November 30, 2020
Maricopa County GOP chairwoman Linda Brickman testified before members of the Arizona State Legislature that she personally observed votes for President Donald Trump being miscounted as votes for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden when input into Dominion machines.
Brickman is head of one of the country’s largest counties and a veteran county elections worker. Her sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury says she and her Democratic partner witnessed “more than once” Trump votes default and shift to Biden when they were entering votes into Dominion machines from ballots that couldn’t be read by machines.
She alleged that she was later threatened by election supervisors at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) for speaking out about what she had witnessed. “I observed, with my Democratic partner, the preparation of a new ballot, since the original one was soiled, or wouldn’t go through the tabulators. I read her a Trump Republican ballot, and as soon as she entered it into the system, the ballot defaulted on the screen to a Biden Democratic ballot,” Brickman told GOP Arizona State legislators on Monday.
She remarked that when she reported the issue to election supervisors, others in the room also commented that they had “witnessed the same manipulation. We were never told what, if any corrective action was taken,” Brickman continued.
“All I know is the next day, I was called outside the room that I was working in for signature verification by a supervisor who said, ‘I understand you caused some problems this week and you thought our machines were not working correctly. I was told at that point in time that I could not discuss anything or talk about what was going on."
"Many people were threatened,” Brickman told the hearing. “They were told that their voices would be suppressed, they would have to leave the room and not work there again. I’m here because I think this is our duty to speak the truth.”
She told the hearing that she was yelled at and “reprimanded” by her own supervisor, who accused her of causing trouble and “bringing things up that I shouldn’t have.”
She also said that during testing and certification of the Dominion voting machines on Nov. 18, she had refused to approve the certification of the Dominion system during a meeting with Secretary of State Katie Hobbs because the machines had malfunctioned during the test, and were shut down and reset by Dominion staff instead of corrected. She said that no explanation was given about the errors. “We could see the machines but we could not see or observe the software behind the machine to confirm what had really gone on,” she added.
Brickman also testified to the constant lowering of signature verification standards by her election supervisors in order to “move more quickly” and process the higher amount of early and mail-in ballots received for the November election. “Standards were lowered from approximately 15 points of similarities … reduced to a minimum of three, and then lowered to one, and ultimately none,” Brickman said, recalling that she was told to “just pass each signature verification through.”
“We were told, ‘Too many rejections have already been turned in … we need to move more quickly.’ This is not the way an election should be run. Where’s the integrity?” Brickman challenged.
The GOP chairwoman also said she observed signatures on envelopes that were completely different from the name of the listed voter being let through by election supervisors. “So the ones who signed the envelopes were not the actual voters, but these were allowed to go through with ‘Maricopa County verified’ stamped on the outside of each affidavit envelope,” she said. Batches of envelopes bearing the same handwriting for different signatures were also observed, she said.
“There were at least 30 ballots that I saw at one time, that were signed by the same handwriting but on different voters’ names,” Brickman testified. “When I asked if the county attorney would be alerted for possible fraud, I was told ‘no,’ that supervisors would take care of it.”
Brickman saw the turning away of Trump votes as duplicated votes or “over votes” because the voter filled checked both the bubble for Trump on the ballot but also wrote in the president’s name under the write-in candidate. “This would continue on as an over vote, which means no vote was counted at all despite the policy having been changed to allow these over votes. Supervisors contradicted their own policies where the [voter’s] intent was clear,” she said.
“I am here today again not as an expert in the Dominion software but as a voter in Maricopa County who wants to hear and speak the truth even though myself and others have been suppressed to speak before you now,” Brickman told the hearing. “There should be integrity,” she said.
