the maricopa county board of supervisors, it's a five-member board. four of the five are republicans. today, they refused an invitation from the state senate president to attend that hearing they held today with the conspiracy theorist they hired to run this supposed audit. the supervisors instead wrote to the republican president of the state senate and this is what they said. quote, you have rented out the once good name of the arizona state senate to grifters and con-artists who are fund-raising hard-earned money from our fellow citizens, even as your contractors parade around the coliseum, hunting for bamboo and something they called kinematic artifacts while shining purple lights for effect. none of these things are done in a serious audit. the result is that the arizona senate is held up to ridicule in every corner of the globe and our democracy is imperilled. and our democracy is imperilled. this split in the arizona republican party that's spilling out into the open this week seems to have risen in part because of republicans' concern about th

i believe that many of the repair -- americans there in maricopa county has that this is enough. going to speak out. that's interesting, you are seeing numbers not only on my board, but county wide, elected republican officials. we are seeing senate republicans that are now stepping up and saying enough is enough. the fact is, they have done more damage to our democracy, the credibility of our election system over the last six months, than ever before. it's time for elected officials to stand up and say, enough is enough, knock it off. stop this ridiculous sham audit. for those that want to sit on the sidelines, our governor, governor doocy, he wants to sit quietly on the sidelines. he doesn't want to upset trump and the trump loyalists, and off is enough. he needs to step. up the attorney general who once ran for governor, he needs to step up. no more standing on the sideline. anyone who is running -- or wanting to run in 2022, needs to pick aside. are you on the side of conspiracy theories and con artists, or are you on the side of democracy, the constitution, and the rule of la

so-called audit of the 2020 presidential election results from maricopa county. the republican majority board unanimously approved a letter calling for the arizona senate republicans to put a stop to this whole conspiracy theory stoking exercise, which has now been going on for more than three weeks. they said, quote, it's time to end this for the good of the senate, for the good of the country, and for the good of the democratic institutions that define us as americans. one of the elections officials you saw at that meeting who has clearly had enough is maricopa county recorder steven richer. he's going to be joining the great lawrence o'donnell tonight in just a few minutes to talk about it. you will want to see that. that's going to do it for me. i will see you again tomorrow. now it is time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> thank you for that hearing from steven richer is going to be very important to get a republican perspective from arizona. he says what's going on there is unhinged. a word that i think has gotten more currency in the last fiv

we asked all the tough questions and the reality is that gop joe biden won maricopa county.we have to say these are the results. this has gone through the courts over and over again and been relitigated. so what we need to do now is accept that and start to move forward as republicans. start to make the case for why we should be elected in 2022. but unfortunately, we're hung up in 2020 right now. >> you've talked about the danger to the country and liz cheney thinks something like the insurrection on january 6th could happen again, real violence and people killed. how do you know it's not too late to prevent that again, right? how do you get more voices on your side in this? >> so here's what i think. i think that there are many republican elected officials who feel like we did that they haven't spoken up yet. and i give credit to liz cheney for speaking up. and i think it's saying to other republican elected officials, it's okay to speak the truth. i'm so proud of all the elected officials in maricopa county, mainly republicans, who stood behind us yesterday supporting us,

reporter: nearly two thirds of arizona's voters live in maricopa county. more than 50 years, a democrat won the presidential race here. for the last month, a private company hired by the state senate has been counting and examining millions of those ballots. now, even republican election officials are saying enough is enough. in a 13 page letter, several members of the county board of supervisors argue that the process has turned the state into a laughingstock and they say it's time to accept the results and move on. bill gates is the vice chair of the maricopa county board of supervisors and is one of the signers of that letter. mr. gates, thank you for joining us on the newshour. it's a scathing letter addressed to the senate president, a fellow republican. you accuse her in this letter of renting out the good name of the arizona senate to grifters and con artists. is that who has millions of arizonans ballots and hands right now? con artists? do you believe this is an all an attempt to symbol voters and change the results of the 2020 election? >> thanks

but it is a sign of how the fake audit clown show republicans are running in maricopa county, arizona, is spreading across the county. trump supporters across the country are trying to copy it, trying to cast doubt about voting machines or voting results in any place they can so as to create some sort of fog of uncertainty about the election everywhere. take windham, new hampshire. in a race for state rep there, there was a genuine discrepancy discovered between the machine count and a hand recount. it does occasionally happen. but when the town board there gathered to plan for a real, genuine audit to make sure the final count was accurate, using real auditors who have experience and are certified in these sorts of things, hundreds of trump supporters descended on their meeting, saying stop the steal and demanding instead that the town should not used experienced auditors. they instead should have it audited by a failed inventor and self-proclaimed treasure hunter, who has been working on the arizona republicans' fake audit, getting them to use his ridiculous fraud detection technolo

. >> sy: amna, nearly two-thirds of arizona's voters live in maricopa county, which includes phoenix. and for the first time in more than 50 years, a democrat won the presidential race here. the state senate's audit has been going on for nearly a month. and now, even republican election officials are saying enough is enough. in a 13-page letr, several members of the county board of supervisors argue the process has turned the state into a "laughingstock" and they say it's time to accept the results and move on. bill gates is the vice chair of the maricopa county board of supervisors and is one of the signers of that letter. >> mr. gates, thank you for joining us on the "newshour". it is a scathing letter addressed to the senate president kern fan, a fellow republican and you accuse her of renting out the good name of arizona senate to drifters and con artists. sthad who has america's ballots in hand now, con artists, and do you think this is an attempt to swindle voters and change the results of the 20 election? >> well, thanks for haing me. lo, the way this worked out was the arizona

it crossed the line for bill and the whole accounting team when you start accusing maricopa county ofes, explain to me how this has unfolded. you're the county supervisor. clearly the former president is really ginning people up in terms of focusing on this, it's something being repeated elsewhere, but when you're talking to folks there in the county, is that the reason why there is so much doubt? is it just what former president trump is doing, or is there a bigger, more complicated explanation? >> well, i think that it starts with former president trump, and from there the blame for this, unfortunately, lies with all the republican leaders out there who have fed into these conspiracy theoies that somehow there was something wrong with the vote count in maricopa county. this goes back to last year. last year the state senate sent a letter to us, a subpoena, actually, to the board of supervisors demanding all of the ballots in the election machines specifically to get those before january 6th. and we all know what happened on january 6th. since then, when we didn't turn those material

. -- maricopa county. that trump won by -- the voted for democrats and republicans. democrats won some of those local elections, and republicans won some of those elections in maricopa county. no one is questioning the elections one by republicans. on saturday, republican maricopa county reporter, steven richer said, we can't indulge these insane lies any longer. e joining us now is steven richard. thank you for joining us tonight mr. richer. this is sounding like, for you, a stunningly frustrating time if your professional life. especially since this is happening in your party. >> yeah, absolutely, lawrence. and thanks for having me on. you pinned on the main points and why this is so frustratingly irrational. i defeated the formal fish -- in official elections -- who was in 2020. this is laughable. >> as you say, the republicans who were elected with the same ballots that joe biden won the county in exactly the same ballots delivered in some ways to republicans. yet, there's not a single question about a

she said, quote, i am writing to express my concerns about maricopa county's elections equipment whichned over to the arizona senate and then to their agent, cyber ninjas. i understand cyber ninjas has begun returning the election equipment to the county. i have grave concerns, she says, regarding the security and integrity of these machines given that the chain of custody, a critical security tenet, has been compromised, and election officials do not know what was done to the machines while under cyber ninja's control. according to the department of homeland security, such loss of custody constitutes a cyber institute to critical infrastructure, an event that could jeopardize information systems. therefore my office consulted with election technology and security experts, including at the department of homeland security's cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, regarding the appropriate next steps. each unanimously advised us that once election officials lose custody and control over voting systems and components, those devices should not be used in future elections. rather,

arizona, top elections officials in the state, katie hobbs -- today, she conveyed some bad news to maricopa countythe county that household voting machines, tabulators, and others taken by the arizona's senate, so that they can be given to these crump -- trump qanon, random cyber nations, would no election experience. this is what she said to the county today. i'm writing to express my concerns about maricopa county's election equipment, which was turned over to the senate, and then -- - this is a multi million dollar letter here, right? arizona secretary of state telling maricopa county, sorry. but you've gone through all of this about. now your election machinery, or tabulators, all this stuff, they all have to be replaced now. he can't reuse them again. because, they've been tampered with. quote, we cannot be certain who access the voting equipment, and what might have been done to them. unfortunately, after a loss of physical security and control, nothing exist to compromise the county or that the equipment is safe to use. so sorry, but in golfing these cyber ninjas here, and giving them contr

there had been two previous investigations by local officials in maricopa in arizona, the largest county population-wise in that state. why did it take place? who initiated it? guest: great question. my request is it was the request of the senate, and it is concerning, because just like you said, not only does maricopa run great elections, they did a fairly robust hand-count audit after the election, found no evidence of fraud,'s -- found no discrepancies in the official report or results that were reported. so, it does seem odd that, again, we are asking for the proof that the outcome was what was recorded. host: as we know, the vast majority of republicans still feel that the election was wrong, that donald trump won the election, that there was fraud in key states across the country. guest: yeah, and i think there is no end to that. as long as we have elected officials such as elected officials in arizona placating those conspiracy theories, those lies, we can continue to go down this path forever. i think george is a great example of that, where they did multiple audits. they had an

but in any case,hey were able to obtain millions of arizonaan ballots, maricopa county, the largest countyo turned over voting machines. they then turned those ballots and machines over to a private contractor, cyber ninjas. what do we know about cyberninninjas and what they're doing with the ballots and equipment? >> i have been working in this space for 20 years now and i was not familiar with cyber ninjas, nor was anyone i was associated with or know. there were a lot of questions to ask. we started asking those questions weeks ago and it took a court order to obtain some of the procedures and policies being done right now down at the veterans coliseum. this is really important for people to understand that under normal circumstances, everything that happens to your ballot is publicly available as far as what the rules and guidelines are. the laws are laid out. the procedures manual in arizona lays out how are audits to be conducted, how are votes to be counted. but this is something outside of that. so we obtained the procedures, and there were a lot of things included in there that ra

. >>> the republican chairman of maricopa county boards of supervisor, "a grift disguise of the audits saying, i am quoting a former president "the entire database of maricopa has been deleted". all of it deleted. i guess you could not check it because they deleted the whole thing. i don't know what conspiracy leads to. that led to my next guest who knows what he's talking about to tweet, quote, "wow, this is unhinged, we can't indulge these insane lies any longer." steven richard, i appreciate your time. >> thank you so much erin. >> you are sitting at your computer and you got a couple of screens up like everybody these days and you are looking at the voter database and the midst of all this. the entire database in your county, the most important county by size and arizona had been deleted , all caps. what did you do at that moment? >> i wactually got the letter t me from a reporter, she basically says what gives and what's going on here and why are you deleting files. i was sitting there looking at our voter registration database and i have the election database as well and on my c

a third audit of maricopa's county approximately 2.1 million ballots. but this review is unlike the others in just about every other way including it's been run by the arizona republican controlled senate and its contractor cyber ninjas. in the last few weeks we've seen them have to move all the ballots to make way for scheduled high school graduations. they say they've counted about 500,000 so far since they started late last month. during the count workers have used uv lights on ballots tracing a qanon conspiracy about a secret watermark. cameras hunting for bamboo fibers and ballots supposedly proving they were flown in from asia. this unorthodox review has been backed by arizona republican senators. >> there's this blood thirstiness that's going on in our party right now that i don't understand, but we have to stop it. this is tearing at the foundations of democracy to act in this way, to treat one another this way. >> i think it's a proxy war for this playing out at a national level. we are the experiment in democracy here in arizona. >> are you gu

would find the passwords from the routers, but these are routers that serve entire county of maricopa county, which is their largest

the republican led state senate is close to signing a deal for the second review of maricopa county's 2.1 million ballots from the 2020 election. this time it would be all electronic using a new and essentially untested technology to scan the original digital images of ballots. this is one tough story to follow, which is why we constantly turn to jen fifield, reporter for "the arizona republic" who got up extremely early for us to help us make sense of this. jen, what is going on here? you have another audit going on of the same ballots? to the rest of us outside of arizona, it feels like republican state legislatures are just going to keep counting the maricopa ballots until there's a different outcome. >> well, that is what it feels like to me covering this story, too, since november. what is really going on is they said that they want another

started to win it, and as a matter of fact, i mean, even in this last election, where joe biden won maricopa countyt 45,000 votes, again, four of the five county supervisors here in maricopa county were elected republicans. >> reid wilson, thank you for your reporting on this. >>> senator ted cruz is getting blowback from veteran groups after describing the u.s. army as, quote, woke and emasculated while at the same time seeming to praise how russia advertises for their military. the texas republican kweeted out a video that displays an apparent ad for the russian military showing men with shaved heads doing push-ups. the video then cuts to a clip from the u.s. army featuring corporal emma who talks about her mother's wedding. marching for lgbtq rights and joining the military. the texas senator got some sharp rebukes from groups like vote vets and even his own colleague, senator tammy duckworth, of course a veteran herself who lost both her legs in combat. it's also worth noting, by the way, senator ted cruz never served in the military, though he has said he thought about it when he was younger.

so i don't know who this is helping at this point, but it's a black eye for arizona. >> maricopa county recorder stephen richer, thank you for joining us. we'll have county recorders on from all over the country. we love county recorders. we think you are the heroes of this last election. we really appreciate the work you're doing and we applaud the courage it takes to stand up and just do your job. and you want to be on note. you want to be doing this in the background. i think you'd like everyone not to know your name. >> and john, i apologize for that. good for you guys. thank you very much. but, look, i ran under the slogan, make the recorder's office boring again. prior to friday, i had not taken a single interview and that was really my aspiration was to quietly, humbly go about dooing an administrative role. we're human. we have our limits. this is the same story going on in georgia. >> we'll let you get back to boring if you can. stephen richer, thank you for joining us. >> thank you so much. >> but he's doing -- he and other recorders and other officials like him are doing the

happy to bring in the maricopa county recorder. good to have you.maricopa boring again. you've never done national tv interviews until one week ago. now you are really a face of the fight for truth. so let's begin with the latest headline out of the so-called audit and that is arizona secretary of state katie hobbs who has been critical of the audit is recommending you guys officials replace all election devices, the machines turned over to state senate republicans in the so-called cyber ninjas because she says dhs experts advised her once election officials lose control of the devices it's dangerous. they can be compromised and shouldn't be reused. do you agree and should the machines be replaced? >> thanks for having me on, poppy. thanks for pointing out that i failed miserably at my campaign promise. it is very disappointing it me and i don't relish this. we did get that letter from secretary hobbs yesterday. we're still digesting it and processing it. we obviously had some concerns regarding the equipment and what state it would be returned. wha

six and a half months after the votes were cast in maricopa county, you have this group called cyber ninjas, what has no experience whatsoever working in elections, is led by a pro-trump guy that has led conspiracy theories. these are the people with a straight said they were looking for traces of bamboo in the ballots because they thought they were shipped in from china. so they're looking very explicitly to overturn the election and flip the state back to donald trump, six and a half months after the election. let's bring in the professor of the lyndon b. johnson school of internal affairs. i would ask how this could happen, but the answer is pretty plain. the republican-controlled senate in arizona said we want this to happen and we want cyber ninjas, the bamboo group, to look into this and potentially flip the election back to donald trump. >> willie, i'm so troubled about this on so many different levels. so, there's this perpetuate of the big lie, right? that the election was not won by joe biden. so that and in of itself worries me so much. just in terms of sheer democratic, s

there were two previous investigations by local election officials in maricopa, and arizona, the largest county population wise in that state so why did it take place, who initiated it? >> great question. my understanding is the request of the senate and its concerning because he said, not only does maricopa run elections, they did a fairly robust count on after the election, no evidence on fraud or discrepancies or official -- the official results recorded so it does seem odd that again we are asking for the proof that the f outcome was wht was reported. >> vast majority of republicans will feel the election was wrong, donald trump won the election, there was fraud in the states across the country. >> yes, i think there is no end to that. as long as we have elected officials, the senate in arizona, the case being the is busy theories, we could continue going down this path forever. i think george is a great example where they did multiple audits, they had an investigation by the georgia state police, signature verification audits and found no evidence of fraud, no change in the outcome and yet

and that's what maricopa county recorder stephen richer called trump's claim that the database of maricopaed. this was a bold faced lie. given he was looking at the database, he called the lie out tweeting, we cannot indulge these insane lies any longer, as a party, as a state and as a country. he's right. because backing the big lie is just as absurd as insisting two plus two equals five. but that's the new party live. 66% of republicans still blee president joe biden didn't win the election fair and square. lately arizona has become ground zero for this crazy times carnival. actually, that's the real name of a comparatively sane operation where 2.1 million ballots are being held because election whose founded tweeted election conspiracy theories failed to complete a third recount in maricopa county. cnn spoke to workers on the audit, including one who said, i believe donald trump won the election. firm believer. now, there's a lot to work with there. like, the blurred lines between thinking and feeling, but this is a cautionary tale for republicans about the costs of trying to indulge ab

. >>> an update now on the sham audit of votes in maricopa county, arizona. auditors hired by the state senate backtracking tonight from claims that a key database had been deleted from county election servers. >> all of this, however, may be a moot point because subsequently i've been able to recover all of those deleted files, and i have access to that data. >> so, um, with that being said, do you -- do we -- do you still need to get that database from the county, or did that rebuilding or recovery that you did -- does that have the information you currently need for that database? >> i have the information i need from the recovery efforts of the data. >> i'm so happy now to bring in this gentleman to talk about it. the maricopa county record. mr. recordrecorder, i appreciat joining us this evening. let me get this straight. the auditors running this sham recount who claim that files were deleted now say that they've miraculously recovered those files. but to be clear, the files were never deleted, is that right? >> so, don, you brought me in on a good afte

this is republican maricopa county recorder that heads up the county elections department. >> i've been accused of inserting page fake ballots fro south korean claim and indulged by the senate majority whip and been accused of deleting databases even though transferred and seen them with my own eyes and even though i still have access to the current fully functional voting database. it is enough. i didn't want to get involved. i wanted to sit quietly on the sidelines, but it is enough. i am now the leader of an office of 160 full-time employees and i am tired of hearing them defamed and ridiculed. they are good people. they are hard working people. they are people of integrity. they are my friends. >> republicans sick of the big lie a lot like the georgia election officials also republicans sick of the big lie that spoke out repeatedly against the defeated president's attempt to overturn their results. and georgia's republican lieutenant governor jeff duncan that announced he won't be seeking a second term. he says phony conspiracy theories dealt lasting damage to his party and fueled t

maricopa county is the fourth largest county in the country. a deadline last friday close of business for the county to turn them over. the county board's lawyer said no. more importantly, the maricopa county sheriff said hell no to that request. so here we are on monday wondering what is going to happen with the subpoena. and there is a chance this could go back to court. >> talk us through this. first of all, i love the hell no, but this ballot counting is going to take a break at the end of the week. help us understand the potential other court battle over equipment. what is happening? >> okay, so let's keep the ballot count aside, set that aside for a second. so we have to go back a few months, to where a judge, one lower court judge, gave the approval to this subpoena. said, yes, you can issue this senate, senate judiciary committee, as the state senate committee controlled by a republican. it was issued by one person. there was no senate vote on this, by the way. the senate judiciary care issued this subpoena. it's a laundry list, long li

i think in maricopa county, all republicans you have noted in maricopa county, these are elections officialsin order to believe the importance of this audit, would also have to acknowledge that they didn't conduct a free and fair election. it doesn't makes sense. this cyberninjas doesn't know anything about elections, they're not certified, but they're in the middle of this. it must be an embarrassment for maricopa county, but it's really a black stain on democracy when this kind of thing is allowed to happen, the kind of thing that happens in a banana republic. >> nick, for the sake of our democracy, i wish republicans to recur -- if republicans likely denounce the recount, it will -- again and again republicans have had the option of taking off-ramps, yet they had nod. that's what liz cheney is describing. she describing donald trump's quote, crusade against democracy, and last friday we had proof of our law enforcement community in america, that the threat of domestic extremism persists to a degree they reissued a security threat. what do you think this does sort of inside the efforts to

meanwhile, maricopa county officials are outright threatening to sue their own state senate because it won't back down on false claims that basically defame what -- based on the evidence -- appear to be the honest administrators of that county's election. instead they are being defamed, they say, by false information some sort of election evidence or materials are destroyed. in fulton county, florida, ballots from the 2020 election can be reviewed. investigators did not find a valid absentee ballot of an audit of over 17,000 votes and signatures by individuals who chose to vote that way. republicans in arizona and three other states who tried to overturn the 2020 election results are now running to become election officials in their home states. the american democracy crisis continues, even if the last election was not ultimately stolen. with that in mind we turn to our strategists tonight, a staff writer of "the new york times," emily bazelon. good to have you here. >> thank you. >> i will start with you on the law because this could look like a story in decline. people who don't foll

cnn's senior national correspondent kyung lah joining us from maricopa county.don't know. but what i can tell you is that what we've been observing since early this morning here at the arizona state fairgrounds. what you're seeing over here is the coliseum, the stadium used for high school graduations next week, the ballots had to leave the coliseum. what we've been watching is the trucks have been moving them from the coliseum across this parking lot at the fairgrounds. this is the crazy times carnival with rides like alien abduction. the rocking rodeo and then the ballots are now housed in that green building. you can see that everything is closed up. there are 2.1 million ballots that have been moved. i want you to take a look at some of the pool video. the live stream video we've been watching. this is taped from earlier this morning. forklifts have been picking up these ballots. one by one. p pallets. the arizona senate liaison as comes back live and looks at this green building, he says this green building is secured 24/7 protection that it is going to be

. >>> republicans in maricopa county, arizona, are threatening to sue republicans in the state senate there for push ahead with the so-called audit of the 2020 election set to resume this hour. a trump supporter's non-profit is helping to decide who gets to count those ballots. this after arizona secretary of state katie hobbs warned maricopa county that they might need to buy brand-new voting equipment saying the voting system's integrity was compromised after it was handed over to the firm running the audit. she spoke to my colleague stephanie ruhle earlier today. >> they had access to these machines that election officials lost the chain of custody when they handed them over. those machines were locked in a room where there were no cameras. our equipment expert was not allowed in there. so we have no idea what they did and there's nothing in place where we could determine that the equipment has not been tampered with. i'm glad to use the air quotes around auditors because this is anything, but an audit. >> vaughn hilliard, air native arizonaan, and erin caldwell and senior washingt

review the maricopa county's election results. the county official account tweeted, arizona senate audit, account accused maricopa county of deleting files which would be a crime. then they explained they were looking in the wrong place, all of a sudden auditors, quote unquote, have recovered the files. confused emoji, unquote. this follows warnings from arizona secretary of state, she says the voting machines that were handed over for this inspection are no longer secure enough to use in elections. >> the chain of custody has been irreparably broken. and you know, so nobody is going to be able to replicate these audit results again. we can't live in a country where people who lose elections and don't like that and can't accept it can just cry foul and come in and tamper with everything that's in place. >> meanwhile, georgia seems to be following arizona's lead. a judge ordered fulton county, that's atlanta, to allow an inspection of all 147,000 mail-in ballots from last year. georgia has already completed three audits of the 2020

remember, joe biden only won by 10,000 votes, 40,000 in maricopa county.can broaden enough questions around those votes you'll get what former president trump said last week, which is arizona is going to be the first state to prove him right. this is just another methodology they're using to do that. >> and then what, right? we're now hearing, this is the arizona state senator katie hobbs wrote a letter talking about the fact that some of these laptop computers with people's data on them are being left unattended. they're sitting abandoned at times, unlocked, unmonitored. they're not even trying to keep the ballots secure. and so if the ballots are up in the air and we don't know if they're going home with the cyber ninjas. you know, to philip's point, they can do any count they want and say this is the result and then what? what do they think is going to happen if they miraculously trump won arizona by 300 bazillion votes, 99% of them like saddam hussein? >> they have the result. they know the results they want. now, are they going to get them? no. what t

cyber ninjas is far from the finish line in counting more than 2 million moatvotes cast i maricopa countyt were scheduled for the building where the count is being held. and the review is being orchestrated by republicans in the arizona state senate amid wild conspiracy theories involving ultraviolet light and bamboo. we were finally let inside. >> reporter: we are getting the first look ourselves at the next act in the replay of the big lie. that the 2020 election was stolen. >> this is the press box. that's the floor. >> reporter: the counting floor of yet another tally of the nearly 2.1 million ballots in maricopa county. from a distance, and they're keeping reporters so far away that i have to use binoculars to see. it looks like a ballot review, but look harder and the ballots are on a lazy susan. this guy in a cowboy hat walking around with what appears to be some type of cell phone jammer? and then there's this light machine with multiple cameras. >> two of the three matching -- >> reporter: ken bennett, hired by the republican-controlled arizona senate to run this ballot review ex

those are the actual physical record of the election that happened in maricopa county.ice basically said, look, there's federal law guiding some of this. what safeguards are in place? they got sort of a snide response from the arizona state senate. it does seem like this is just going to go on and nothing's going to change, or is there any oversight being put in place? >> well, there is no oversight. there is oversight of a third-party contractor, doug logan, the man with -- the chief cyber ninja, who believes that the election was stolen. there are no officials in charge of our ballots anymore. it's been outsourced to a third party. you know, the department of justice says that they're concerned about the safety and security of the ballots, which they should be. but they're also concerned about who is it that they're going to -- when they get to the phase of the audit where they go knocking on doors, whose doors are they going to be knocking on, and what are they going to be asking? and the concern, of course, is that they're going to go out in minority communities. >>

maricopa county sheriff, paul pinzone, he is a democrat. sheriff, you said this so-called audit is forcing you and other-county officials to waste time, resources, and energy, on what you say is political theater. and those who wish to see our nation destroyed celebrate this division. that is an end quote. i mean, does this exercise have any credibility, in your view? >> well, if it does, i think it's getting lost in a lot of the -- [ inaudible ] theater because at this point, what we see is such an extreme division, that we are hurting ourselves. if there's legitimacy to the audit. what's identified specifically, what those areas are. once you start bringing law enforcement, the equipment that critical for instructure when it comes to technology, we are drawing that away from public-safety needs for our community. >> i mean, one of the issues, of course, with this so-called audit, is there is no guarantee, any results that this group announces will be legitimate. there is nothing to say -- there's no-standard procedures that they are -- ar

the one silver lining is there's a number of republican officials in maricopa county who have said toan officials this is stupid. this has to end. this is the big lie, get out of our business. >> yeah. absolutely. i'm very thankful that the maricopa county board of supervisors is stepping up and it looks like they took the first step towards taking legal action. i mean, i wish she had appealed the subpoena, the ruling on the subpoena in the first place because we might not be here at this point. the fact they're doing this now is very -- i'm very hopeful about that. >> you and i talked about this a few weeks ago and the department of justice sent a letter saying we think there might be some shady stuff going on that actually affects the integrity of elections, and that would be a violation of federal law. but you're looking at the same thing. some of the same issues, votes are being touched by all sorts of people. there are pens. there are voting machines. there are all sorts of things now that mean that you can never actually audit these ballots can. you can never do this again becau

the republican-dominated maricopa county board oversaw an audit of the ballots.nalyze the technology. so we know that the election was secure. we know who won the election in arizona. and now seven months later we have an inexperienced firm run by a stop the steal conspiracy theorist running this so-called audit. it's not going to lead to any answers. it's not going to help us assess arizona elections which were very, very well run confirmed by bipartisan observes. meanwhile these so-called awe tors are destroying the chain of custody of the ballots. most of us fear, those who watch elections, is that this is only going to harden the belief in the minds of disappointed trump supporters that he lost. they are going to continue to be preyed on by scammers and grifters who are trying to raise money off of them. even worse, this is really cutting at the legitimacy of democratic self governance in this country. if we no longer live in a society where the loser has to prove that there was some kind of fraud or something wrong with the election where there's been zero e

in arizona, republican leaders in maricopa county are demanding an end to the gop-ordered vote recount in the 2020 presidential election results, calling it a mockery and a grift disguised as an audit. last month, arizona state senate republicans used their subpoena power to take possession of 2.1 million ballots, ballot-counting machines, and computer hard drives in maricopa county -- arizona's most populous region. the recount is being overseen by cyber ninjas, a company with no record of working in election security. the company's ceo has espoused conspiracy theories claiming the election was stolen from former president trump. this is maricopa county board of supervisors chair jack sellers speaking monday. >> this board is done explaining anything to these people who are playing investigator with our constituents, balance, and equipment paid for with real people's tax dollars. people's ballots and money are not make-believe. it is time to be done with this laziness and get on with our counties critical business. amy: in immigration news, a new report by the american civil liberties

. >> reporter: the counting floor of yet, another, tally of the nearly 2.1 million ballots in maricopa county binoculars to see. it looks like a ballot review. but look harder. and the ballots are on a lazy susan. zooming by ballot counters. this guy in a cowboy hat walking around with what appears to be some type of cell-phone jammer. and then, there is this light machine with multiple cameras. >> two of the three. >> reporter: ken bennet, hired by the republican-controlled arizona senate to help one this ballot review explains why they are using it. >> some microscopic cameras with zoom in on certain parts of the ballot to make sure where the ovals were filled in, there is a depression. instead, of the ovals being filled in by a xerox machine. >> is there a concern that ballots were xeroxed? >> there's always concern that we want to make sure that every ballot came from a -- an eligible-registered voter in maricopa county, as opposed to somebody trying to introduce unauthorized ballots. >> reporter: that's a conspiracy theory that ballots were, somehow, snuck in leading to donald trump's de

became a state senator and then came up to the big leagues and went to maricopa county supervisor. >>believe things were down well, why does the senate republican contingency want to expand? why does the governor sign a restrictive new voting law? do you think they just don't believer you or is this about something other than the facts? >> the governor and the legislature and the laws that they make that's something that they do. county does not make laws. we enforce them or put them into place when we talk about elections or zoning and other things. i sent a letter -- we -- i asked to stop the rhetoric that i will tell you yesterday with all of the county elected standing together, democrat and republican, answering some supposed partial findings to this audit should tell maricopa county and the united states voters we believe strongly in the election we ran and we believe strongly and support the people that ran it. >> it's very important that real republicans stand up for what you say your party is about and tell the truth where the frtrut is a matter of principle, not party. i'll

that same, green building, where maricopa county's ballots are being housed for the next week.ust a few-hundred yards south of the coliseum, where the audit was happening, the wesley building comes with a warning. facility rental paperwork states, due to temperatures during the summer months, this building is not recommended for use. the trailer says the arizona senate liaison are being individually cooled. >> will that facility be controlled -- climate controlled as well? moisture controlled? >> yes, means they'll be in a locked container with 24/7 armed guards. fencing. and 24/7 live-streaming cameras. >> reporter: all of this as a partisan-led exercise in pursuit of the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from former-president donald trump. despite two audits by maricopa county, the gop-controlled senate hired a little-known tech company called cyber ninjas to run this count. >> to see something like this whereby, you are actually moving it in the midst of the process and then stopping, altogether, for week on end and getting restarted, yet again. that is something i h

. >> reporter: she's the elusive leader behind the audit happening in maricopa county, arizona. >> ion system. >> reporter: which is the backbone of the democracy. >> right. we should have 100% confidence in our democracy and election system. >> reporter: you're talking about trying to disprove conspiracies. >> if i have to, yes. why wouldn't we? if somebody says something is out there, i would love to be able to say that's not true, guys. >> reporter: aren't you raising more questions by giving riese o the conspiracy theories? >> no. >> reporter: we finally caught up with her in the senate parking lot despite two previous audits that found no wide spread fraud, she says this third review is needed. over the last month, we've seen this little known subcontractor the republican lead senate hired use u.v. lights hunting for non-exist taent water lights on ballots. here is why says fan. >> okay. so let me ask you a question. are you 100% confident that every vote that came in in arizona or any other state, can you say emphatically 100% that no dead people voted, that ballots weren't fil

the counting floor of yet another talley of the nearly 2.1 million ballots in maricopa county from aance and they're keeping reporters so far away that i have to use binoculars to see. it looks like a ballot review, but look harder and the ballots are on a lazy susan, zooming by ballot counters. this guy in a cowboy hat walking around with what appears to be some type of cellphone jammer and then there is this light machine with multiple cameras. ken bennett fired by the republican controlled arizona senate to help run this ballot review explains why they're using it. >> microscopic cameras can zoom in on person parts of the ballot to make sure where the ovals are filled in there is a compression instead of the ovals being filled in by a xerox machine. >> reporter: is there a concern that ballots were xeroxed? >> there's always concern that we want to make sure that every ballot came from an eligible registered voter in maricopa county as opposed to somebody trying to introduce unauthorized ballots. >> reporter: that's a conspiracy theory, that ballots were somehow snuck in leading t

and won maricopa county i believe by about 4,000 votes. >> this whole effort is being overseen by cyberninjas whose chief executive has publicly embraced conspiracy theories about voting machines and we learned that the former state representative of arizona, photographed on the steps of the capitol on the day of the insurrection was also seen recounting these ballots. are you shocked that there aren't more republicans like yourself saying that this is ludicrous? >> yes, i am, shocked and disappointed. there are some, obviously, the governor has all along said that the election was done appropriately, and that joe biden won it. as much as president trump wanted him to play a role in trying to overturn it. so there have been some in that state house of representatives, the speaker of the house has done well, and others, but for the most part, most republicans have remained silent, because they know that some 70% of base republican voters believe the big lie, and are unwilling to challenge that, and that's what's just puzzling and unfortunate. >> as you know, congresswoman liz cheney is e

listen to what maricopa county supervisor hickman, a republican who supported donald trump, told ournty will be able to survive this audit process. i am hoping if something comes to court we can show maricopa county has always acted on evidence and facts and not beliefs and hunches. >> reporter: election experts have talked about what's happening in arizona as a possible dangerous precedent moving forward just a couple days ago congressman matt gates talked about what's happening here as a launch pad for other states. he said georgia is up next. >> ellison barber live for us there in arizona. ellison, you're right this is a story not over. >>> a couple states over in texas we're following another big move by republican lawmakers where it's about to get a lot easier for basically anybody to get their hands on a gun. overnight lawmakers approving a bill that would let texans over 21, so adults, get a handgun without a license and without the background check and training that goes along with that. the republican governor there, greg abbott, says he will sign this. conservative backers

. >> and in arizona that audit in maricopa county is restarting.ys that the voting machines being probed will need to be replaced at taxpayer expense all because of the lie that the former president keeps peddling to protect his ego. >> across the board voters in arizona, across political party lines, realize that this is really making a mockery out of our elections and a mockery out of arizona again. when the people in charge of our elections running the elections become more focused on the outcome than the process we're in huge trouble. >> for more now let's bring in cnn's diane gallagher. i understand there are some developments in arizona tying a well-known conspiracy theorist to this, as alisyn put it so well, so-called audit. what more can you tell us? >> so erica, a trump-supporting fund-raising organization launched by a nonprofit run by the former ceo of overstock appears to be organizing staffing for that part sap senate run audit. now patrick bird is a very well-known trump supporter, a he has amplified the former president's big lie tha

the governor signing new voting restrictions last week in that bogus partisan recount of maricopa county's020 ballots which is now suspended. he claimed county officials deleted election data and removed republican votes. that's a lie. such a big lie the county's recorder debunked donald trump on twitter. however, arizona known for its hard-line immigration policies wants to let its voters decide in 2022 on whether to grant daca recipients in-state tuition. president biden shared this image, writing that the congress needs to create a federal path for citizenship for dreamers, farm workers and those with temporary status. with me now is raquel teran, the chair of the arizona democratic party and state representative from ld-30. i want to talk about biden's meeting with daca recipients long-term protections for daca recipients have been uncertain for so many years. if you had been in the room with the president, what's the message you would have wanted to convey? >> i would have say that we can no longer wait. we have been waiting for years and have seen heartbreak and heartbreak. and the f