1: The Arizona Senate asked the court to keep secret records of its ongoing review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County that are in the possession of the contractors conducting the recount.
2: The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that the documents sought by the watchdog group American Oversight detailing how the recount and audit are being conducted are public and must be turned over.
3: Republicans who control the Senate argued that because the records are maintained by its contractors, they were not subject to public records law and that legislative immunity applies. But the court said that was not the case.
4: The court said the main contractor, Florida company Cyber Ninjas, was subject to the records law because it was performing a core government function that the Senate farmed out.
5: "Allowing the legislature to disregard the clear mandate of the (public records law) would undermine the integrity of the legislative process and discourage transparency, which contradicts the purpose of both the immunity doctrine and the (law)," acting presiding Judge Maria Elena Cruz wrote for the three-judge panel.
The left leaning Arizona Senate has opposed this effort from the beginning, and are again frustrated by this court of appeals ruling against them.
I have no knowledge or opinion of the watchdog group American Oversight, and at this point have no concern about their motives or intent. Seems to me that they are on the side of full disclosure of the audit results, with which I heartily agree.
The AZ Senate isn’t left leaning. The Maricopa BOS is 3-2 Republic yet they inexplicably refused to obey a subpoena for the routers and passwords. They’re the bad guys here. The group pressing for the audit documentation is pro-Democrats. They’re trying to fight back against the election audit results and shouldn’t be rooted for because they’re also the bad guys in this case.
“The Senate has taken radical positions to obstruct basic public access to information about its so-called audit," Austin Evers, American Oversight's executive director, said in a statement. “It has tried to get away with outsourcing the audit to a third party and argued that the public has no right to enforce transparency laws against them.”
Anytime I see someone calling the election audit "radical" I doubt their bona fides. I also notice that the Associated press presents only one side of the situation. They do not present any representative for the AZ Senate.
The whole audit was conducted on line for the world to see. They could see the methods. The RESULTS of the audit have been conveyed to the Senate, they will start to review them Monday.
The more I think about this the more I begin to think this is just a smear job that they are trying to present before release of the results.