Maricopa County voted to spend nearly $3 million on new voting equipment to replace the voting machines audited by the Arizona state Senate.
The county’s board of supervisors voted 5-0 on Wednesday to buy new machines after Democrat Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs warned officials that their machines would be decertified if they continued to use them.
Hobbs claimed the Republicans’ audit of the machines and the county’s ballots from the 2020 presidential election compromised their security.
“Under the amended contract with Dominion Voting Systems, the County will acquire 385 new precinct tabulators and 9 new central counters as well as the election management hardware required to run them,” the county said in a statement.
JUST IN: The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has secured new election equipment to replace what the Arizona Senate subpoenaed and turned over to uncertified contractors. Read the full update here: https://t.co/KtZP380nTJ pic.twitter.com/fySG0JBCa6
— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) July 14, 2021
Jack Sellers, the board of supervisors chairman, claimed the massive expense would not have been necessary had Senate Republicans chosen a more “reputable” company to perform the independent audit.
“The frustrating thing is, those were perfectly good machines which passed all of our accuracy tests from the time we first got them in 2019,” he said. “When Senate leadership chose novices to conduct their audit rather than reputable, certified companies, they wasted an expensive investment that had served Maricopa County voters well in 2019 and 2020.”
County supervisor Bill Gates also blamed Arizona Republicans, saying, “It is fundamentally unfair for taxpayers of Maricopa County to foot this bill,” according to 12 News.
Gates added he wants the Arizona Senate to pay for the bill, as did Steve Gallardo, the only Democrat on Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors.”
“The Senate should be financially liable for replacing these voting machines because they and they alone are at fault for insisting on an unnecessary audit and then hiring an illegitimate company to conduct it,” he said.
However, The Gateway Pundit reports that the machines used in Maricopa County were never certified in the first place.
