Database Purge the Day Before Audit/Recount – Destruction of Digital Baseline (AZ)

Forensic analysis conducted during the Arizona Senate-ordered Cyber Ninjas audit revealed that the Maricopa County Recorder’s office deleted the entire 2020 General Election database from the Election Management System (EMS) – including all activity logs – in the days following a court order directing Maricopa County to produce election materials to the Arizona State Senate. Specifically, more than 37,000 identical queries were run on the EMS server in rapid sequence, effectively overwriting the activity log. The audit contractor documented that 284,412 ballot images were corrupt or missing when the system was restored, and that all data in the EMS database related to the 2020 General Election had been fully cleared. This destruction of the digital baseline – accomplished after litigation was pending and a subpoena was outstanding – eliminated the primary mechanism by which any independent recount or audit could have verified whether reported vote totals matched the underlying ballot corpus. The digital record that would have enabled a valid independent recount was rendered irrecoverable. Senate Audit Liaison Ken Bennett separately confirmed that the required chain-of-custody documentation under A.R.S. §16-621(E) was never produced.