PHOENIX — The chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is lashing out at a senator’s subpoena ordering the board to produce certain documents by Monday.
In a statement Tuesday, Bill Gates said the information state Sen. Kelly Townsend wants is based on “the discredited work” of Shiva Ayyadurai, an MIT lecturer who has espoused various election conspiracy theories.
Gates said Ayyadurai’s claim to have compared signatures on 2020 early ballot envelopes suggests someone — he isn’t saying whom — violated state law that prohibits posting of this kind of information online.
That information was provided by the county only to the Senate after other subpoenas were issued last year, Gates said. Public release by anyone, he said, is a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to a year in state prison.
Ayyadurai did not respond to messages seeking comment.
As to the latest subpoena, Gates said the supervisors have made no decision on whether they will show up Monday at the Senate Government Committee that Townsend chairs.
“My colleagues and I will meet soon to discuss an appropriate response,” he said.
What Gates said Tuesday, however, angered Townsend.
She said her subpoena is identical to an unfulfilled request for information made of the county by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, which is still looking into various claims about the 2020 general election.
Townsend said the question of whether Ayyadurai’s study of early ballots was based on improperly obtained information is irrelevant to compliance.
“Is it the job of the Board of Supervisors to make a determination if something was done illegally and then obstruct the efforts of the attorney general to conduct an investigation into the matter?” said Townsend, an Apache Junction Republican. She called it “shoddy obstructionism.”
She said that if Ayyadurai or anyone broke laws with the use of the ballot signatures, that is a matter for the attorney general and not an excuse for the county to withhold information.
Townsend also criticized Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, saying he has had information about the 2020 election now for more than a year but has failed to produce any results.
“Why do we need a state Senate subpoena nearly two years on to get information from the county Board of Supervisors when the attorney general himself could issue the same subpoena and get the information straightaway?” she asked. Instead, Brnovich’s office has relied on public records requests.
There was no immediate response from the Attorney General’s Office.
Ayyadurai, who has ties to the nationally debunked “Stop the Steal” movement, claims he compared signatures on 499 Maricopa County ballot envelopes — he does not say how he obtained them — with other signatures on file at the county Recorder’s Office.
The latter group of signatures he used, however, are not the ones kept by election officials. Those are not public. Instead, he went to other documents, such as deeds and mortgages, which may be years older.
“How is comparing signatures from one unrelated public recorded document to an early ballot envelope signature considered a viable way of providing identity for voting purposes?” Gates asked.
He said Ayyadurai used “faulty data extrapolation” for his claim that more than 200,000 signatures on early ballots did not match.
Gates also disputed claims the county is withholding information.
He said thousands of documents, data and equipment were provided to the Senate for its review of the 2020 election results. As of the first week in February, the county had produced more than 4,400 documents and five PowerPoint slide decks to the Attorney General’s Office, Gates said.
As to the latest demand, Gates said the request arrived as the county was handling the Tempe City Council election. He said the information sought “is being processed, and records will be provided in a reasonable period of time as prescribed by Arizona law.”
Gates also took a more generic slap at what has been a series of allegations, all unproven, that the election results were inaccurate and that Donald Trump really won in Maricopa County despite the certified vote tally showing Joe Biden’s victory.
“The Board of Supervisors continues to stand by the integrity of our workers and the effective checks and balances in place that allow us to provide free, fair and accurate elections,” he said.
