A technology company that assisted in the Maricopa County, Arizona, ballot audit has backed out, although state Senate President Karen Fann said the firm completed its obligations under their contract.
The contract with Wake Technology Services Inc. (Wake TSI), a company based in Pennsylvania, ended May 14, the original completion date for the hand count. The firm chose not to renew the contract, said Andy Pullen, an audit spokesperson and former Arizona GOP chairman, told local news outlet AZCentral.
“They were done,” he said of Wake TSI, without elaborating. “They didn’t want to come back.”
Several days ago, reports said that Wake TSI previously carried out an audit in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, at the request of Republican state Sens. Doug Mastriano and Judy Ward. The lawmakers had asked county officials to allow Wake to conduct the rural Pennsylvania county’s audit, according to Ward, who told the Arizona Mirror that she passed their request to county officials on Mastriano’s behalf. Mastriano notably was heavily involved in November 2020 in pushing the state Legislature to make a bid to overturn Pennsylvania’s election certification in favor of former President Donald Trump.
Pullen added that Scottsdale, Arizona-based company StratTech Solutions has taken over Wake TSI’s hand count process and is using Wake TSI’s procedures.
Fann, a Republican, suggested that the move was routine and said the firm completed its obligations under its contract with the state.
“They finished up with their contract, so they don’t need to be there anymore,” she said, according to AZCentral.
The GOP-led state Senate’s liaison for the audit, Ken Bennett, said earlier this month that Wake TSI “probably [has] two to 300 people that are under their employ or volunteers.” Pullen responded to Bennett’s statement on Tuesday and said that many of the same people will work under StratTech Solutions, according to AZCentral.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Fann’s office and Wake TSI for comment.
The news about Wake TSI’s departure came as workers in Maricopa resumed their audit of 2.1 million ballots that were cast in the county during the Nov. 3, 2020, election. Approximately 500,000 ballots from the nearly 2.1 million cast in Maricopa County in the presidential election have been reviewed by the audit team, which was hired by the state Senate.
The Arizona Senate has control of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix through June 30 to complete the audit, according to an agreement obtained by The Epoch Times.
“We have a lot more tables and people that they trained during the one week off, and so we think the throughput is going to pick up significantly,” Bennett had told The Epoch Times. “We have the colosseum this last week of May and all of June, so we’re confident that we can get it done during that time.”
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
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