Certification Despite Protocol Non-Compliance and Post-Certification Board Obstruction (AZ)

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors certified the county’s 2020 general election results despite documented, forensically confirmed non-compliance with critical election security protocols. The Cyber Ninjas forensic audit documented that the Dominion Democracy Suite EMS software was materially altered from its certified “golden image” configuration, that all user accounts on all election systems shared a single password in violation of the Arizona Election Procedures Manual, and that election management system logs had been systematically overwritten prior to the audit – eliminating the forensic record that would have been required to verify tabulation integrity. Post-certification, the Board refused to produce administrative passwords, defied legislative subpoenas for EMS servers and routers, and directed its vendors (including Dominion Voting Systems) not to cooperate with the Arizona State Senate’s legislatively authorized forensic audit. A resolution was subsequently introduced by State Representative Mark Finchem to decertify the results as irredeemably compromised. The legal basis for certification – that the Board had reviewed the underlying records and found them sufficient – was facially undermined by the Board’s simultaneous assertion that the election’s records were protected from audit.