Arizona audit contractor misses congressional deadline to provide information

The contractor that is conducting the Republican-led audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Ariz. has missed a deadline to provide a Congressional panel with information about the audit, the Arizona Republic reported.

Cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas had until July 28 to provide the House Oversight and Reform Committee with information as part of a probe it announced a few weeks prior.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.) and Jamie Raskin (Md.), the panel’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.

But according to The Arizona Republic, it was unclear if Cyber Ninjas had provided any information to the panel.

News of the missed deadline was first reported by Slate last week, citing a committee staffer involved in the inquiry.

Maloney’s office told the news outlet 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.

The Hill has reached out to the Oversight panel for comment.

The Arizona state Senate approved the audit in April despite previous audits confirming that the ballots were counted properly.

President Biden won the Grand Canyon State by roughly 11,000 votes over former President Trump, making Biden the first Democrat to carry the state since former President Clinton in 1996.

Cyber Ninjas was hired to oversee the audit despite having no prior experience in election audits.

Around the same time the Oversight panel announced its investigation, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved nearly $3 million for new vote-counting machines.

This came after Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs warned that Cyber Ninjas’s work may have compromised the “security and integrity” of the machines.