Arizona taxpayers could be on the hook for a $9 million bill after GOP subpoenas routers: report

On Monday night, Bill Gates, a Republican member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, revealed on CNN that the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate has had Maricopa County officials served with a new subpoena seeking their routers for its audit of the 2020 election.

Appearing on CNN, Gates stated, "Right before I came on here, the board of supervisors received another subpoena from the state Senate ordering us to turn over the routers, in addition to some other information. And they threaten us in these papers that if we do not turn those over by Aug. 2. So that's next Monday, then we could be held in contempt."

According to the Washington Post's Joseph Marks, that could run the bill associated with the audit, seeking evidence that Donald Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him, up to $9 million.

According to the technology analyst, "The state's already on the hook for roughly $3 million to replace the county's voting machines because of concerns the partisan firm conducting the audit, Cyber Ninjas, can't ensure the machines weren't infected with malicious software during the process. Now, Trump and his allies are pushing hard for the county to hand over routers that will cost an additional $6 million to replace if they similarly can't be trusted."

As Marks notes, the state of Arizona received $16 million for election security after the 2016 election over fears of Russian involvement, which means, "... more than half of that could be lost to cleaning up after the audit," after $3.4 million had already been dispersed to Maricopa County over the last three years.

In an interview with Marks, Matt Masterson, a former election adviser to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during Donald Trump's administration, trashed the ongoing audit and the possible new expenses.

"It's a bit like their voting systems were ransomwared and held hostage for $9 million and now they have to find a way to pay for it," he explained before adding. "Nothing about what's taking place in Maricopa County right now should be a model for others."

The latest attempt to keep the audit going comes after Trump, in his speech in Arizona on Saturday, told his rally attendees, "The county has, for whatever reason, also refused to produce the network routers. We want the routers, Sonny, Wendy, we got to get those routers, please. The routers. Come on, Kelly, we can get those routers. Those routers. You know what? We're so beyond the routers, there's so many fraudulent votes without the routers. But if you got those routers, what that will show, and they don't want to give up the routers. They don't want to give them. They are fighting like hell. Why are these commissioners fighting not to give the routers? How simple could it be? That will tell the truth. What are they trying to hide?"

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