes,” Josh Barnett, an audit organizer who led the affidavit drive to make the audit happen, tells NATIONAL FILE. “It looks like a couple hundred thousand ballots are unaccounted for. The ballots are missing.”
“I also know that there were boxes filled with blank ballots in those pallets. There were blanks in there,” Barnett said, citing a person who is frequently at the audit site as part of the audit process. “They (election officials) were doing it for appearance, to try to hide the fact that ballots are missing by saying, ‘It’s okay, they’re all right here.’ But the ballots are blank.” (read more)
Immediately after meeting with lawyers in April, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors then started looking to the feds for help. According to media reports at the time democratic party election groups sent hundreds of lawyers to the audit once it started.
Last month the Board of Supervisors and county election officials refused to attend a state senate hearing on the audit status. Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward noted the Maricopa Board of Supervisors (BoS) was engaging in a propaganda war against the people of Arizona and the State Senate.
The propaganda was further evidenced when the Board of Supervisors sent the media a copy of the 13-page letter they claim to have sent to the Arizona Senate. However, AZ Senate President Karen Fann said she had never even see the letter. [LINK] The BoS sent the letter to the media before they sent it to the AZ Senate. Yeah, propaganda.
If there are actually hundreds of thousands of ballots missing, or even several thousand ballots, that is obviously a very big deal.