7.05

Risk Assessment

Principle 7 - Identify, Analyze, and Respond to Risks

Attribute 7.05 - Management's consideration of risk factors related to fraud, improper payments, and information security is discussed further in principle 8. Management's consideration of significant internal and external changes that could impact the internal control system is discussed further in principle 9.

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Jamie's Story

No examples are available to illustrate governance gaps for this attribute.

Election Anomalies

Principle 7 addresses the need to Identify, Analyze, and Respond to Risks. The identification and analysis of risk are presumed to have been performed at the state level, which are addressed in the Arizona Secretary of State's Election Procedure Manual. The MC leadership team's Response to Risk is the primary governance weakness with respect to the Green Book's Principle #7, including this attribute.

Arizona Senate Allegations

Arizona Senate allegations arose from MC's failure to recognize the Arizona Senates Oversight Role. These allegations were investigated and reported on by the Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation. In their oversight role, the Arizona Senate sought to understand the risk to accurate tabulation of election results given the abundance of election-related anomalies. They sought a better understand of items that directly affected risk (e.g., data processing irregularities) as well as the indirect risk from the withholding of information by MC elected Officials and MC leadership. This potential deviation from the Green Book standard applies to the following Arizona Senate Allegations:

• Maricopa Election Management Server (2020)
  • MC EMS 2020 - Election Management System Database Purged
  • MC EMS 2020 - Election Files Deleted
  • MC EMS 2020 - Corrupt Ballot Images
  • MC EMS 2020 - Missing Ballot Images
  • MC EMS 2020 - Failure to Follow Basic Cyber Security Practices
  • MC EMS 2020 - Subpoenaed Equipment Not Yet Provided
  • MC EMS 2020 - Anonymous Logins
  • MC EMS 2020 - Dual Boot System Discovered
  • MC EMS 2020 - Operating System Logs Not Preserved
  • MC EMS 2020 - Internet Connections to the EMS

Maricopa County Signature Verification (2020)

Governance issues identified from Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation of Arizona Senate allegations of Maricopa County - Signature Verification Process issues. This attribute was deemed relevant given the early ballot requires significant security to ensure only valid early ballots are tabulated. The risk of undetected fraudulent ballots does not appear to be taken seriously. There are three methods to ensure an erroneously rejected early ballot is returned for tabulation, but the Signature Verifier is a single person responsible for detecting fraudulent ballots .