How

Election Officials Use Media Proxies to

1

Disseminate Misinformation & Disinformation to
Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance

How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
Disseminate Misinformation & Disinformation
to Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance

A Case Study of Maricopa County Election Officials Effectively Using
a Local Blog Purporting “Independent Journalism” to Malign
An Auditor Who Reported Anomalies in 2020 U.S. Election

AUTHOR
Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, MIT PhD
SMVS, SMME, SBEE
701 Concord Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138


A SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
OCTOBER 6, 2021


PREPARED FOR

Honorable Mark Brnovich Honorable Karen Fann
Attorney General of Arizona President of the Senate
Office of Attorney General Arizona State Senate
2005 N Central Ave 1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85004-2926 Phoenix, AZ 85007

 How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
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Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance






















© 2021. Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai.


701 Concord Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138 U.S.A.
Phone: 617-631-6874
Email: [email protected]

OCTOBER 2021

 How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
Disseminate Misinformation & Disinformation to 3
Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance

How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
Disseminate Misinformation & Disinformation
to Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance

Case Study of Maricopa County Election Officials Effectively Using
a Local Blog Purporting “Independent Journalism” to Malign
An Auditor, Who Reported Anomalies in 2020 U.S. Election

AUTHOR
Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, MIT PhD
SMVS, SMME, SBEE
701 Concord Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138


A SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
OCTOBER 6, 2021


PREPARED FOR

Honorable Mark Brnovich Honorable Karen Fann
Attorney General of Arizona President of the Senate
Office of Attorney General Arizona State Senate
2005 N Central Ave 1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85004-2926 Phoenix, AZ 85007

 How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
Disseminate Misinformation & Disinformation to 4
Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Author’s Bio – 5


FOREWORD – 7

Statement from Professor Deborah Nightingale - 7


INTRODUCTION – 10

Congress Wanted and Encouraged Election Audits - 11

The Racist Smear Campaign by Maricopa County Officials - 12

Arizona Mirror: “Independent Journalism” At Its Worst - 13

Where Are the SOPs? Time to Verify Signature Verification - 18

Maricopa County Election Officials Followed the “Playbook” - 21

Where Are the SOPs? Time to Verify Signature Verification - 23


DR. SHIVA REPLIES TO MARICOPA COUNTY OFFICIALS - 30



PROPOSED ACTION STEPS - 67

Open Forum Between Maricopa Officials And Dr. Shiva - 67

Review of Arizona Mirror’s 501 (c) 3 Non-Profit Status - 67



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AUTHOR’S BIO

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, MIT PHD, SMME, SMVS, SBEE, the inventor of
email and polymath, holds four degrees from MIT, is a world-
renowned engineer, systems scientist, inventor and entrepreneur. He
is a Fulbright Scholar, Lemelson-MIT Awards Finalist, India’s First
Outstanding Scientist and Technologist of Indian Origin, Westinghouse
Science Talent Honors Award recipient, and a nominee for the U.S.
National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He holds multiple patents, is the author of
twenty books, and has published original research, in leading peer-reviewed high-impact
scientific journals including IEEE, IJPRAI, Nature Neuroscience, CELL Biophysical Journal, that
have received thousands of citations. He has started seven successful high-tech companies,
received numerous industry awards, consults for Global 2000 organizations and
government, and has been invited to present Keynote and Distinguished lectures at leading
institutions such as NSF, NIH, FDA, Harvard, and at MIT, where he delivered the Presidential
Fellows Lecture.1

In 1978, as a 14-year-old, he was recruited as a Research Fellow by the University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), in Newark, NJ after graduating with Honors
from a special program in Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science
at NYU. At UMDNJ, he invented email – the system as we know it today – when he was the
first to convert the old-fashioned interoffice paper-based mail system consisting of the Inbox,
Outbox, Memo (To:, From:, Date:, Subject:, Cc:, Bcc:), Attachments, Folders, etc. into its
electronic equivalent by writing 50,000 lines of code to create a software system, which he
named “Email,” – a term never used before in the English language – and went on to be
awarded the first U.S. Copyright TXu 111-775 for “EMAIL, COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR
ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM” recognizing him as the inventor of email at a time when
Copyright was the only legal mechanism to protect software inventions. Only in 1994 did the
Federal Circuit recognize software as a "digital machine" allowing for software patents.
Email is not the simple exchange of text messages. Dr. Shiva has never claimed to be the
inventor of electronic messaging, which predates email - the system that he created in
1978.2,3

Recognizing his talents in software programming, UMDNJ gave him the opportunity to
conduct medical research focused on developing pattern recognition classification methods
for categorization of sleep signature patterns from babies with Sudden Infant Death
Syndrome (SIDS). His research was published in IEEE and presented at the IEEE-EMBS
conference in Espoo, Finland. Since that time and for more than forty years, his research and
development efforts in academia and industry have been focused in the field of pattern
recognition classification systems, systems science, and development of large-scale
computational systems for analysis of diverse signals and signatures across a range of
industries: biology and medicine, engineering (e.g. aeronautical, civil, mechanical, electrical),

1 Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, Biography and Curriculum Vitae, https://vashiva.com/about-va-shiva-ayyadurai/
2 Facts on the invention of email, https://www.inventorofemail.com/thefacts/
3 The Man Who Invented Email, TIME, https://techland.time.com/2011/11/15/the-man-who-invented-
email/

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banking, finance, and, government, as well as across a diversity of applications including
handwriting recognition of courtesy amounts on bank checks, automatic analysis and
classification of electronic documents e.g. email, ultrasonic and radar wave signature
classification for non-destructive evaluation (NDE), signals analysis of Tadoma feature
identification, biomarker analysis for determining signatures of efficacy for multi-
combination therapies, image analysis for cardiology, and signal detection of fluid flow
anomalies in fluidized bed reactors.

He earned a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, a Masters in
Mechanical Engineering, and another Masters in Visual Studies from the MIT Media
Laboratory. In the midst of his PhD research in 1993, where he aimed to create a
generalized platform – Information Cybernetics – for pattern recognition, he won an
industry-wide competition sponsored by the White House, Executive Office of the President,
to automatically analyze and classify President Clinton’s email, resulting in his developing
EchoMail® - a platform for automatic classification of electronic documents –, and
subsequently launching EchoMail, Inc., a company that grew to nearly $200 million in
market valuation. EchoMail today applies its technologies across a diversity of applications.

In 2003, he returned to MIT complete his doctoral work in systems biology in the
department of Biological Engineering where he developed CytoSolve®, a scalable
computational systems biology platform for mathematically modeling the whole cell.
Following his PhD, Dr. Shiva was selected for a Fulbright Fellowship returning him to India
where he discovered the systems theoretic basis of eastern systems of medicine resulting
in Systems Health®, a new educational program that provides a scientific foundation for
integrative medicine. In 2012, Dr. Shiva launched CytoSolve, Inc. with the aim of modeling
complex diseases and biomolecular processes to discover multi-combination medicines. His
efforts led to CytoSolve earning an FDA allowance for a multi-combination therapy for
pancreatic cancer in a record eleven months, developing innovative nutraceutical products,
and garnering numerous industry and academic partnerships.

As an educator dedicated to the field of systems science and systems thinking, Dr. Shiva
pioneered Systems Visualization, a course he taught at MIT to graduate and undergraduate
students, which integrated systems theory, narrative story telling, metaphors, and data
science to provide a pedagogy for visualization of complex systems. He founded the
International Center for Integrative Systems, a research and educational institution and
home to Innovation Corps and R.A.W./C.L.E.A.N. Food Certified, for broader applications of
systems science.

Dr. Shiva has appeared in The MIT Technology Review, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, New
York Times, NBC News, USA Today and other major media. Dr. Shiva was named Top 40
Under 40 in the Improper Bostonian. He continues his passion for entrepreneurialism as
Managing Director of General Interactive to incubate, mentor and fund new startups in
various areas including healthcare, media, biotechnology, information technology, to name a
few.

Dr. Shiva is a member of Sigma-Xi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Tau Beta Pi.

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FOREWORD

STATEMENT FROM
PROFESSOR DEBORAH NIGHTINGALE

University Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering & Management Systems

Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE)

Retd. MIT Professor of Engineering Systems & of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Fmr. Director of M.I.T. Sociotechnical Systems Research Center

I have known Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (“Dr. Shiva”) for nearly two decades. He is a world-

renowned systems scientist, a MIT PhD, the inventor of email, an expert in the field of

pattern recognition classification methodologies, and one, who has led and participated

in numerous audits. I have reviewed Dr. Shiva’s audit report submitted to the Arizona

State Senate. The report is stellar, met all its objectives, and, more importantly, provides a

thought leadership of Engineering Systems theory that is now necessary to move beyond

partisanship so we may squarely address election systems integrity.

To be clear, I am a Democrat. I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I voted for Joe Biden in

2020. Dr. Shiva is a Republican. He voted for Donald Trump in 2016. In 2020, he did not

vote for either Trump or Biden. The recent ad hominem attacks against Dr. Shiva, by

Maricopa County officials effectively through their proxy at the Arizona Mirror,

attempting to box him into a predefined category, must be addressed, particularly given

their racist subtext. Dr. Shiva is a true, independent thinker – in deeds, not words. He

cannot be put into some reductionist box. He has put his life on the line fighting

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corruption, the “Swamp,” his entire life. His loyalty to truth supersedes his loyalty to any

individual. In fact, he released a highly critical video questioning if Trump was the

“Swamp,” although he had earlier donated to Trump, and had worked hard on his

campaign. And, when it comes to the invention of email: Yes, a 14-year-old dark-skinned

precocious boy, in 1978, working in Newark, NJ did invent email – the system, as we

know it today. There is no controversy. The facts are black and white. The only

controversy is the one fabricated to deny his rightful claim to email’s invention. Anyone

can read the research papers I wrote on this topic, after careful study of the facts.4,5,6

The Arizona State Senate was wise in commissioning Dr. Shiva to participate in this

historic audit. His team executed the audit with excellence, and produced a

comprehensive 99-page report in less than 20-days. This is extraordinary. Having been a

consultant on many projects, Arizonans got a bargain at $50K. I hope Democrats and

Republicans unite around Dr. Shiva’s thought leadership, which calls for an Engineering

Systems approach that will foster a culture that welcomes those who report anomalies,

identifies root causes, and implements solutions so Americans get the fair and

transparent elections they seek and deserve. That is how we unite America by solving the

underlying systems issues, not, as Dr. Shiva states, by perpetuating ‘partisanship, vitriol

and controversy.’ ” I believe that the state of Arizona (and the country as a whole) would

be greatly served by both examining current operating procedures and adopting the

recommendations Dr. Shiva makes for future improvements in the voting system.

4 https://www.inventorofemail.com/thefacts/
5 https://vashiva.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/The-Origin-of-Email.pdf
6 https://vashiva.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Invention-of-Email-At-Newark-The-First-Email-

System.pdf

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As I understand, Donald Trump recently praised Dr. Shiva’s work at a rally in Georgia

knowing Dr. Shiva was highly critical of him for not doing enough against the Swamp. If

Donald Trump can take criticism and even praise a critic, I believe election officials in

Maricopa County can do better.

PROF. DEBORAH NIGHTINGALE

University Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering & Management Systems
Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
Retd. MIT Professor of Engineering Systems & of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Fmr. Director of M.I.T. Sociotechnical Systems Research Center

 How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
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How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
Disseminate Misinformation & Disinformation to
Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance

A Case Study of Maricopa County Election Officials Effectively Using
a Local Blog Purporting “Independent Journalism” to Malign
An Auditor Who Reported Anomalies in 2020 U.S. Election

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, MIT PhD, SBEE, SMVS, SMME
701 Concord Avenue | Cambridge, MA 02138 | U.S.A.
Email: [email protected] | Tel: 617-631-6874

INTRODUCTION
On October 1, 2021, Maricopa County election officials effectively used a proxy - a scribe

at an unknown blog, Arizona Mirror, that purports to stand for “Independent Journalism,”

to unleash a racist smear campaign of misinformation and disinformation in an attempt

to avert further investigations of potential election malfeasance. Their blog post

appeared after I had presented anomalies uncovered from an audit of the Early Voting

Ballot (EVB) return envelope images from Maricopa County’s 2020 General Elections,

which the Arizona State Senate had commissioned me to perform. The key findings and

anomalies uncovered from this audit are detailed in a 99-page report - Pattern

Recognition Classification of Early Voting Ballot (EVB) Return Envelope Images for

Signature Presence Detection: An Engineering Systems Approach to Identify Anomalies to

Advance the Integrity of U.S. Election Processes – as well as in the public presentation I

made on September 24, 2021 to the Arizona State Senate (“the Report”)7.

7 https://vashiva.com/dr-shiva-delivers-groundbreaking-audit-report-to-arizona-senate/ accessed on

October 1, 2021.

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Congress Wanted and Encouraged Election Audits

What is most unfortunate in the current milieu is that Maricopa County Election Officials

and their counterparts in other local and state governments appear to believe that

election audits are a bad thing, and those requesting them or participating in them, must

be vilified. Let us be clear on the following facts:

1. Congress passed a whole law, 52 USC 20701, BECAUSE Congress declared that

election audits are a public good;

2. Election audits are a public good BECAUSE it provides real data and feedback

about the integrity of an election;

3. Auditing the integrity of an election is a public good BECAUSE American citizens

are ENTITLED to the constitutional GUARANTEE of One Person, One Vote;

4. Congress declared election audits to be a public good BECAUSE Congress supports

all steps that ensure One Person, One Vote;

5. Only persons not in support of the ENTITLED RIGHT of American citizens to the

Constitutional GUARANTEE of One Person One Vote would actively defame a

request for an audit as conspiratorial disinformation; and,

6. This is settled law and was passed by a Democrat-majority House 50 years ago.

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Specific Aims of this Document

This manuscript aims to:

1. Provide detailed replies to each of the statements of misinformation and

disinformation made by Maricopa County officials, effectively through their

proxy in that blog post;

2. Educate the public of the real racism that permeates this attack (pp. xx – yy);

3. Share why the actions of Maricopa County Election Officials are taken from the

pages of a Playbook, written at Harvard Belfer Center’s Orwellian

“Defending Democracy” Project, that provides a step-by-step playbook on

how local and state election officials should respond to any American who

criticizes their running of elections;

4. Expose how the Arizona Mirror has nothing to do with “Independent

Journalism,” but is part of an organized network of local and decentralized

media funded by Arabella Advisors, what the The New York Times and Politico

term as “dark money” aimed to manufacture narratives to meet partisan

objectives; and,

5. Put forth two (2) concrete next steps:

a. An open forum where a dialog takes place publicly between the Maricopa

County officials and myself to review each anomaly and key finding

documented in the Report; and,

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b. An investigation on whether the 501 (c) not-for-profit named STATE

NEWSROOM d.b.a Arizona Mirror, effectively serving as a proxy for

Maricopa County election officials to execute a “hit job” on me – a member

of the audit team of the 2020 Maricopa County, Arizona general election

results -, was aimed to support one political candidate (Biden) over another

(Trump).

The Racist Smear Campaign by Maricopa County Officials

This attack was racist – the kind of real racism that is discussed neither in mainstream

media nor ever published by big academia.

The inability of Maricopa County election officials and their loyal scribe to keep in line a

dark-skinned East Indian-American who dares to use his hard-earned scientific and

engineering training and intelligence, is the source of this real racism. Their racist attack

aimed to shame me back into their segregationist box of behavior that they deem

acceptable for person of my background. For these Maricopa County election officials, it

does not compute why a highly educated dark-skinned American, an immigrant, a low-

caste Untouchable from India’s despicable caste system, a victim of racism his whole life,

would ever perform an audit and report honest findings that may expose potential

malfeasance of election officials, who likely support “liberal” Democrats - the rightful

and sole heirs of the fight against “racism” in America.

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Aren’t all people of my background supposed to be “liberal” Democrats, and, more

importantly, isn’t someone like me supposed to shut up and fall in line when told to do

so?

Herein, lies the real racism. I was not being a “Good Indian.”

So, they needed to be publicly “lynch” and shame me back into line, by demeaning what

has earned my liberation: my reputation as a highly competent engineer, scientist,

technologist, innovator, problem solver, and yes, an auditor, of all sorts of engineering

systems and processes throughout my professional life. The DNA of engineering is

“technical auditing.” The Arizona State Senate wanted the best in the world, and that is

why I was selected and commissioned. What my team and I executed in 20-days for a

contract of $50K, surpassed all expectations.

The Report was recently reviewed by Professor Deborah Nightingale, a distinguished

professor and leader in the field of engineering systems. Dr. Nightingale acknowledged

that the Report was “stellar;” was executed with “excellence;” and, was done at a

“bargain” to Arizonans at $50K. I personally led the audit. I personally authored every

word in that 99-page report. Their blog post aimed to attack my competence, integrity

and credibility.

But, here are the facts. As an engineer, I have conducted and participated in numerous

technical audits, likely far more than any of these County officials or their proxy scribe. I

earned four degrees from MIT, including a MIT PhD, and graduated with a GPA of 4.9 out

of 5.0. My bio and curriculum vitae that detail my accomplishments are available publicly

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for anyone to review. Among those accomplishments are a Fulbright Scholar, nominee

for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, Westinghouse Science Honors

Award recipient, Lemelson-MIT Award finalist, and, the inventor of email. I invented

email before I came to MIT, while a 14-year-old, working at a small medical college in

Newark, NJ in 1978.

In their racist blog post, knowing of these facts, they maliciously hoped to misdirect the

reader away from the substantive issues raised in the Report, by attempting to paint me

as a fraud – surely a 14-year-old dark-skinned fellow could never have invented email -,

a “conspiracy theorist,” a loyal supporter of Trump who would allow partisanship to rule

over his commitment to science and engineering, and an illiterate in the field of auditing.

They demanded that I pay the Arizona State Senate back $50K. My great-grandfather was

an indentured servant, a slave, and the proxy scribe seeks send me back to such

servitude, since I did not stay in the box they had envisioned for me.

To reiterate, this is the real racism that the Establishment never wants discussed. It is

this racism that is the operating system of power, profit, and control, that is designed to

segregate all of us, regardless of the color of our skin. It is this racism that is used to

distract the broad public from discovering the truth, beyond left and right, in any

situation.

The journey I have walked is what these true racists can never comprehend. I was born

a low-caste Untouchable in India’s oppressive caste system. My incredible parents, who

were two in a trillion to the power of infinity, managed to get from India to America. By

the time I was 16, I had realized that all political parties were part of the Swamp. So, I

never voted for any candidate. I never participated in any election. However, I was

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committed to activism, on the ground. This was in addition to my activities as an inventor,

scientist, technologist and entrepreneur.

I organized food service workers at MIT to fight for a better wage. I fought against

universities supporting apartheid in South Africa. I fought for minorities, women, and the

poor - black and white - to have access to higher education. I protested the Iraq War,

long before it was popular to do so. I put my life and career on the line when I exposed

academic corruption in India and in America. I used by skills as a scientist to fight

Monsanto. I filed lawsuits as a pro se litigant exposing election corruption and violation of

the First Amendment. Most recently, I uncovered the domestic censorship infrastructure

that was created at Harvard’s Belfer School, documented in Playbooks, revealing the

unholy alliance between government and Big Tech, to silence any American who criticizes

government election officials.

My life has been as non-partisan as it gets.

The first time I ever voted was in 2016. Donald Trump’s rhetoric and uncompromising

attack on the elites and the Washington, DC Swamp inspired me to vote for the first time,

and later to run for U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, initially as an Independent, and later

as a Republican. However, Trump’s actions relative to cleaning up the Swamp were

counter to his rhetoric as exemplified in: his inaction in going after Hillary Clinton who

misappropriated government property to have plausible deniability; his rescuing Big

Pharma just as Obama had saved Big Banks; his printing $6.2 Trillion, 50% more than

Obama; his calling on his supporters to walk to the Capitol with him, while he drove off in

his SUV; and, his and the RNC’s lack of transparency in disclosing the use of the $400+

million raised to supposedly fight “Election Fraud.”

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In 2020, I did not vote for Trump.

In fact, I did something very unpopular among the Trumpers: I made a critical video

wherein I reviewed and “audited” Trump’s tenure. The video was highly critical, and

posed the question: “Was Trump the Swamp?” After posting that video, I lost nearly 25%

of my followers on social media. I was taught to tell the truth, at the right time, not when

it was convenient, and not when it was opportune for self-gain.

I am the child of oppression. My parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, were

born in abject poverty, and they were uncompromising to their principles. Articulating

the truth, regardless of the pains it may cause, is in my DNA. It may perhaps goes against

evolutionary natural selection. But that is who I am. I have no horse in the game, but

Truth Freedom Health.

The reason that this real racism is never discussed is because there is no real discourse

or debate on racism in America. The Right denies racism exists. That denial has created

an ideological vacuum, which the Left has filled. In fact, the Left, like the proxy rag and its

scribe that the Maricopa County election officials enlisted, think they own “racism.” To

the Left, being “racist” is confined to such things as using the “N-word,” and opposing

affirmative action. This narrow and improper definition by the Left, alongside the Right’s

declaration that racism does not exist, perpetuates the Black and White divide, by design.

Real racism is about keeping people in those boxes.

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If you are Black then you must talk like this, eat like this, and be like this. If you are a

white from the South, you must hate Black people, and so on. If you are an East Indian,

you must support Gandhi, move your head left to right, and be willing to take a good

beating. That is a “Good Indian.”

To those who unleashed this racism against me, they expected me to be that “Good

Indian.” Sorry, homey don’t play that game! Never will.

Arizona Mirror: “Independent Journalism” At Its Worst

Maricopa County election officials chose to unleash their misinformation and

disinformation, not in any formal manner such as responding to the anomalies and key

findings, but rather effectively through a proxy, a unknown blog, which misrepresents

itself as “independent journalism.”

One or two Google searches reveals that this blog and twenty other of its sister blogs,

localized in various states, are centrally operated from North Carolina by a 501 (c) 3 not-

for-profit named STATES NEWSROOM d.b.a. Arizona Mirror in Arizona. This operation is

funded by Eric Kessler’s billion dollar Arabella Advisors through the HopeWell Fund. Mr.

Kessler is not only Arabella’s founder and Managing Director but also a former Clinton

administration White House appointee, and was a member of now-defunct Clinton Global

Initiative.

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Arabella is a for-profit consulting firm that directs monies, according to the New York

Times, to funds that have “… donated more than $63 million to super PACs backing

Democrats or opposing Republicans in 2020, including the pro-Biden groups Priorities

USA Action and Unite the Country and the scandal-plagued anti-Trump group Lincoln

Project, according to Federal Election Commission filings.”8

Most Americans are aware of CNN and FOX as being top-down, centrally controlled,

corporate, partisan media; however, many are unaware of a new breed of blogs, which

are local and decentralized that consciously misrepresent themselves as “independent”

sources of “grassroots” information. The truth is that these platforms are also centrally

managed, designed to respond to any local news that threatens a specific partisan

narrative. They have established a swarm of partnerships with other platforms and news

sites that provide broad dissemination of this “independent journalism” to legitimize

themselves as primary sources that end up as Wikipedia citations to fossilize that

partisan narrative.

Eric Kessler’s Arabella Advisors, billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, and

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg are the money behind such blogospheres of influence that

unfortunately perpetuate Left and Right divisiveness, so the core systems problems and

real solutions are rarely addressed. Ensuring election systems integrity is neither Left nor

Right issue. It is an issue that affects all Americans.

8 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/us/politics/hansjorg-wyss-money-

democrats.html

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In the present case, the audit findings that presented anomalies in Maricopa County’s

2020 general election became a target of this partisan dynamic, which seeks to

delegitimize the systems anomalies identified in the Report using their proxy that

operates under this bogus banner of “independent journalism.” What is remarkable is

Maricopa County officials felt emboldened to effectively use this platform masquerading

“independent journalism” as their proxy, which is funded by Arabella that even the New

York Times and Politico have branded as “dark money.’”

The ad hominem attacks, underlined by the real racism as aforementioned, aimed to

obfuscate the significant anomalies identified in Report so as to avoid addressing the

substantive questions (as well as new and derivative ones), such as :

• Why are only 587 out of 1,918,463 EVBs deemed as “Bad Signatures?”

• Why is there a discrepancy of 6,545 unique EVB return envelopes? Does this mean

that not every EVB had an associated EVB return envelope?

• Why are there multiple examples of TWO different EVB return envelopes, under

TWO different voter-IDs, but with the same matching signatures from

individuals with the exact same name, exact same address? (The Arizona State

Senate and the Attorney General of Arizona have un-redacted examples of such

examples)

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• Why are EVB return envelopes with “No Signatures” verified and counted as

votes?

• Why were EVB return envelopes of over 6,000, of those who moved out of Arizona

prior to the registration deadline, accepted and counted as votes?

As I shared in my presentation on September 24, 2021, there may be rational and logical

explanations for all of this. However, instead of responding to them, the Maricopa County

election officials chose to unleash a racist smear campaign. Was this by design?

Maricopa County Election Officials Followed the “Playbook”

of election officials, social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook, un-elected

government bureaucrats in places such as in the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security

Agency, and others to create a set of “Playbooks” that provided a step-by-step recipe for

state and local election officials to identify, monitor, and silence any American who

criticizes election officials. The Playbooks are called The Election Influence Operations

Playbook for Local and State Election Officials.

Pertinent to this discussion is that the Playbooks direct “Local and State Election Officials”

e.g. Maricopa County Election Officials, to brand as “misinformation and disinformation”

any messages or ideas resembling, and I quote from the Playbook: “There has been a

failure in the mechanics of how elections are run” or “The people who run elections

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are corrupt.” Such types of messages or representations are sufficient to put any

American on their radar.

In September of 2020, in my own U.S. Senate Republican Primary campaign in

Massachusetts, these Playbooks were executed on me after I questioned the State

Election Director of Massachusetts as to why Massachusetts had violated 52 USC 20701

by deleting ballot images. That resulted in my being targeted and deplatformed from

Twitter. This became the subject of a historic First Amendment lawsuit that uncovered

the Playbooks exposing the unholy alliance of government and Big Tech.

The Playbooks provide a “Toolkit” to direct Local and State Election Officials to develop

proxies among local media to “[e]stablish relationships and share election information

with key local voices and groups” in order to combat and counter those who may be

criticizing them. It directs them to coordinate with such local and social media to ensure

their messaging gets out to halt alternative messages.

In the present situation, this Playbook was likely executed by Maricopa County Election

Officials identifying my report being critical of them, and that criticism, per the Playbook,

had to be countered. They executed the Playbook processes, which explain why they

effectively used the blog in Arizona, to disseminate their racist attack of misinformation

and disinformation upon me, for simply raising questions, and presenting anomalies in a

formal public setting.

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Where Are the SOPs? Time to Verify Signature Verification.

With less than one month remaining in the Maricopa County audit, my firm EchoMail, Inc.

and I were commissioned by the Arizona State Senate to:

1) Perform pattern recognition classification of nearly 2 million Early Voting Ballot

return envelope images;

2) To count the number of images wherein the Signature Region had a Signature,

Blank or Scribble, per the specifications detailed in the Report; and,

3) To compare those counts with the counts reported in the CANVASS report

published by Maricopa County elections.

The Report was delivered to meet all the requirements of the agreed on scope, ahead of

time, and it made clear its two (2) key objectives:

This objective has been accomplished; however, the discussion herein has also aimed
to motivate a grander objective: to inspire the reader to move beyond partisanship,
vitriol, and controversy to appreciate the need for an engineering systems
approach, particularly in the modern era of the 21st century, where complex
engineering systems pervade every aspect of human existence. Our voting systems
are complex engineering systems. Our ability to move beyond left and right and to
appreciate the nature of these systems – interconnected systems of systems that

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serve a diversity of stakeholders – is critical to advancing the systems integrity of
U.S. election processes.

This audit has uncovered anomalies in the EVB systems processes that provide all
stakeholders a historic opportunity to address and resolve these issues with an
engineering systems mindset: to discover the root cause, find the real solution,
implement the solution, and monitor the systems ongoing performance.9

The Report concluded with two (2) key recommendations:

1) The need to perform a full audit of Maricopa County’s Signature Verification

process; and,

2) Disclose the Standardized Operating Procedures (SOPs) of Early Voting Ballot

(EVB) systems and processes e.g. of Signature Verification, Chain of Custody, etc.

In engineering systems, when audits occur, the requested SOPs are either produced or

their lack of existence is disclosed. Neither of which has yet to occur.

SOPs are foundational documents that ensure organizational accountability and

auditability of systems to enable stakeholder confidence. SOPs, for example, provide

confidence for travellers to get on an airplane; SOPs provide confidence for billions to use

banking systems; and, SOPs provide confidence for patients to get an x-ray.

9 https://vashiva.com/dr-shiva-delivers-groundbreaking-audit-report-to-arizona-senate/, accessed on

October 1, 2021.

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SOPs serve to quantify error rates e.g. six sigma, of processes so stakeholders can assess

the viability and risks of modern engineering systems. As stated in the Report, election

voting systems are engineering systems. Defining and quantify error rates, for example,

in Signature Verification, can substantially help citizens raise their confidence in the

current EVB systems.

Maricopa County election officials, however, either believe they do not have to disclose

their SOPs to deliver confidence to their most important stakeholders: voters, who pay

their salaries, particularly in the current milieu, where at least 50% of America does not

have confidence in elections, or County officials simply do not have the SOPs and the EVB

systems are run based on unwritten procedures that are squishy and arbitrary, kept in a

few peoples’ heads.

The misdirection’s in the blog post lead one to believe this.

Our project manager was unable to get any responses, for example, on how duplicates are

processed or why the counts differed, even after multiple tries. After having heard of the

County’s lack of cooperation from the Arizona State Senate, in the larger audit, it seemed

futile to waste precious time, waiting on hold, and tracking recalcitrant officials. Below is

the evidence in Figures 1-3, of our project manager’s attempts at least six times, a few

days before the audit report was due, to connect with Maricopa County Election Officials.

On one occasion, he waited on the call for nearly 30 minutes.

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Figure 1 – Diary of attempts on 9/20/2021 to connect with Maricopa County Officials.

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Figure 2 – Phone log of attempts on 9/20/2021 to speak with Maricopa County Officials.

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Figure 3 – Phone log of attempts on 9/20/2021 to speak with Maricopa County Officials.

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As of the writing of this reply, even after over a week, since the September 24,, 2021

presentation, and with news of the Attorney General of Arizona preparing for further

investigation, Maricopa election officials have yet to deliver the SOPs. Delivering an SOP,

if they exist, should take a matter of minutes in any normal organization: simply send an

email, attaching the SOP documents.

Instead of delivering the SOPs, Maricopa County officials chose, via their proxy and

“independent journalism” blog, to deliver racist ad hominem personal attacks against me,

rather than embrace the modern engineering systems approach and discipline the Report

brought to the medieval world of election systems that may result in a much-needed

audit of the current unverifiable, signature verification processes. Even left-leaning

news organizations such as The Atlantic and the LA Times have referred to signature

matching as “Witchcraft,” and “Ripe for Error,” respectively.10,11 Signature Verification is

a foundational process where a few percentage points variance in signature verification

error rates can determine the fate of an entire election.

Where are the SOPs for Signature Verification? Was the 27-point algorithm used or not?

During curing of signatures, is there a log of the calls made by each reviewer to the voter

documenting how resolution occurred? These are the substantive questions that are still

unanswered. Once again, delivery of the SOPs can serve to resolve such questions.

10 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/signature-matching-is-the-phrenology-of-

elections/616790/, last accessed on October 1, 2021.

11 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-28/2020-election-voter-signature-verification, last

accessed on October 1, 2021.

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DR. SHIVA REPLIES TO MARICOPA COUNTY OFFICIALS



Statement #1
‘Audit’ expert Shiva Ayyadurai didn’t understand election procedures.


Response
This first line of the title exemplifies the quality of the entire blog post: nonsensical

gibberish aimed to misdirect the reader from far simpler truths. Let us begin with some

very simple realities of the results presented in Table I on the next page. The first line of

the title conflates simple addition and subtraction with “election procedures.” Such

simple mathematical operations one should have learned in second grade, or at least by

the time of graduating high school.

The simple fact is this: EchoMail was provided a hard drive purported by Maricopa

County Election Officials to contain EVERY IMAGE of every single Early Voting Ballot

(EVB) return envelope imaged by Maricopa County election officials. Clear?

That number of images EchoMail received and analyzed totaled 1,929,240, as denoted

in the second row of the second column of Table I. The fascinating aspect of the

“election procedures,” referenced above, is that apparently no accounting line item,

exists or is required by these “election procedures” to record how many total EVB

return envelope images were scanned by the County. Such basic accounting

documentation appears to be foreign to these “election procedures.” Thus, EchoMail, in

the Report had to place “Unknown” in the second row of the third column of Table I.

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SUMMARY RESULTS

EchoMail Maricopa
Variance
Analysis Reported
EVB Return Envelopes Received 1,929,240* Unknown NA
Duplicate Analysis
Duplicates12 (17,322) Un-reported NA
Unique EVB Return Envelopes 1,911,918 1,918,463** (6,545)
Signature Presence Detection
No Signature Ballots13 (1,919) (1,455) (464)
Scribbles14 (2,580) NA (2580)
EVBs Ready for Signature Verification 1,907,419 1,917,008 (9,589)
Signature Verification
“Bad Signatures” NA (587) NA
“Late Returns” NA (934) NA
Total EVBs Verified and Counted NA 1,915,487 NA
Table 1: Summary report of EchoMail Analysis of EVB return envelope images compared
with Maricopa’s results reported in November General Election CANVASS report.

*This count is the total count of all the EVB return envelope images received by EchoMail from Arizona
State Senate.
**This count is all EVB return envelopes verified and counted by Maricopa (1,915,487) plus those classified
by Maricopa as “No Signatures” (1455), “Bad Signatures” (587), and “Late Returns” (934), as documented
in Maricopa County’s November 2020 CANVASS report.

12 In the EchoMail Analysis, those EVB return envelope images with same image file name were deemed

“Duplicates.” The EVB return envelope image file names are voter specific. 17,126 unique voters submitted
34,448 2-Copy, 3-Copy, 4-Copy Duplicates. The CANVASS report filed by Maricopa election officials did not
report Duplicates.
13 “No Signature Ballots” in EchoMail Analysis are those Signature Regions on EVB return envelope images

classified to be “Blanks” based on a non-white pixel density of 0%, and “Likely Blanks” based on a non-
white pixel density between 0%+ to 0.1%.
14 “Scribbles” in EchoMail Analysis are those EVB return envelope images containing likely illegible
signatures in the Signature Region, wherein a scribble is defined as a Signature Region containing a non-
white pixel density between 0.1%+ to 1%.


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The question is, were such “election procedures” that do not even document the total

EVB return envelope image count, a result of mere incompetence or by design?

As EchoMail proceeded further in its audit, it discovered that there existed 17,322

Duplicates – 2-copy, 3-copy, or 4-copy duplicates – of the EVB return envelope images.

These were removed, as denoted in Table I from EchoMail’s count of total EVB return

envelope images to calculate the total unique EVB return envelopes of: 1,911,918.

Again, this is very simple mathematics. Now, one would think that if Maricopa County

election officials were following “election procedures,” that they would demand

there be exactly ONE EVB per ONE EVB RETURN ENVELOPE, meaning Maricopa

should have 1,911,918 EVBs. Either EchoMail is missing EVB return envelopes or all

EVBs don’t require return envelopes.

Which is it? This anomaly needs to be addressed by Maricopa County election officials.

However, the audit revealed that Maricopa County election officials documented

1,918,463 EVBs, as shown in Table I. This begs the question: where are the

additional 6,545 EVB return envelope images? Did County simply not scan them?

Do they not require EVB return envelopes or their affidavits for every EVB? Perhaps,

if they were cooperative and provided SOPs, this could be easily answered.

Therefore, before we use such advanced terms as “election procedures,” which clearly

neither my staff nor I can comprehend, let us first master some second grade math.

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Statement #2
He made a number of false signature claims.

Response
There is neither one nor more than one “false signature claims,” in the Report. EchoMail

has reported anomalies. An “anomaly,” to be clear is something that deviates from what

is standard, normal, or expected, based on observations. However, a “claim” is to state

or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof. The

proxy scribe for Maricopa County Election Officials is attempting to conflate “anomaly”

with “claim.” These have two very different definitions, and are un-related words. This

is poor “independent journalism”

The anomalies identified and presented in the Report are all from direct observations

comparing EchoMail Analysis along with any data presented in Maricopa’s CANVASS

report. What IS a “false claim” by the proxy scribe is to state that “[Dr. Shiva] made

a number of false signature claims.”

Statement #3
Shiva Ayyadurai gave a presentation on an analysis he did of Maricopa County early
ballot envelopes as part of the Arizona Senate’s so-called election “audit.”

Response
There are two (2) fundamental errors in this statement.

First Error: EchoMail did not do an analysis on Maricopa County’s early ballot

“envelopes” i.e. the original paper envelopes. This is an absolutely false statement.

EchoMail never had access to the envelopes. In fact, as I understand the Arizona State

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Senate had asked for access and was stonewalled by the County officials. EchoMail did

its analysis on Early Voting Ballot return envelope images. This is another example of

the lack of attention to detail that is pervasive throughout the blog post.

Second Error: There is no “so-called election audit,” there is the “election audit.”

Whether Maricopa County officials are aware or not, I have conducted and participated

in at numerous technical audits since 1994 that have spanned a diversity of systems:

data center, financial accounting systems, design processes, software engineering,

handwriting recognition systems, disaster recovery, to name a few. The Arizona State

Senate has been conducting an election audit. The denial of the existence of an audit

even occurring reflects the disdain for citizens and representatives by un-elected

election officials.

To reiterate, Congress wanted and encourage auditing of elections:

1. Congress passed a whole law, 52 USC 20701, BECAUSE Congress declared that

election audits are a public good;

2. Election audits are a public good BECAUSE it provides real data and feedback

about the integrity of an election;

3. Auditing the integrity of an election is a public good BECAUSE American citizens

are ENTITLED to the constitutional GUARANTEE of One Person, One Vote;

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4. Congress declared election audits to be a public good BECAUSE Congress supports

all steps that ensure One Person, One Vote;

5. Only persons not in support of the ENTITLED RIGHT of American citizens to the

Constitutional GUARANTEE of One Person One Vote would actively defame a

request for an audit as conspiratorial disinformation; and,

6. This is settled law and was passed by a Democrat-majority House 50 years ago.

Statement #4
In it, he made a series of misleading statements about supposed “anomalies” he
found, all of which are easily explained and stem from his ignorance of elections
administration.


Response

There are no misleading statements in the Report. There are no “supposed anomalies,”

there are only “anomalies.” To reiterate, an “anomaly” is something that deviates from

what is standard, normal, or expected, based on observations.

If they can be explained, and such explanations can be confirmed, then wonderful. The

purpose of an audit is to bring anomalies forward and to resolve them, as expeditiously

as possible. That is called an “audit.” However, in normal circumstances the party being

audited cooperates.

That has not been the case in the present situation.

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Statement #5
The audience in the Senate gallery oohed and aahed as Shiva Ayyadurai drew its
attention to a “verified and approved” stamp that appeared behind a triangle on the
image of an early ballot envelope, unsubtly suggesting that it might have been pre-
printed that way.

Response

An anomaly, to repeat, is something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or

expected, based on observations. Seeing a stamp appear behind the triangle is an

anomaly, and requires County elections officials to explain it. Moreover, no claim was

made about it being pre-printed; rather hypotheses were conjectured on how that

anomaly could have occurred. That is called the scientific method, a process one learns

in around 7th or 8th grade.

Statement #6
“It’s almost as though it was imaged on there. I don’t want to say Photoshopped, but
put on there. But it’s quite fascinating. I’m sure there’s some explanation for this,”
Ayyadurai said. The remark elicited laughter from an audience largely composed of
audit supporters who believed, without factual basis, that the 2020 election was
rigged against Donald Trump, a position Ayyadurai himself has aggressively
promoted.

Response

Yes, this is indeed true – the stamp was imaged. Hypothesizing how this anomaly could

have occurred as noted in Response #5 is called the scientific method. The Maricopa

County election officials would rather we just say, “great, nothing to see here, move

along.” This attitude is what resulted in the Challenger Space Shuttle blowing up in

January of 1986. “Oh those little O-rings? Nothing to see here just move along.” That

attitude is what resulted in the unfortunate and avoidable death, of one of my fellow

MIT alumni – Ron McNair.

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As the Report states, “anomalies – small or large, insignificant or monumental – are

fundamental to the advancement of any engineering system.”

Concerning the “election was rigged against Donald Trump,” I have never made such a

comment rather my work has served to explore anomalous behavior. That is the

foundation of science and the field of pattern recognition.

Statement #7
It turns out there was an explanation, and a simple one at that. But Ayyadurai
appeared to have absolutely no knowledge of Maricopa County policies and
procedures regarding the early ballot envelopes and signature verification.

Response

This is an absolutely false statement and pure nonsense, as are most of the Statements.

I wish this were not so, as I had hoped to learn something valuable from reading this

blog post, as I thought it was indeed “Independent Journalism.” In the EchoMail Report

submitted and accessible to the public, on pages 23-28, based on EchoMail’s own

research, referenced in footnotes on those pages, is the summary of the policies and

procedures for Signature Verification. In fact, that section bulleting these procedures, is

preceded by an important preposition, which is copied below:

“Based on these information sources, and in the absence of access to a formal

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Signature Verification, the process of

Signature Verification appears to consist of the following elements:”

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It is obvious neither the Maricopa County officials nor their proxy at the partisan blog

funded by the billion-dollar Arabella Advisors, even read the 99-page report. Moreover,

one of EchoMail’s team members attempted on multiple occasions to contact Maricopa

County officials, as documented above, to learn more about these procedures and got no

response.

Statement #8
That shortcoming would be a consistent theme as he presented his findings as part
of the so-called audit of the election in Maricopa County, portraying commonplace
occurrences and standard procedures as potentially suspicious.

Response

Clearly this statement reflects the unprofessional approach to the entire election

systems process. Everything is “commonplace occurrences,” nothing is an anomaly, and

all is well – “move along, nothing to see here.”

To repeat, denial is not a good habit for those running complex engineering systems

such as an election voting system. An audit did take place, and likely there are going to

be more audits and further investigation by the Attorney General of Arizona. This is a

good thing and should be welcomed. This is why Congress passed 52 USC 20701.

Great engineers are always on the lookout for “potentially suspicious” phenomena. That

is how we build great systems. That is an attribute one desire in an engineer. The

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“move along, nothing to see here” attitude is what results in disasters and lack of

confidence from stakeholders.

Statement #9
And Senate President Karen Fann has asked the attorney general to investigate
Ayyadurai’s obviously false findings.


Response

This is false. Senate President Karen Fann never stated “obviously false findings.” This is

the epitome of misinformation and disinformation. The truth is whoever wrote this

comment claiming to practice “Independent Journalism” is the one who profits from

spreading “false findings,” which is the business of the blog, funded from “dark money,” as

detailed above. You don’t graduate MIT with four degrees and get a PhD by pushing out

“false findings;” however, you can practice “Independent Journalism” by pushing out

“false findings,” especially if the entities that fund your blog operation have an agenda

such a Arabella Advisors and its donors. According to the New York Times, Arabella

directs funds that have “… donated more than $63 million to super PACs backing

Democrats or opposing Republicans in 2020, including the pro-Biden groups Priorities

USA Action and Unite the Country and the scandal-plagued anti-Trump group Lincoln

Project, according to Federal Election Commission filings.”15

Instead of simply providing the SOPs requested, such ad hominem comments serve to

misdirect from addressing and solving the problem at hand.

15 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/us/politics/hansjorg-wyss-money-

democrats.html

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Statement #10
Ayyadurai, known to his fans online simply as Dr. Shiva, is a MIT-trained engineer
and entrepreneur known for his disputed claim that he invented email.

He has a history of promoting discredited and debunked conspiracy theories about
the 2020 election, including during a day-long event at the downtown Phoenix Hyatt
several weeks after the election that featured Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.


Response
There are multiple errors in this statement.

First, I am the inventor of email. The facts are black and white on this matter. In 1978,

as a 14-year-old, I was recruited as a Research Fellow by the University of Medicine and

Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), in Newark, NJ after graduating with Honors from a

special program in Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science at

NYU. At UMDNJ, I invented email – the system as we know it today – when I was the

first to convert the old-fashioned interoffice paper-based mail system consisting of the

Inbox, Outbox, Memo (To:, From:, Date:, Subject:, Cc:, Bcc:), Attachments, Folders, etc.

into its electronic equivalent by writing 50,000 lines of code to create a software system,

which I named “Email,” – a term never used before in the English language – and went

on to be awarded the first U.S. Copyright TXu111-775 for “EMAIL, COMPUTER

PROGRAM FOR ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM” recognizing me as the inventor of email at

a time when Copyright was the only legal mechanism to protect software inventions.

Only in 1994 did the Federal Circuit recognize software as a "digital machine" allowing

for software patents. Email is not the simple exchange of text messages. I have never

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claimed to be the inventor of electronic messaging, which predates email - the system

that he created in 1978.16,17

Second, none of my theories have been discredited or debunked.

Third, I never presented at the Hyatt hotel, rather over Zoom I shared a stochastic

model that provided the actual results of the 2020 election, and ran 100,000s of

simulations using party affiliation demographics to discover which combinations would

emulate those results. At that Zoom event, which I was provided perhaps 15-20

minutes, I shared those results, and provided possible conjectures, including that more

Republicans voted for Biden or more Independents voter for Biden. To assert that that

presentation was a conspiracy theory is absolutely false. Perhaps we can hold a panel of

independent judges to decide

Statement #11
The claim about the triangle on the early ballot envelopes was perhaps the most
attention-grabbing of the numerous findings he presented during a presentation on
Sept. 24, as the team that led Senate President Karen Fann’s review of the 2020
election results in Maricopa County.

“I would consider this potentially a critical anomaly,” Ayyadurai said.

16 Facts on the invention of email, https://www.inventorofemail.com/thefacts/
17 The Man Who Invented Email, TIME, https://techland.time.com/2011/11/15/the-man-who-invented-

email/

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Response

Of course it is a significant anomaly to see the stamp behind and in some cases in front of

the triangles. Bringing this anomaly to the forefront has NOW revealed that images are

being compressed, and this has now raised more questions such as:

1) Are the pre-compression EVB return envelope images available?

2) How many sets of EVB return envelope images with varying compression exist?

3) Is there an entire set of EVB return envelope images that are high resolution?

4) Are the original EVB return envelopes available for inspection?

5) Is a virtual i.e. digital “VERIFIED & APPROVED MCTEC” stamp being applied to

the original high-resolution EVB return envelope images?

6) Are the EVB return envelope images encrypted when saved?

7) What other image processing and modifications takes place on the original EVB

return envelope image?

8) Are the EVB return envelope images stored in one central repository?

9) Who has access to the EVB return envelope images?

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10) What modifications can be applied to the EVB return envelope images besides

the “VERIFIED & APPROVED MCTEC” stamp?

11) Can signatures be removed and altered in the Signature Region of the EVB

return envelope images?

12) Can any region of the EVB return envelope image be altered?

13) What is the Chain of Custody on alterations to the EVB return envelope images?

14) Is there revision tracking enabled on EVB return envelope image modifications?

15) What other image processing occurred on the EVB return envelope images prior

to EchoMail receiving them?

16) Why are not all the bona fide i.e. “Verified and Counted” EVB return envelope

images stamped with “VERFIED & APPROVED MCTEC?”

17) Given EchoMail has access to EVB return envelope images, where the stamp

appears both behind and in front of a triangle, how does the County’s explanation

resolve such examples? Do different image compression settings exist?

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18) What is the exact process and Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) from receipt

of the original EVB return envelope from the voter, to scanning, to stamping, to

storage, and compression of the EVB return envelope images?

Statement #13
But to those who understand how elections work, the “critical anomaly” was
anything but. In fact, it’s not only not an anomaly at all, it’s exactly how the systems
used to safeguard the election are designed to work.
‘Hollowed out’ shapes increase speed and decrease file size

Response
It’s good to hear that Maricopa County Election Officials and their proxy scribe

understand the basics of compression. At the age of 10, I learned compression and by

age 14 was writing complex compression algorithms. The reality is that we have

multiple examples where the VERIFIED AND APPROVED STAMP appears behind and in

front of some the triangles. This statement is misdirection and does not address the

fundamental issue: where are the SOPs documenting all of these procedures to

“safeguarding election[s]?” What does “hollowed out” shapes and increasing speed and

decreasing file size have to with “safeguarding election[s]?”

Statement #14
When Runbeck Election Services, the company that prints Maricopa County’s ballots
and envelopes, scans the outbound and incoming early ballot envelopes, it does so in
a binary format that only uses black and white pixels, with no gray shading. To save
space with its file sizes and increase the speed at which ballots and envelopes can be
scanned, the binary format doesn’t fill in blocks of solid color, said Jeff Ellington,
Runbeck’s CEO.

Response
This does not answer the fundamental question: where are the SOPs. In fact, such a

process of compression results in altering the original signature. Anyone in image

processing understands that compression without saving the original high-resolution

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image can serve to protect those who may want to alter signatures. Moreover, in this

case, the Maricopa County Election Officials have not given the public access to the

original printed EVB return envelopes. The question is why was compression

authorized? The reason for saving money, when disk drive space is relatively cheap,

defies logic, and is outweighed by the need for Chain of Custody.

Statement #15
So, the solid black triangles that point to the signature box on the envelopes become
white triangles with black borders. All of the ink inside the triangles and other
shapes, including any parts of the approval stamps that happened to be made over
the triangle, are removed. The Arizona Mirror was shown examples of this
technology from the scanning process of Arizona and Colorado ballot envelopes at
Runbeck’s Phoenix facility.

Response
We have examples where the stamp appears in some cases in front and in some cases

behind the smaller triangles. Regardless, the real issue is why are the original signature

images being compressed and degraded i.e. altered, opening up the system to potential

malfeasance and lack of Chain of Custody.

Statement #16
Ayyadurai never mentioned in his presentation or in his written report that the
triangles on the paper envelopes, unlike in the digital images he analyzed, are solid
black. Two smaller, solid red triangles on the ballot return envelopes also appeared
hollowed out in the same fashion on the digital images that Ayyadurai displayed.

Response
See response above, in #15

Statement #17
Color markings on an original ballot envelope printed by Runbeck Election Services
and the images of those markings after they are scanned by Runbeck’s equipment.
The scans are done in a binary format that only uses black and white pixels, and
that doesn’t fill in blocks of solid color to decrease file sizes and increase scanning
speeds.

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Ellington said Ayyadurai never contacted his company during his envelope analysis.
Wake Technology Services, a company that worked on the audit until it parted ways
with the rest of the team in May, contacted Runbeck with some questions early in
the process, Ellington said. He asked them to route their questions through the
county.
Response
See response above, in #15

Statement #18
It’s unclear if Wake ever contacted the county, but county officials have repeatedly
refused to cooperate in any way with the audit team, which they view as as
unacceptably biased — the team is led by adherents of the “stop the steal”
movement that promotes false claims of election rigging — and professionally
unqualified.

Response
This is defamatory and libelous. I am neither a leader nor adherent of the “Stop The

Steal” movement. My work has focused on mathematical modeling and pattern

recognition classification methods to perform scientific research to understand normal

and anomalous states of election voting patterns. As my resume shows, my entire

professional life of over 40 years has been focused on mathematical modeling and

pattern recognition classification methods to perform scientific research to understand

normal and anomalous states across a range of industries. My bio at the beginning of

this manuscript discusses those efforts and achievements.

Moreover, as noted previously, our project manager made multiple attempts to contact

the County’s Election Officials. Even as of the writing of this document, we have yet to

hear back from them. We look forward to hearing from them.

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Statement #19
It’s also unclear if Ayyadurai made any attempt to contact anyone else who had
knowledge of Maricopa County’s election procedures.

Response

This statement is as a pure prevarication and at best a false claim. As stated previously

in (26-28), the Maricopa County Election Officials have been unresponsive, even as of

the writing of this manuscript to our requests. Below is the evidence in Figures 4-6,

of our project manager’s attempts at least six times, a few days before the audit report

was due, to connect with Maricopa County Election Officials.

Figure 4 – Diary of attempts on 9/20/2021 to connect with Maricopa County Officials.

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Figure 5 – Phone log of attempts on 9/20/2021 to speak with Maricopa County Officials.

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Figure 6 – Phone log of attempts on 9/20/2021 to speak with Maricopa County Officials.

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Statement #20
Surge in ‘verified and approved’ stamps is a proof of success, not fraud
The triangle issue was far from the only of Ayyadurai’s claims that demonstrated a
lack of knowledge about how Maricopa County election officials handle early ballot
envelopes and signature verification.
Ayyadurai said that only about 10% of the approximately 1.9 million early ballot
envelope images had the “verified and approved” stamps on them, and said the bulk
of them appeared to have been approved after the election, with a 25% increase
between Nov. 4-9, the six days after the election. The implication was clear that he
considered this suspicious.

Response
This is misinformation and disinformation. Nothing was stated to be “suspicious.” That

word neither appears once in the 99-page Report nor was it ever used in the

presentation I made on September 24, 2021. Showing an anomalous pattern e.g. an

unexpected pattern, and seeking explanations is what occurs in engineering. The DNA

of engineering is auditing, identifying anomalous behavior, reporting them, and

resolving them. To take offense to this process is what raises “suspicions.”

Statement #21
Had Ayyadurai bothered to ask anyone who had knowledge of or experience with
elections work in Maricopa County, he would have learned that there is a simple
answer to his question.

See response to #19 above. Kindly have the Maricopa County Election Officials contact

us. We are still waiting for their response to our requests.

Statement #22
Election workers who have been trained in signature verification examine digital
images of early ballot envelopes to determine whether voters’ signatures are valid
before their ballots are counted.

Response
Please forward us the SOPs on their training processes.

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Statement #23
If the signature matches what the Elections Department has on file for that voter,
the envelope is opened and the ballot counted. But if the signature doesn’t appear to
match, or if there’s no signature at all, the voter’s envelope is pulled out for
additional review.

Response
Once again, the SOPs on this must be disclosed for transparency to advance election

systems integrity. When will we be receiving them?

Statement #24
By law, elections officials must give voters an opportunity to rectify or “cure” their
signatures. For a missing or potentially bad signature, election officials contact the
voters to confirm that they were the ones who signed the envelope. Voters who
forget to sign can come in to the Elections Department to sign there.

Response
EchoMail, without any cooperation from the County, was able to identify these Signature

Verification processes to best of its effort as documented in the 99-page Report. The

reality is that Maricopa County Election Officials likely have not read the Report.

Statement #25
The reason why so many of the approval stamps came after Nov. 3 is that the
Maricopa County Elections Department put additional resources into signature
curing in the days after the election, said Megan Gilbertson, a spokeswoman for the
Elections Department. By law, voters have five business days after an election to
cure defective signatures — and after Election Day, workers who had been verifying
signatures largely shift to signature curing duties. Voters cannot cure missing
signatures after Election Day.

Response
This does not address the anomaly observed, and is pure misdirection. Why are there

only a very small, miniscule number of EVB return envelope images being cured before

November 3, and the bulk of them after November 3? Is this explained in the SOP? If so,

where is the SOP?

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Statement #26
Tammy Patrick, the senior advisor for elections at Democracy Fund and the
former head of federal compliance at the Maricopa County Elections Department,
said the largest number of mail-in ballots also come in shortly before Election
Day. That became more pronounced last year because of an increase in the use of
drop boxes for early ballots, she said.

Response
In Maricopa County, this is absolutely not true based on the time stamps of the EVB

return envelope stamps given to EchoMail. Figure 7 below makes this clear. In fact, the

highest date was on 10/14/2020.

Figure 7 – EVB Return Envelopes Receipt Over Time.

The motives of any claim that promotes that “…. the largest number of mail-in ballots

also come in shortly before Election Day,” when this not based in reality, must be

questioned. Moreover, Tammy Patrick’s Democracy Fund is funded by billionaire Pierre

Omidyar, who was instrumental in funding various organizations that were involved in

creating the Playbooks that architected the domestic censorship infrastructure in the

United States. Moreover, the Democracy Fund also supported the creation of the Long

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Fuse Report, which documents that I was being surveilled since June of 2020 for

questioning U.S. election voting systems. Tammy Patrick has a serious conflict of

interest on this matter, for her organization seeks to silence any American who

questions election integrity in the United States.

Statement #27
And the reason most early ballot envelopes don’t have approval stamps is because
election workers don’t stamp envelopes if the signatures are verified without the
need for additional follow-up.


Response
Per this statement, all the EVB return envelopes that were verified and counted

matched signatures on file via the 27-point analysis. And, those that did not match were

“cured;” however, most of the curing appears to have taken place after November 3.

Why? Why does no curing not take place throughout the entire process? Where are the

SOPs for the curing process and Chain of Custody?

Statement #28
Only envelopes that are approved after missing or potentially invalid signatures are
cured receive the stamp. If there’s no need for additional review, election workers
never actually handle the physical envelopes during the signature verification
process, Gilbertson said — they only review the digital images of the signature area
of those envelopes.

Response
Once again where are the SOPs for this process? We have yet to receive them.

Moreover, this statement appears to contradict Statement #34, as that Statement

asserts that during signature verification and curing, a stamp is placed on the physical

envelope by the election workers and is rescanned. Is this not considered “handling”

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the physical envelopes? Once again, this is why we need the written SOPs. An election

system cannot rely on the word of one Mr. Gilbertson.

Statement #29
Ayyadurai’s ignorance of Maricopa County’s procedures extended to the process
election workers use to actually verify the signatures. He repeatedly commented on
the number of signatures that he described as “scribbles,” which he defined as
having 1% or less pixel density in the signature box, while anything over 1% was
considered a signature. He identified 2,580 such scribbles, which he described as
potentially bad or were assumed to be invalid.
Ayyadurai did not have the file of voter signatures and did not conduct any
comparisons to determine whether the signatures matched.

Response
This is misinformation and disinformation and shows reckless disregard for the truth.

EchoMail was never commissioned to do Signature Verification. This is purposeful

ignorance. EchoMail now recommends that a full audit is necessary of Signature

Verification. For such an audit, the file of voter signatures would be needed. Moreover,

in Maricopa County, if 1% or less non-white pixel density is considered anything close to

a valid signature, then the problem in Signature Verification in Maricopa is far worse

than anyone could imagine.

Statement #30
Patrick took issue with Ayyadurai’s analysis of the so-called scribbles.
“The very use of that word implies impropriety. It also demonstrates his lack of
understanding of signature verification. And now we know why he wasn’t hired to
do signature verification,” Patrick said.
Signature verification has nothing to do with legibility. The issue is whether the
signatures match the ones on file for that voter, a process that’s conducted by
trained professionals, with multiple layers of oversight when questions arise.

Response
This is either misinformation and disinformation or complete incompetence. The Scope

of Audit clearly defines the classification protocol of the audit: Blank, Scribble, and

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Signature. If Patrick is so well versed in Signature Verification, she should release all the

SOPs requested for Signature Verification, including the Chain of Custody and the 27-

point algorithm being used. Moreover, Patrick should answer was the 27-point

algorithm used? And, if so, why was there such a low number of cured EVB return

envelopes? Why were there only 587 of the nearly 2 million EVB return envelopes

deemed to “Bad Signatures?”

The reality is the entire Signature Verification process is unverifiable. Once again,

“Patrick’s” verbal assertions of how this process works can never replace formal SOPs.

Statement #31
Former Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, who held the position for 28 years,
said she and her election director once had to call an Arizona Supreme Court justice
to confirm that the illegibly scribbled signature on his ballot envelope was correct.
She said Ayyadurai’s testimony on numerous points showed a lack of understanding
about the processes he was analyzing.

“I just thought his testimony — if you can call it testimony — was a little bit
ridiculous,” Purcell said.


Response
Helen Purcell in 2014 was responsible for leaving a candidate off the ballot. In another

incident, in 2016, after someone found an error in the Spanish language version,

700,000 ballots had to be reprinted. It appears that my testimony exposing

incompetence or lack of process would be found “ridiculous” by Purcell. This is most

unfortunate.

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Statement #32

The bulk of Ayyadurai’s presentation was devoted to the issue of duplicate ballot
envelopes. But he displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of what a duplicate
ballot image actually meant, declaring to Fann and Senate Judiciary Chairman
Warren Petersen, “Each of these voters submitted two ballots.”

That is blatantly false.

Election officials don’t use the term “duplicate” to refer to ballot images. In election
administration, the term “duplication” is used to describe a very specific process of
re-copying ballots that can’t be read by tabulation machines for various reasons.


Response

This is false. First, the bulk of my presentation was providing a cogent engineering

systems approach to auditing election voting systems, and in that context eleven

anomalies were presented. Nearly 70% of the anomalies had nothing to do with

duplicates. The discussion on duplicates was to emphasize the fact that Maricopa

County has 6,545 more EVBs – ballots – than the EVB return envelopes that go with

them. There should be exactly ONE EVB per ONE EVB RETURN ENVELOPE. Do

Maricopa County officials agree with this or not? If not, why?

Statement #33
What Ayyadurai referred to as duplicate images appeared to refer to multiple ballot
envelope images for the same voter. That generally occurs when two images are
made of the same ballot envelope, which most often happens when there is a
question or issue with a particular envelope.

Response
Refer to answer in #32.

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Statement #34
When election workers verify signatures on ballot envelopes, they look solely at
digital images of the box on the envelope where voters are instructed to affix their
signatures. If they can’t verify the signature, or if there is no signature, they
physically examine the paper envelope for further verification. If election workers
are unable to verify a signature but are able to cure it by contacting a voter, that
same envelope is re-scanned after being stamped for approval. If there’s no
signature, voters can come into the Elections Department to sign it in person.

Response
This “process” appears to contradict that stated in Statement #28, which states that,

“…election workers never actually handle the physical envelopes during the signature

verification process, Gilbertson said — they only review the digital images of the signature

area of those envelopes.” Once again, this kind seeming contradiction can be resolved

easily with SOPs that are fully disclosed. Relying on one individual or a scribe at some

unknown blog to communicate such important processes is not at all adequate.

Statement #35
Nonetheless, Ayyadurai presented the existence of duplicate envelope images — he
questioned why the county didn’t report them in its official canvass — as potentially
suspicious.

Response

The discussion on duplicates was to emphasize the fact that Maricopa County has 6,545

more EVBs – ballots – than the EVB return envelopes that go with them. There should

ONE EVB per ONE EVB RETURN ENVELOPE. Do Maricopa County officials agree with

this or not? If not, why? I never asserted anything to be “potentially suspicious,” rather

I pointed to an anomaly and requested answers. This is precisely why Congress passed

52 USC 20701 – to encourage scrutiny of elections up to 22-months after they end.

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Statement #36
Ayyadurai drew attention to 1,455 envelopes that he said were stamped as
“approved” despite there being no signature in the signature box. Gilbertson said
those are most likely instances when a voter affixed a signature elsewhere on the
envelope, ignoring the instructions on where to sign. In such cases, election workers
would cure the signature, re-scan it and then approve it.

Response
This is absolute false. I never said, “1,455 envelopes … were stamped as ‘approved.’”

This is pure misinformation and disinformation. I merely restated that Maricopa County

officials had found 1,455 “No Signature” EVBs.

Statement #37
Ayyadurai even showed one side-by-side comparison of two envelope images in
which part of a signature appeared jutting out from a black redaction box on the
line for the phone number.


Response
Once again, this is sheer incompetence or purposeful disinformation, in not having

reviewed the Scope of the Audit. EchoMail was commissioned to classify the Signature

Region as Blank, Scribble or Signature. Regardless, there are many examples of the EVB

return envelopes being blank not only in the Signature Region but elsewhere, and they

were Verified and Counted as votes by Maricopa County Election Officials, as

documented and presented. If Mr. Gilbertson would like to explain such occurrences,

we welcome such an opportunity, and can set up a meeting to do so in an open forum.

Statement #38
Shiva Ayyadurai presented this ballot envelope as one without a signature. While
the box for a signature was blank, the voter’s signature can be seen extending
beyond the redaction in the space for the voter’s phone number. Such ballots are

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“cured” by election workers if the signature matches what is on file, then they are
stamped as approved and scanned a second time. Screenshot via Arizona Senate
“If we stamped it as verified, there’s absolutely another signature somewhere else,”
Gilbertson said.



Response
This is clear misinformation and disinformation. The Scope of the Audit was to look

only in the Signature Region. Regardless, there are many examples of the EVB return

envelopes being blank not only in the Signature Region but elsewhere, and they were

Verified and Counted as votes, as documented and presented. If Mr. Gilbertson would

like to explain such occurrences, we welcome such an opportunity and can set up a

meeting to do so in an open forum.

Statement #39
Ayyadurai acknowledged during his presentation and in his report that he only
looked at the designated signature field and did not look elsewhere on the
envelope for signatures.

Auuadurai’s distortions are ‘disingenuous and irresponsible’

Response
This proxy scribe reflects not only their sloppiness and lack of attention to detail but

also overt racism by being unable to spell my name correctly, which is Dr. Shiva

Ayyadurai, not “Auuadurai.”

The nonsense of this statement is reflected in characterizing our contractual Scope of

the Audit as “disingenuous and irresponsible.” What is actually disingenuous and

irresponsible is the “Independent Journalist” that never read the contract. The Scope

was to only look in the designated Signature Region e.g. “signature field.”

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Statement #40
Gilbertson said there are other reasons why a ballot might be approved without a
proper signature in the box.
There are bipartisan special election boards that personally bring ballots to voters
who are in hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities, or who live at
home but need assistance voting for various reasons. Technically, those voters are
casting early ballots, which are placed into early ballot envelopes with their
signatures. Some of those voters have physical difficulties signing, and some even
sign with an X.

Response
Same as answer to Response in #41, below.

Statement #41
But because the boards must check their identification, as would happen with an in-
person Election Day voter, those ballots bypass the signature verification process
entirely and wouldn’t even have an approval stamp, Gilbertson explained.
Ayyadurai showed several side-by-side examples of duplicates that he intimated
were problematic. One showed a blank signature box next to a signed signature box
— but he didn’t note that it was the signed envelope, not the blank one, with the
approval stamp on it.

Response
Gilbertson’s explanations are not sufficient. Where are the written SOPs? Engineering

systems – such as election systems – do not operate on one individual’s comments

delivered effectively through a proxy blog to avoid having to share the written SOPS.

Statement #42
Patrick said she was exasperated while watching Ayyadurai’s presentation because
he kept showing two images of what was clearly the exact same envelope. But
multiple images doesn’t mean multiple ballots or multiple votes, she said.

Response
Exasperated? Election officials getting “exasperated” over questions and anomalies

does not reflect a culture that is open to advancement. Clearly, there is a problem in

basic understand of mathematics. The numbers need to add up. EchoMail’s numbers

reveal that Maricopa has more ballots – EVBs – than the associated EVB return envelope

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images associated with those EVBs. There is supposed to be ONE EVB RETURN

ENVELOPE IMAGE associated with ONE EVB.

Moreover, as stated on pages (11-12) of this document congress encourages audits. It is

the law. To repeat:

1. Congress passed a whole law, 52 USC 20701, BECAUSE Congress declared that

election audits are a public good;

2. Election audits are a public good BECAUSE it provides real data and feedback

about the integrity of an election;

3. Auditing the integrity of an election is a public good BECAUSE American citizens

are ENTITLED to the constitutional GUARANTEE of One Person, One Vote;

4. Congress declared election audits to be a public good BECAUSE Congress supports

all steps that ensure One Person One Vote;

5. Only persons not in support of the ENTITLED RIGHT of American citizens to the

Constitutional GUARANTEE of One Person One Vote would actively defame a

request for an audit as conspiratorial disinformation; and,

6. This is settled law and was passed by a Democrat-majority House 50 years ago.

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Statement #43
“To take something so simple and distort it and present it as though it was some
sort of evidence of malfeasance, fraud or criminal activity is not only disingenuous
and irresponsible, but I think it also, in itself, should have some sort of serious
repercussion,” she said.


Response
The Report does neither assert nor imply “malfeasance, fraud or criminal activity.” This

statement best reflects the well-known line from Shakespeare: "The lady doth protest

too much, methinks." The individual herein making this statement wants auditors to

“have some sort of serious repercussion.”

Perhaps this individual should study the law Congress passed, 52 USC 20701 that

encourages questioning and scrutiny of elections up until 22 months after they are

done. We do live in America. Laws were created to ensure government officials are

accountable to their citizens.

To assert that an auditor should have “some sort of serious repercussion” is a threat not

only to the auditor but also to the process that was created to encourage scrutiny, small

or large.

Statement #44
At the end of his presentation, Ayyadurai presented a list of questions for Maricopa
County officials that he didn’t know the answer to, including whether the county
“received” any duplicate early ballot envelopes, why he found more envelopes with
no signatures or bad signatures than the county reported in its official canvass, why
most envelopes didn’t have “verified and approved” stamps, why there was in
increase in those stamps after the election, why some envelopes with blank
signatures fields were approved, and why the stamps appeared behind the triangles

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on some envelopes. He even asked what the standard operating procedure was for
processing early ballots and for verifying questionable signatures.

Response
The questions posed were directly related to address the anomalies discovered. Asking

questions is what auditors do. Even as of the writing of this document, we have yet to

hear any response from our team’s attempt to connect with Maricopa County Election

Officials as documented above (see pages 26-28)

We are encouraged, however, to hear perhaps that answers to these exist in the form of

written documentation. We look forward to receiving the SOPs. However, it is now

approaching two (2) weeks since the September 24, 2021 presentation, and we have yet

to see any SOPs.

Statement #45
Ayyadurai was far from alone. Audit team leader Doug Logan and team member
Doug Cotton made numerous claims throughout the more than three-hour
presentation in which they portrayed normal, commonplace practices as possibly
suspicious while acknowledging that there may be reasonable explanations that
they were overlooking.

Ayyadurai, Logan and a spokesman for Logan did not respond to questions from
the Mirror and would not say why he didn’t make any effort to learn whether his
alleged findings were actually suspicious or whether there were reasonable
explanations.


Response
This statement is a conflation and these are false claims. First, to be clear, an

“anomaly” is something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected, based

on observations. However, a “claim” is to state or assert that something is the case,

typically without providing evidence or proof.

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The Report does not have “claims” but presents findings and “anomalies” and provides

recommendations for resolution. This blatant conflation is being done to equate

“anomalies” with “claims.” Such sloppiness is purposeful, as one would expect a

“journalist” to use the correct word in the correct situation e.g. diction.

Second, the recommendations of the Report requested SOPs as aforementioned. SOPs do

not exist from mere verbal assertion of their existence. They must exist in written form.

The “commonplace practices” referred in this statement appear to be only known to a

few people at Maricopa County and the proxy scribe enlisted by Maricopa County

Election Officials to assert their existence.

We have yet to receive the SOPs requested.

Third, nothing was put forward as “suspicious,” but rather as an anomaly, which

required further investigation. Once again, here is once again an attempt to associate

motive. The purpose of this audit was to document anomalies so as to ensure the

opportunity for Maricopa County Elections Officials to respond to assure the systems

integrity of the election voting systems.

Statement #46
Fann signed a $50,000 contract with Ayyadurai’s company, EchoMail, for his ballot
envelope analysis, according to documents obtained by the liberal watchdog group
American Oversight. Those records include a separate contract between EchoMail
and Cyber Ninjas, Logan’s company.

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Response
This is false on two (2) grounds.

First. EchoMail was hired to perform analysis not of the “ballot envelopes.” In fact, the

Maricopa County Election Officials have resisted in providing such envelopes. The

contract was for EchoMail to analyze the early voting ballot (EVB) return envelope

images.

Second, there are two kinds of EVB envelope images: the outgoing and the incoming

return envelope images. EchoMail was only provided images of the return EVB

envelope, not the outgoing EVB envelope images.

Once again, this kind of sloppy journalism pervades this entire racist smear campaign.

Statement #47
After listening to Ayyadurai’s presentation for an hour on Friday, Fann and
Petersen didn’t ask him a single question about whether he’d taken any steps to
verify his claims. Fann also did not respond to questions from the Mirror.

Response
This statement is a conflation.

To be clear, an “anomaly” is something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or

expected, based on observations. However, a “claim” is to state or assert that

something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof.

 How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
Disseminate Misinformation & Disinformation to 66
Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance

The Report does not have “claims” but presents findings and “anomalies” and provides

recommendations for resolution. This blatant conflation is being done to equate

“anomalies” with “claims.” Such sloppiness is purposeful, as one would expect a

“journalist” to use the correct word in the correct situation e.g. diction.

The meeting format, moreover, was done for the auditors to present their results and

recommendations. The meeting was done in accordance with the agenda.

 How Election Officials Use Media Proxies to
Disseminate Misinformation & Disinformation to 67
Avert Investigations of Election Malfeasance



PROPOSED ACTION STEPS

Two action steps are proposed to support resolution of the issues identified in this paper.

Open Forum Between Maricopa Officials And Dr. Shiva

The first action step is to conduct an open forum where dialog can takes place publicly

between the Maricopa County officials and myself to review each anomaly and key

finding documented in the Report

Review of Arizona Mirror’s 501 (c) 3 Non-Profit Status

The second action step is to conduct an investigation as to whether the 501 (c) not-for-

profit named STATE NEWSROOM d.b.a. Arizona Mirror, effectively serving as a proxy for

Maricopa County election officials to execute a “hit job” on me – a member of the audit

team of the 2020 Maricopa County, Arizona general election results -, was aimed to

support one political candidate (Biden) over another (Trump).