Author:bladeslap
7/16/2021 4:09:39 PM
Reply to: 2696647
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Republicans in the Arizona state Senate, which authorized the probe, allocated $150,000 in state funds to pay for it — just a fraction of the projected overall cost, which is still unknown. The state Senate had enough money in its operating budget to pay for the probe, the Arizona Mirror reported in April, but chose not to pay the full price.
Instead, the effort is being paid for by private donors, who remain hidden from the public, according to a review by OpenSecrets and the Guardian. Both Arizona Republicans and Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based company overseeing the review, have refused to say who is providing the rest of the money.
“It is wholly inappropriate that the Arizona state Senate is hiding the mechanisms by which their sanctioned activity is being funded,” said Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who served as the top election official in Maricopa county, the target of the ballot review, until he lost his re-election bid last year. “The lack of transparency there is just grotesque.” |