Ken Bennett with an update on the audit

Former Secretary of State Ken Bennett last week temporarily stepped down from his role as liaison to the senate’s self-styled audit of Maricopa County votes. At the time Bennett questioned the transparency of cyber-ninjas, the group in charge of the operation. Senate President Karen Fann in turn blocked Bennett from the last days of the count, saying that he’d improperly shared information with the media. Bennett was able to work out a deal and stay on as liaison. Earlier today, we spoke with Ken Bennett.

We started by asking if he regrets getting involved in the audit in the first place.

“Absolutely not, I think it’s imperative, Ted, that we audit and verify our elections so that every Arizona voter can have 100 percent confidence that the elections are being done accurately, transparently, and that they’re publicly verified,” Bennett said. 

Bennett explained that back in 2016 you had one half of the population believing that there was some sort of fraud, and now you have the other half thinking the same thing in 2020. 

We then asked if the communication between the government and Cyber Ninjas should be made public.

“We have released hundreds of pages of information to that effect and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all,” Bennett said.

Bennett said he thinks the audits have a level of transparency to them as well. 

We asked if he believes that Cyber Ninjas is the company to help address the issues with the audit.

Bennett explained that everything that comes out of the audit will first be vetted through himself and others from the senate to ensure the results are accurate.

“This is the first full forensic audit of an election, anywhere near size done anywhere in the country,” Bennett said.

Bennett explained that he wishes the audit was funded by the state instead of these outside companies.