Election auditor wrote ‘election fraud facts’ report for GOP senators who tried to overturn the 2020 election

The head of the team that Senate President Karen Fann put together to audit the 2020 election in Maricopa County drafted a document for U.S. senators who planned to object to the certification of the election results on Jan. 6 promoting various disproven or baseless conspiracy theories about the election, including claims against the company whose ballot tabulation machines he’ll tasked with inspecting.

The document, which conspiracy theorist attorney Sidney Powell posted on her website, lists its author as Doug Logan, whose cybersecurity company Cyber Ninjas will head up the audit team that Fann put together. She posted the document on a section of her website called, “Evidence of Fraud – 2020 Election.” 

Logan authored a document titled “Election Fraud Facts & Details.” 

His Florida-based cybersecurity firm was chosen by Senate President Karen Fann to head up a team of companies that will conduct an audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County. That audit will include a hand recount of all 2.1 million ballots cast and a thorough examination of the ballot tabulation machines from Dominion Voting Systems.. 

In a statement provided to the Arizona Mirror by Fann after this article was first published, Logan confirmed that he’d written the document to assist U.S. senators who either wanted to object to the certification of the Electoral College or wanted to insert evidence into the official record. He said he was asked specifically to include evidence that would support the national security concerns that some senators had.

He stood behind all of the assertions in the document, some of which have been debunked or disproven, and others that have little or no supporting evidence.

“Some of it is based on my own research, but quite a bit is information I got from other people but personally vetted,” Logan said.

Logan did not say who asked him to compile the information or which senators it was for. U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Cindy Hyde-Smith, John Kennedy, Roger Marshall and Tommy Tuberville voted against certifying Arizona’s electoral votes. Five of those senators, plus Florida’s Rick Scott and Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis, voted against certifying electoral votes from Pennsylvania.

Powell is a one-time attorney for former President Donald Trump who became infamous for spreading false claims about election fraud and filing failed lawsuits attempting to overturn election results in several swing states that President Joe Biden won, including Arizona. Logan said he was unaware that a copy of his memo was on Powell’s website. He said he gave the document to an acquaintance he’d been working with to research election integrity issues, and that person gave it to an attorney on Powell’s legal team. 

Among the various claims in the document is a debunked allegation that the “core software” used by Dominion originated with and is the intellectual property of Smartmatic, alleging the latter company was founded in Venezuela and has ties to Hugo Chavez, the country’s socialist dictator who died in 2013. It claims Smartmatic has been linked to election rigging in Venezuela, India and the Philippines.

The paper alleges ties between Dominion and China, and repeats a discredited claim that the private equity firm that owns Dominion sold it to a Chinese-controlled securities company. Claims of ties between Dominion and Chinese investors were largely based on confusion between the similarly named New York and China-based subsidiaries of a Swiss securities company.

“Just because a company has foreign connections doesn’t mean that those connections were used inappropriately; but if that company creates voting equipment those connections most definitely should be looked into,” Logan said in his statement to the Mirror.

The document also cites an unsubstantiated claim that Dominion official Eric Coomer told a conference call of members of the radical left-wing movement Antifa, “Don’t worry about the election, Trump is not going to win. I made f***ing sure of that.” The alleged quote originated from conservative activist Joseph Oltmann, who claimed he heard a man identified as “Eric from Dominion” make the statement during the call.

Coomer has said the claims are “wholly fabricated,” that he has no ties to antifa and was not on the call in which he made the alleged comment. He is suing the Trump campaign, Oltmann, Powell, Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani and host of conservative media figures. Coomer went into hiding due to the death threats he received following Oltmann’s allegations.

In addition, Logan’s paper alleges “significant security vulnerabilities” in Dominion machines “that could be exploited by a nation state in ways that would be difficult to detect.”

The alleged links between Dominion and Smartmatic, which have been repeatedly touted by Powell and other Trump supporters as evidence of fraud committed by Dominion in the 2020 election, are false. Both companies deny that Smartmatic has ever provided Dominion with the software it uses, and the two are separate entities with no financial ties. 

Dominion cited the allegations that Smartmatic provided or played a role in the development of its software in a $1.3 billion defamation suit against Powell. The suit states, “Dominion does not use Smartmatic’s software or machines, and there was no Smartmatic technology in any of Dominion’s voting machines in the 2020 election.” 

The allegations about Dominion and Venezuela were part of the “kraken” lawsuits that Powell filed in Arizona and other states. A federal judge dismissed the Arizona version of the lawsuit in December, writing that the plaintiffs were “sorely wanting of relevant or reliable evidence.”

If anything in the document is proven to be inaccurate, Logan said he would attempt to have it removed. But he said he believes that the claims are backed up by the supporting documentation that can be accessed through a Dropbox link on the document.

But that Dropbox link was deleted Thursday afternoon, several hours after the Arizona Mirror asked Logan about the document.

Logan defended his role in the audit and said there are “a lot of election anomalies that need a proper explanation for the American people to have confidence in their elections.”

“I will work with anyone who I feel is genuinely seeking for more transparency and accountability in our elections. The media may think this is some bad idea; but this used to be the way our country operated,” Logan said. “It’s also the most skeptical person who makes the best auditors; not the person who thinks it is impossible to find anything.”

Logan’s authorship of the document is not the only of his activities that have called his objectivity into question.

After the election, Logan used his since-deleted Twitter account to spread conspiracy theories, baseless allegations and false claims of election fraud and vote rigging. He is an expert witness for a man who is suing Antrim County, Mich., alleging that election fraud was intentionally conducted through the county’s tabulation machines, which are from Dominion.

Logan defended himself and his audit plan after the revelations surfaced about his support for the “Stop the Steal” movement that falsely claims the election was rigged against Trump.

The big question should not be, ‘Am I biased,’ but ‘Will this audit be transparent, truthful and accurate?’ The answer to the latter question is a resounding ‘Yes,’” he said in a statement his spokesman issued on Tuesday.

Former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who is serving as a spokesman and liaison for Fann regarding the audit, said he doesn’t find Logan’s authorship of the document concerning. He said his understanding is that a different company will actually be auditing the Dominion machines. And regardless of who does that work, Bennett said they’ll have to show how they reached their conclusions.

“I don’t worry about what his opinions are. The audit’s not going to be based on opinions. The audit’s going to be based on what we can prove factually,” Bennett said.

Fann would not comment on Logan’s role in creating the document or whether that would affect his ability to conduct the audit. But she rejected the notion that Logan’s past activities should disqualify him after his support for the “Stop the Steal” movement came to light.

“We have total confidence in the auditing firms we have hired who all have experience in performing audits. They are not part of the groups the media tries to imply,” Fann told the Mirror on Tuesday.

***UPDATED: This story has been updated to include comments from Doug Logan that were provided after initial publication. The headline has also been changed to reflect those comments.

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