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July 23, 2021 - Epoch Times

17:53

Top Election Official Tells Maricopa County to Get New Election Machines | Facts Matter

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	Good evening.
	Three days ago, several counties out in Oregon, they voted to secede and join the state of Idaho.
	They essentially don't like Portland politicians running the state so much that they're voting with their feet.
	Meanwhile, over in Arizona, the Secretary of State just issued this letter saying that the election machines which are currently being audited are no longer suitable for future elections, meaning that they will have to purchase new ones.
	And furthermore, the Arizona Senate president received a suspicious package in the mail two days ago which contained a mysterious white substance.
	And lastly, over in Texas, the governor there has just signed a new bill into law which prohibits abortions once a fetal heartbeat has been detected, essentially outlawing abortions after six weeks.
	But will this survive the courts?
	Well, we might know that very soon, actually, because the Supreme Court has just agreed to hear a similar case out in Mississippi.
	Let's go through these stories together.
	This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
	Now let's begin today's discussion out in Oregon.
	But actually, just before we do, as a quick aside, right there at the top of the description box is a link to Epic TV, our brand new no-censorship platform where you can find all of the awesome Epoch Times shows.
	Like the Larry Elder Show, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, American Thought Leaders, China in Focus, Life and Times, and our show, Facts Matter.
	And on there you will find exclusive episodes that you can only find on Epic TV. In fact, this weekend we will have an exclusive episode on there that you will not be able to find on YouTube.
	Again, that link will be there.
	Hope you subscribe.
	And now let's really move on over to Oregon.
	Or is it actually Idaho?
	Well, that'll depend on what'll happen in the course of the next several months.
	That's because three days ago, several counties out in Oregon, they voted to secede and instead joined the state of Idaho.
	So this is a pretty long-shot movement being led by a group called Move Oregon's Border for a Greater Idaho, and it aims at having the eastern counties of Oregon, which are mostly rural, join Idaho, because they believe that they would be better off with Idaho's more conservative political leadership.
	The argument is that state politics in Oregon has long been dominated by politicians out in Portland, who, as you can imagine, are significantly more left-leaning than the rural counties on the eastern side of the state.
	And so, three days ago, voters in Maller, Sherman, Grant, Baker, and Lake counties, they approved various different measures which require that county officials begin taking steps to look into moving the Idaho border west to incorporate these counties.
	Here's how one of the lead petitioners explained it to media outlets.
	This election proves that rural Oregon wants out of Oregon.
	If Oregon really believes in liberal values such as self-determination, the legislature won't hold our counties captive against our will.
	If we're allowed to vote for which government officials we want, we should be allowed to vote for which government we want as well.
	And by the way, besides these five counties which just voted in favor of this move, last year there were another two counties in Oregon.
	Jefferson and Union counties, which also approved measures to begin the process of moving into Idaho.
	And so right now in total, there are seven Oregon counties trying to break away.
	And furthermore, in an upcoming election, two more of Oregon's counties, Harney and Douglas counties, will be voting on a similar measure, to break away from the state.
	If those go through, that'll be a total of nine counties.
	Now politicians in the state of Idaho seem to be viewing this whole thing positively.
	For instance, the governor of Idaho, Mr.
	Brad Little, this is what he told Fox News last year.
	They are looking at Idaho fondly because of our regulatory atmosphere, our values.
	That doesn't surprise me one bit.
	What they're interested in is they would like to have a little more autonomy, a little more control, a little more freedom, and I can understand that.
	Furthermore, two Idaho state representatives are planning to introduce a bill within the next six months to relocate the Idaho-Oregon border.
	However, this whole bid is a very long shot because in order for it to happen, in order for it to go through, it will require a formal vote in the Oregon legislature, which is of course controlled by Democrats.
	And if that somehow passes through, Oregon and Idaho would then have to come up with a deal, which would then have to be ratified by the U.S. Congress.
	And by the way, just as a short aside, in terms of how common this type of thing is, throughout the course of American history, changing state lines has been a very rare occurrence, and when it has happened, it all took place before the turn of the 20th century.
	A few notable examples include how in 1792, the state of Kentucky was actually carved out of Virginia's territory, in 1820, the state of Maine was created for Massachusetts, and of course in 1863, the one most people are familiar with, West Virginia was admitted into the Union after breaking away from Virginia proper during the Civil War.
	And so who knows, maybe these seven counties will be successful at breaking away from Oregon and formally joining Idaho.
	Only time will tell.
	If you would like to read the full story for yourself, the link to that will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And by the way, that is that same little description box that is right below that like button that I hope you take a moment to smash.
	Because videos that are like this, talking honestly about what is happening in this world, are routinely censored by big tech giants like YouTube.
	However, when you smash that like button below this video, you are forcing the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide.
	And now let's move on over to Arizona.
	As we've already discussed in several previous episodes, the Arizona State Senate is conducting a fairly large-scale audit of the 2020 election over in Maricopa County, which by the way, in case you're unaware, Maricopa County is the largest county in Arizona.
	About 61% of all Arizonians live in that one county.
	And as a part of that audit, the Arizona State Senate is doing a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots, They are looking for any possible IT breaches that might have occurred, and they are also examining close to 400 tabulation machines which were used during the election.
	Now, due to a scheduling conflict, the hand recount has been on pause since last Friday, and it is set to restart this upcoming Monday.
	Afterwards, the auditors will have until June 30th, so they have over a full month to count the remaining ballots, which at this moment, as of the last recorded statement from the auditors, there are still 1.6 million ballots that remain uncounted.
	Now while the hand recount has been paused, there's been a lot of legal drama happening in the background, a lot of which we've actually already discussed in previous episodes.
	However, there have been some new developments.
	To start with, it appears that a suspicious package with an unidentified white powder was sent to Karen Phan, who is the Arizona Senate president.
	According to an email from the Director of Communications for the Senate Republicans out in Arizona, here's what happened.
	An assistant in President Phan's office opened a letter addressed to the president.
	A small amount of substance was observed from the mailing.
	Out of an abundance of caution, the assistant contacted the Department of Public Safety, and its hazmat team was alerted.
	Then, according to a statement from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, at about 4.30 p.m., they responded to this suspicious package call, and then they wrote that the package was secured by the Department of Public Safety hazardous materials response unit and submitted to the crime lab.
	Investigation continues regarding the package.
	Thus far, it's not been made publicly known what that white powder actually was.
	Now, besides that mysterious package, yesterday Katie Hobbs, who is the current Arizona Secretary of State, she's a Democrat, she announced that the voting machines which are currently being audited are no longer safe for use in future elections, meaning that Maricopa County will have to purchase new election machines.
	She explained her reasoning in this letter here, which she sent to Maricopa County officials, and we were actually able to get a copy of this letter here at the Epoch Times, and here is what it says in part.
	I have grave concerns regarding the security and integrity of these machines, given that the chain of custody, a critical security tenant, has been compromised and election officials do not know what was done to the machines while under Cyber Ninja's control.
	Now, as to whether she can actually do this or not, it looks like she can.
	In the state of Arizona, the Secretary of State can decertify machinery as long as she does it in consultation with the state's election equipment certification committee, which is a three-person panel which is actually appointed by Katie Hobbs herself.
	Which appears to be what she has done already because in this letter she states that she has already consulted with the election technology experts and determined that, after a loss of physical custody and control, no comprehensive methods exist to fully rehabilitate the compromised equipment or provide adequate assurance that they remain safe to use.
	And so, what this ultimately looks like is that out in Arizona, the Arizona State Senate can now do a forensic audit of these machines because they don't have the passwords, and it also looks like the Arizona taxpayers will have to foot the bill for another set of these Dominion machines.
	Now, aside from this letter, there were a few interesting developments that came out of the Arizona Senate meeting from earlier in the week.
	For one, according to Doug Logan, who is the CEO of the Cyber Ninjas, which is, of course, the company leading this forensic audit, the previous audits, which were conducted in the Maricopa County on behalf of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, did not actually validate that the election results were accurate.
	Logan said as a part of that hearing that those previous audits, they mainly focused on making sure that the version of software that was expected to run on the machines was in fact the version that was being used.
	Furthermore, he also said that they ran off-the-shelf software to see whether there was any malware on the machines, and that they ran logic and accuracy testing, which he said involved taking a sample of about 100 ballots out of the total 2.1 million ballots in the county and running them through the system to make sure that those ballots were being counted properly.
	However, in regards to those previous audits, he said that, They were all focused on whether it was the right version of the software.
	By contrast, he said that the current audit, the one that they are overseeing, is focused on specifically the results.
	Are the results exactly as they came through?
	Are they the way that they were cast?
	and does it go all the way through the system that way?
	Now, secondly, another interesting takeaway from that Arizona Senate meeting was when Ken Bennett, who is the former Arizona Secretary of State as well as the audit liaison, He said that the Maricopa County officials have yet to provide him with chain of custody documentation for the election ballot, which spans the time period between the November election and the day that they were delivered to the forensic auditors, which was back in April.
	He said that even though he has been asking for weeks for this documentation, the county officials have only provided him with the chain of custody documentation for the transport of the ballots from the warehouse to the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which took place on April 21st and 22nd.
	But he says that he has yet to receive the chain of custody documentation for the five-month period prior to that.
	Here's specifically what he said.
	We still haven't received, as far as chain of custody, the documentation of the chain of custody between when boxes with ballots in them started to be filed away in their warehouse between the election and April 22nd.
	Furthermore, he said that getting this documentation is very important and necessary in order to make sure that ballot security was maintained throughout that five-month period.
	However, given the hardline stance that Maricopa County officials took in their most recent letter, which we went over in our previous episode, it looks like without a court order, they might not be turning over any more documentation.
	We'll just have to wait and see what actually comes of it.
	Now lastly, in regards to the Arizona audit, it looks like it might be expanding to include all races within the county.
	In fact, just a few days ago, the Arizona State Senate indicated that it is considering expanding the audit of Maricopa County elections to include more than just the presidential and Senate races.
	The audit team indicated that they now want to test the county voting machines by taking a closer look at the results from all of the other races as well.
	Here's what Ken Bennett said on this issue.
	We are looking with other companies to do a machine tabulation of all the races on the ballots to compare with the Dominion tabulation back in November.
	We will be looking at the images of all 2.1 million ballots.
	Mr.
	Bennett then went on to further say that the expanded audit would not involve a physical recount of the ballots, like the one that's happening right now at the Memorial Coliseum, but instead it would be a separate audit using digital images of each ballot.
	Now, if they choose to do it this way, it is likely the case that they would have to re-examine the 500,000 ballots that they have already inspected.
	And so, we'll just have to wait and see whether that is actually the route that the audit team will be taking, and probably will know starting next week when the auditors re-enter the Memorial Coliseum and restart their operations.
	Now, if you would like to read the statements from Kent Bennett, if you would like to read this full letter from Katie Hobbs, or if you would like to dive deeper into anything related to the Arizona audit for yourself, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And now, before we move on over to Texas, I would like to introduce our sponsor for today's episode, and it is the Like Button.
	That's right, this episode is sponsored by that like button that's right there below this video.
	For the low, low cost of zero dollars and zero cents, you can smash that like button and force the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide.
	And now let's move on over to Texas.
	Two days ago, the governor of Texas signed into law a new bill which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat has been detected.
	This piece of legislation, which is officially called Texas Senate Bill 8, centers on the idea that the state of Texas never officially repealed the laws which were enacted before the Roe vs.
	Wade decision back in 1973.
	Those particular laws, which arguably are still in effect, both bar and criminalize abortion unless it's done in order to save the life of the mother.
	Now, this new bill, which has now just been signed into law, states that a doctor may not perform an abortion unless he or she has determined that the unborn child does not have a detectable fetal heartbeat.
	If a heartbeat is detected, an abortion can only be performed if a medical emergency exists.
	Now, in signing this bill, here is what the governor of Texas had to say.
	Our creators endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion.
	The bill ensures that the life of every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion.
	Now, what's interesting to note is that the way that this new bill is structured actually prohibits state officials from enforcing the provisions.
	Instead, the way that it will work, starting in September when this new law goes into effect, is that private citizens may file lawsuits against doctors, clinics, and anyone involved in an abortion that violates the law.
	Now, as expected, a number of progressive groups criticize this new bill.
	For instance, here's a statement from the ACLU of Texas.
	If this law stands, it would outright ban abortion in the state at six weeks gestation, before many Texans even know they are pregnant.
	If this law stands, it would allow anyone to sue abortion providers and folks who help a person obtain an abortion.
	Furthermore, Planned Parenthood of Texas called this bill one of the most extreme abortion bans in the entire country.
	On the flip side, however, many cheered the bill as a victory for the pro-life movement.
	For instance, here is a statement from the director at Human Coalition, which is a pro-life group.
	What an honor to witness Governor Abbott sign this historic heartbeat bill.
	The legislature and governor prioritize this historic legislation, and with his signature, approximately 50,000 precious human lives will be saved in Texas next year alone.
	Furthermore, Senator Brian Hughes, who is a Republican and one of the bill's main sponsors in the Texas legislature, he said this.
	Now, very likely, what will happen next is that some of the groups that are against this bill will file a lawsuit against it, arguing that it is unconstitutional.
	And if and when that happens, we'll let you know right away.
	Although, it might not even be necessary.
	That's because four days ago, the US Supreme Court has agreed to take on a major abortion case.
	This particular case came out from Mississippi and is very, very far-reaching.
	What happened was that over in Mississippi, state lawmakers enacted a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
	However, a lower court reversed that ban, with a judge saying this.
	Mississippi chose to pass a law which it knew was unconstitutional to enforce a decades-long campaign fueled by interest groups to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v.
	Wade.
	This judge's reversal was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and as of four days ago, they accepted the case with this simple order.
	The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, limited to question 1 presented by the petition.
	Now, the reason that this case is so far-reaching is that it will grant the Supreme Court an opportunity to reconsider both Roe vs.
	Wade as well as Planned Parenthood vs.
	Casey, both of these being landmark cases that ruled that a woman had a right to an abortion.
	And now, with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court bench, who knows what they will ultimately decide.
	Arguments in the case will begin starting in October, so five months from now, and if you would like to read more about this case either out in Mississippi or in Texas, both of those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And then lastly...
	As we already discussed in several previous episodes, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, YouTube made the unilateral decision to demonetize our program.
	We can now no longer run any ads before, during or after episodes, and the Super Chat feature has just been disabled.
	They're essentially snuffing out our independent journalism.
	However, we here at the Epoch Times have launched something very cool.
	It's called Epoch TV.
	It's our brand new no-censorship video platform where you can find all of the awesome Epoch Times programs like the Larry Elder Show, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, American Thought Leaders, China in Focus, Life and Times, and our show, Facts Matter.
	And on there, you will find exclusive episodes that you cannot find here on YouTube.
	In fact, this weekend, we will be publishing an exclusive episode that you will not be able to find here on YouTube.
	Again, that link will be right there in the description box below.
	I hope you click on it.
	I hope you subscribe.
	And I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful world through honest journalism based in truth and tradition.
	And now lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
	Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed while you still can.
	And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times.

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