Last Updated on July 15, 2021
In March, there were more than 37,000 anonymous administrative queries to access the 2020 election system in Maricopa County that defied “normal Windows behavior,” according to cyber expert Ben Cotton, a witness at the Arizona state Senate hearing Thursday on the election audit.
“The Windows logs will actually record the user name that is requesting that action” in addition to the IP address and the host name of the client making the request, said tech expert Ben Cotton. “What we are seeing here…is we’re seeing anonymous logins at the system level that do not follow that pattern of normal Windows behavior.” Cotton said that he needs to obtain data to figure out what the activity is.
JUST IN: Maricopa County cyber expert Ben Cotton says "We're seeing anonymous logins at the system level that do not follow that pattern of normal Windows behavior" pic.twitter.com/I8WF8TPy14
— National File (@NationalFile) July 15, 2021
“On March 11, over 37,000 queries for a blank password on a Maricopa Co system that only contained 8 accounts. This was script used by the EMS Admin account. We need routers & splunk logs to see WHO was querying! And why the data before February 5, 2021, is not accessible! #OMG,” stated Arizona GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward.
WHO WERE THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE 37,000 ADMIN QUERIES IN MARICOPA!?! NOT SECURE @katiehobbs!!!!
— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) July 15, 2021
Tech contractor Ben Cotton confirmed that the Maricopa County election system was “compromised” during the 2020 election. “An element of the election system was actually compromised or breached during the course of the November 2020 election…The registration server that was public facing did have unauthorized access to that. In cybersecurity terms, it was breached…The county issued a letter” regarding the problem, stated tech expert Cotton.
BREAKING: Elections systems were "breached" in the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/I66to360rJ
— National File (@NationalFile) July 15, 2021
Meanwhile, former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who served as the Republican state Senate’s liaison to the Maricopa County audit, confirmed that “thousands” of ballots that were set aside to be duplicated had no serial number on them or a very “light” unreadable serial number, making them impossible to properly count during the 2020 election.
“There was almost one whole pallet that were called original/damaged ballots sent to duplication…if a ballot gets damaged and has to be sent to duplication,” Bennett explained. “We found I would have to say thousands of duplicate ballots where those serial numbers are not on them” which “has created great difficulty in trying to match up.”
Bennett said that “thousands” of ballots in the duplicate pile had serial numbers “put on by a dot matrix printer, very very light” and there was “none whatsoever on many” ballots. When asked how you would know if ballots are duplicated or not with no serial number, Ken Bennett confirmed that you would NOT know. The stunning revelation provides more substance to President Donald Trump’s assertion that the 2020 election was illegitimate.
BOMBSHELL: Many Arizona duplicate ballots had "very, very light" serial numbers, and many more had NO SERIAL NUMBERS. pic.twitter.com/mzxBKJfXrH
— National File (@NationalFile) July 15, 2021
This is a breaking news story and may be updated with more information.
