Cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas has missed the deadline to provide a Congressional panel with information about the Republican-led audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, the Arizona Republic reported. The contractor had until July 28 to provide the House Oversight and Reform Committee with information. The committee launched an investigation into the audit to determine if the audit was warranted, or part of an effort to “undermine confidence in America’s elections,” The Hill reported. News of the missed deadline was first reported by Slate last week.
Joe Biden won Arizona by roughly 11,000 votes over former President Donald Trump. Since then Trump and his supporters have made false claims about the integrity of the election including claims that 168,000 fraudulent ballots were printed on illegal paper. Trump also alleges 74,000 mail-in ballots were received that were never mailed. None of these have been proven true.
Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jamie Raskin, the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s top Democrats, asked Cyber Ninjas CEO Douglas Logan for documents and communications related to the company’s audit procedures, funding sources, and other issues.
“The Committee is seeking to determine whether the privately funded audit conducted by your company in Arizona protects the right to vote or is instead an effort to promote baseless conspiracy theories, undermine confidence in America’s elections, and reverse the result of a free and fair election for partisan gain,” the letter stated. “Cyber Ninjas has repeatedly failed to meet its own timeline for the audit and has repeatedly moved election materials—at one point to accommodate high school graduation ceremonies—raising questions about the integrity of the process and whether Cyber Ninjas is merely searching for evidence to support a predetermined result rather than conducting an impartial audit,” the letter continued.
Republicans in the Arizona state Senate approved the audit in April, even though previous audits confirmed that the vote was tabulated accurately. The independent audit results released by Maricopa County included a “logic and accuracy test” by one of the certified firms that examined the equipment, Associated Press reported. Hand counts of a sample of ballots also came out perfect.
Maloney’s office said in a statement that Cyber Ninjas must “provide complete transparency over its questionable activities and sources of funding, and answer Congress’s questions without further delay.”
“If it does not, we will use all tools available to ensure we get the answers we need to protect the integrity of federal elections,” the statement said.
