Counting Electoral Votes--Joint Session of the House and Senate Held Pursuant to the Provisions of Senate Concurrent Resolution 1

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the objection.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I join the objection to counting votes of electors from my home State of Arizona, as well as Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada, because election integrity is the heart of our American constitutional republic?

In a representative form of government, we must be able to trust that our elections accurately represent the will of the American voter. This is the appropriate forum anticipated and provided for by our Founders to debate whether this election complied with the Constitution that we have all sworn to protect.

Every particular of the Constitution is to be protected, including Article II, Section 1. The debate as to the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election has been suppressed by the left and its propagandists in the media until today.

State legislatures are required to determine the manner in which electors are chosen. Arizona names its electors on the general election ballot and identifies what candidate those electors are required to vote for should that candidate obtain the majority of votes in the general election.

As part of the manner for determining electors, Arizona also establishes deadlines for voter registration. The deadline has been in place for 30 years.

This year, that voter registration deadline was October 5. Early voting commenced 2 days later. Five days before the deadline, a group filed a lawsuit demanding that Arizona election officials not enforce the deadline.

The Federal District Court decided that since other States have a deadline later than Arizona's and some even allow for registration when voting, that Arizona's new deadline would be a time he chose, not the legislature's timeline.

The appellate court effectively overturned the lower court ruling and noted that the Arizona deadline established by the State legislature was sound and appropriate and complied with the Constitution. But the appellate court merely shortened the extension, the bypassing of the deadline to 10 days.

The appellate court, without legal justification, also decided that everyone who registered after the legal deadline, but before the deadline created by judicial fiat, could still vote.

Note that the Arizona legislature was no longer in control of determining the manner of appointing Presidential electors because the court had set a new deadline, even though the appellate court found the legislature's deadline was constitutionally sound.

During that window, more than 32,000 voters registered in Maricopa County alone. Here are copies of those voter registration records. In going around the deadline set by the legislature, the court ignored the Arizona legislature's obligation and right to direct the manner of choosing Presidential electors as set forth in Article II, Section 1.

As a consequence of that judicial usurpation, more than 32,000 people were allowed to unlawfully cast ballots in Arizona's Presidential election in 2020.

The Arizona legislature seeks an independent audit of the election. The Governor refuses now to call them into a special session. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has refused to comply with legislative subpoenas. In Arizona, the people who control the evidence related to the election have done everything possible to prevent an independent audit directed by the legislature.

Arizonans have used the limited amount of records available to investigate the 2020 Presidential election. Of a limited sample of 1,000 addresses of voters, they found 539 voters did not live at the addresses on the voter rolls. Here is a stack of 1,000 declaration of affidavits supporting that.

The court usurped a key component of the Arizona legislature's manner of selecting Presidential electors, thus violating Article II, Section 1. The legislature is being obstructed in its efforts. And what little evidence we have and what little information we have has produced this kind of evidence, which indicates a significant problem with the integrity of the Presidential election.

Madam Speaker, I include in the Record my written comments, together with the voter registration records that reflect the 32,000 registrations permitted in contravention of State law; letters and resolutions from Arizona legislators pertaining to the count of votes from electors; along with approximately 1,000 affidavits and declarations pertaining to potential voter fraud in Arizona in the 2020 Presidential election; and the statement of Congressman Randy Weber of Texas. December 31, 2020.

Dear Vice President Pence: As the Chairwoman of the Arizona House Elections Committee, I write to you with upmost urgency to communicate to you several occurrences that thwart our ability as legislators to investigate legitimate and concerning allegations of election fraud in the most recent general election. On December 14, 2020, Arizona sent an alternate slate of electors, along with a resolution from 21 current and 8 newly elected legislators asking you to refrain from accepting the Biden electors until we could adequately investigate these claims of fraud.

Soon after the election, I requested an Elections Committee discovery hearing in order to use subpoena power to acquire the voting machines and ballots in order to do a comprehensive and forensic audit. I was told that it was not a good idea and was denied the ability. I continued to request the hearing with the Speaker of the House, asked publicly, and tried every avenue to no avail. A full month later on December 9th, the Senate President authorized a hearing via the Judiciary committee, and that did result in subpoenas to the Maricopa County Supervisors (who oversee the elections process) that have yet, as of the writing of this letter, been complied with.

Court cases have been dismissed due to not having evidence, however our efforts to do an audit to obtain such evidence have been suppressed. We held a hearing on 11/30/2020 with Rudy Giuliani to at least hear testimony from citizens who experienced irregularities, along with subject matter experts who reported severe irregularities and probable tampering with the machine apparatus. On 11/30/2020, a group of Arizona citizens reported publicly that they had uncovered with great confidence a minimum estimation of 160,000 fraudulent voters, based on over 1000 declarations/affidavits collected. This supports an earlier document submitted to the Attorney General and would largely impact the outcome of the election.

We have experienced obstruction at every turn. For your reference, I have itemized, in Exhibit A, many of the various ways we have been stopped from investigating claims of fraud and gross irregularities. It is my hope that you will see that the Arizona Presidential election is still in dispute and unresolved. We call on you to take this into consideration as you perform your duties on January 6th, and not accept the electors until we have resolution to these matters. With utmost respect, Kelly J. Townsend, Senator-Elect. Exhibit A

1. Requests from the House Elections Chairwoman (myself) and the House Federal Relations Chairman (Mark Finchem) to hold an evidentiary hearing were repeatedly denied and have yet to be honored. Multiple Chairmen of various committees requested a hearing in order to investigate claims, to no avail. We were forced to hold an unofficial hearing on November 30th where many came forward with very concerning evidence and claims.

2. The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was not held until 41 days after the election on 12/14/2020, the same day as the Electors were to cast their votes. This delay rendered the hearing of little effect regarding having confidence in the correct votes cast. The Chairman thus issued a subpoena for the equipment and ballots, but the Maricopa Board of Supervisors has countersued and refuse to comply. They will not release any machine or ballot info, even though within the RFP for the Dominion machines, it is stated that their key features are their ability to conduct hand counts, perform risk limiting audits, and publish ballot images and adjudication records with markings on a public website, calling it their open data initiative. Now that they are being asked for it, they are refusing to make it available, citing voter confidentiality. There is no voter information contained in the machine or on a ballot, however, so that reasoning is insufficient. Their inaction and nonfeasance prevent us from proper discovery.

3. I, along with several others, requested the Governor to call us in for special session to be able to deal with the issue. It is our understanding that we cannot enforce the subpoena for equipment and ballots unless we are in session. His ongoing unwillingness to call us into session to address these issues had kept us from adequate discovery. On 12/02/ 2020, Governor Doug Ducey was asked by the media if he was going to honor the Legislator's request for a special session. He proceeded to incorrectly name Monday January 13th as our first day back in regular session. In response, the reporter asked, ``So you see no need for a special session to look at any of these issues or the issue of Presidential electors...,'' to which the Governor interrupted and said, ``I'll see the Legislature in January.''

4. The House leadership attempted to deter Representative Bret Roberts from sending a letter to Attorney General Brnovich and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors regarding the accurate performance of a hand count based on the statutory requirement to do so by precinct, versus vote center. By doing a hand count based on voting centers, it renders it impossible to tell if there was a rogue precinct involved in fraud. Nevertheless, Rep. Robert's efforts to enforce statute were thwarted by House leadership.

5. One week prior to the Electors voting, on December 7th, the House and Senate leadership closed the buildings in the name of COVID-19, preventing any in-person hearings or work to be performed. This greatly hindered our ability to push for discovery regarding election integrity during the last days before the Elector's votes were cast.

6. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors held a closed meeting on 11/20/2020 in order to certify the election results, where the public was not allowed to participate and ask questions. Prior to that meeting, on 12/08/2020, Merissa Hamilton (a data integrity expert) delivered to the Attorney General a statistically significant listing of deceased voters that received a ballot and those deceased who actually returned a ballot. At the aforementioned meeting, the Maricopa County Elections Director Ray Valenzuela stated that the list of deceased voters casting a ballot was mere folklore and dismissed it as a nonissue. This accusation is still pending an investigation.

7. After submitting a public records request for the Federal only voters who cast a ballot in the 2020 General election, I was told by a staff member that the Elections Director was ``vetting the list'' before he gave it to me. I did not request a cleaned-up list of voters, but the list in its entirety. This diminished my confidence in that list, that I have a true representation of persons who cast a ballot that cannot establish their identity or citizenship.

8. Arizona State House leadership prevented Legislators from issuing press releases having to do with the election that did not conform to their own opinion. This diminished our ability to communicate to the public our concerns about how the election and post procedures were being handled.

9. On 12/01/2020, I requested the Attorney General's Elections Integrity office to investigate the claims made at the November 30th Giuliani hearing and provided them the link. I was told that none of the items listed at the Giuliani hearing would be investigated by that office.

10. The Maricopa County Recorder attended more than one DefCon conference that focused on the ability to hack voting machines. The Legislature was never informed that the outcome of these conferences recommended that elected officials be notified due to unprotected ports on the machines, passwords left unset or left in default configurations and security features of the underlying commercial hardware were left unused or even disabled. It was recommended that to improve election security, paper ballots should be used, and a rigorous post-election audit be performed. We learned about this issue via social media, and it was obfuscated by the Election officials.

11. Arizona Republican State Chair Kelli Ward reports the following malfeasance and obstruction:

a. No allowed review of the digitally adjudicated ballots-- over 200,000.

b. Only 100 of the duplicated ballots reviewed--3% error rate in favor of President Trump. Maricopa County refused to look at the other 28,000 ballots.

c. No meaningful signature verification. County employees doing signature verification offsite, over the internet, without oversight, and at times at a rate of 30 signatures or more per minute.

12. The Secretary of State took 24 days to answer a public records request by Merissa Hamilton, asking them to deliver the meeting minutes from their technical committee to certify the Dominion voting equipment. Only after four requests and the involvement of the Ombudsman did she obtain the information. The results of that request showed that despite the voting equipment not being able to calculate the votes properly, which was never addressed, the machines were still certified. The Maricopa County RFP for the Dominion equipment did not give the public a chance to give input on the procurement. There was never any discussion or an offer of various options to choose from. The Board of Supervisors went straight to a vote with no discussion and approved the machines unanimously.

13. There are multiple/numerous examples of how on election day observers and poll workers were prevented from overseeing the various procedures, thereby undermining confidence that there was no illegal activity and violating Arizona's statutes regarding election integrity. We have had no formal investigation into the vast majority of these accusations. Summary

Arizona has many unresolved issues that we would like to have investigated in order to confidently say our electors voted for the true victor in the 2020 Presidential election. We still have outstanding issues left unresolved and are being stopped at nearly every turn from investigating. For example, the Maricopa County Recorder's office started counting early ballots 14 days before election day. During that time, the backup server was removed each night by a Dominion employee. This is of significant concern because the information on those servers could have been manipulated and/ or provided to nefarious people as to how many ballots/votes were needed to change the results of the election as time went on.

Many in the Legislature believe that if we are able to do a forensic audit, we could investigate these and other serious claims brought forward to us. However, as you can see by the list above (not exhaustive but brief for your benefit) we have many entities who appear to be blocking our efforts to get to the bottom of the issue. One can only ask, in a supposedly secure and fair election, why discovery is being quashed. Conclusion

It is asked that all of these issues be considered when contemplating the eleven Arizona electoral votes. Our election is still in dispute, and we have obfuscation and attempts at running out the clock to prevent discovery of the facts. We believe it is impossible to conclusively declare a winner in Arizona and pray that you would refrain from counting the electoral votes from our state, and consider the alternate slate should we be able to establish validity to the various claims of election fraud on such a scale that would change the outcome.

Thank you, kindly, for your attention to these matters. ____ A Resolution to Congress

Whereas, it is the constitutional and legal obligation of the Legislature of the State of Arizona to ensure that the state's presidential electors truly represent the will of the voters of Arizona; and

Whereas, pursuant to the direction of Congress as set forth in United States Code, title 3, section 1 as authorized by Article II, section 1, clause 4 of the Constitution of the United States, and state law adopted pursuant thereto, Arizona conducted an election for presidential electors on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November of 2020- that is, on November 3, 2020; and

Whereas, that election was marred by irregularities so significant as to render it highly doubtful whether the certified results accurately represent the will of the voters; and

Whereas, Congress has further directed in U.S. Code, title 3, section 2 that when a state ``has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the legislature of such State may direct''; and

Whereas, that provision implicitly recognizes that Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants to each state legislature, with stated limitations, the sole authority to prescribe the manner of appointing electors for that state; and

Whereas, the United States Supreme Court and other courts have explained that when a state legislature directs the manner of appointing electors, it does so pursuant to a grant of authority from the U.S. Constitution rather than by reason of any state constitutional or other legal provision; that this authority may be exercised by the legislature alone without other aspects of the normal lawmaking process; and that the state legislature's authority over the appointment of presidential electors is plenary and may be resumed at any time; and

Whereas, because U.S. Code, title 3, section 7 mandates that all presidential electors vote for President and Vice President of the United States on December 14, 2020, it is impossible to pursue the Legislature's preferred course of action, which would be for Arizona's voters to participate in a new and fair and free presidential election before that date; and

Whereas, in view of the facts heretofore recited, the Legislature is required to exercise its best judgment as to which slate of electors the voters prefer; and

Whereas, legal precedent exists where in 1960 the State of Hawaii sent an alternate slate of electors while the Presidential election was still in question in order to meet the deadline of selecting electors, and upon recount the alternate slate of electors' ballots were ultimately counted; and

Whereas, the undersigned have an obligation to find the truth. For this reason, on several occasions since November 3, we state lawmakers have requested fact-finding hearings to include a comprehensive and independent forensic audit. At this time, no such audit has been authorized. This leaves the uncertainty of the election results in a state that requires further investigation and resolution; and

Whereas, ongoing election irregularity litigation is currently active, and there are unresolved disputes by both the Legislature and at least one Presidential campaign, rendering the election inconclusive as of date of signing of this letter,

Therefore, be it

Resolved by the undersigned Legislators, members of the Arizona House and Senate, request that the alternate 11 electoral votes be accepted for to Donald J. Trump or to have all electoral votes nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted. Be it further resolved that the United States Congress is not to consider a slate of electors from the State of Arizona until the Legislature deems the election to be final and all irregularities resolved.

Signed this day, 14 December, 2020.

Senator Elect Kelly Townsend, Legislative District 16; Representative Kevin Payne, Legislative District 21; Representative Mark Finchem, Legislative District 11; Senator Sonny Borrelli, Legislative District 5; Representative Bret Roberts, Legislative District 11; Representative Bob Thorpe, Legislative District 6; Senator David Farnsworth, Legislative District 16; Representative Leo Biasiucci, Legislative District 5; Representative Anthony Kern, Legislative District 20; Senator Sylvia Allen, Legislative District 15; Senator Elect Nancy Barto, Legislative District 15; Majority Leader Warren Petersen, Legislative District 12; Representative Steve Pierce, Legislative District 1; Representative Tony Rivero, Legislative District 21; Senator David Gowan, Legislative District 14; Representative David Cook, Legislative District 8; Representative John Fillmore, Legislative District 16; Representative Travis Grantham, Legislative District 12; Representative Walter Blackman, Legislative District 6; Representative Shawnna Bolick, Legislative District 20; Representative Noel Campbell, Legislative District 1; Representative Elect Jacqueline Parker, Legislative District 16; Representative Elect Beverly Pingerelli, Legislative District 21; Representative Elect Jake Hoffman, Legislative District 12; Senator Elect Wendy Rogers, Lt Col, USAF (ret), Legislative District 6; Representative Elect Steve Kaiser, Legislative District 15; Representative Elect Brenda Barton, Legislative District 6; Representative Elect Joseph Chaplik, Legislative District 23; Representative Elect Judy Burges, Legislative District 1; Representative Elect Quang Nguyen, Legislative District 1.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source