The trial of the electoral process in Arizona in the state's gubernatorial elections begins by raising doubts about compliance with the rules. Heather Honey, who is a private investigator hired by Republican candidate Kari Lake's legal team, has testified in court that the chain of custody of ballots in Maricopa and Runbeck counties was broken.
Lake, from his Twitter account, has captured the moment of the trial in which the investigator makes this statement before the judge.
🚨 Chain of custody expert on BOTH Runbeck and Maricopa County: "They weren't following the legal requirements for chain of custody" pic.twitter.com/0xtjcF7EVj
- Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 21, 2022
Ballots were not counted
Honey says that the seals were removed from the ballot bags, and that the votes they contained were not counted. Reflecting the conversation she had with Leslie, an election process worker in Maricopa, the researcher said that what concerned her
was that the seals were removed from the shipping containers and the ballots were not counted. According to her, this was a requirement, and the fact that they simply took the ballots out of the shipping containers without counting them was her main concern.
As far as Runbeck County is concerned, this is how Heather Honey shows her conversation with Denise, an election clerk:
Expresses concern that the established procedure was not used during the elections for the large number of ballots deposited on election day that were received.
Broken chain of custody
The researcher spoke with two election staff in two different counties (Maricopa and Runbeck). The lawyer asks him if it is true that the two employees told him that the chain of custody had been broken. And she responds
They did not follow the legal requirements of the chain of custody. There were seals on the containers when they were transported, but the specific problems were that they simply opened them, took out the ballots, and put them in trays without taking into account how many there were; there was no documentation.
