Mastriano championed AZ's 2020 election audit. Its architects, however, didn't trust him

Newly uncovered text messages suggest the team behind the widely discredited audit of Arizona's 2020 election was suspicious of a supposed ally in Pennsylvania.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin/Adams, is mentioned several times in 2021 communications between Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and Stefanie Lambert, a key figure in voting machine breaches across the country including Pennsylvania's Fulton County.

Lambert refers to Mastriano, the commonwealth's Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2022, as the "one bad one" among Pennsylvania lawmakers showing an interest in the Arizona Senate's fruitless efforts to prove former President Donald Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud.

"Mastriano is dirty. I'll give you the info on the phone," Lambert told Logan on June 3, 2021. "He seems nice but is dirty."

"It's better to know in advance," she added. "My PA peeps (people) didn't know until it was too late."

"That's problematic," Logan responded. "He's spearheading a lot of this."

The unredacted texts were recently unearthed by The Audit Guys, an indepedent team of nationally recognized data analysts who built software to untangle and organize messages obtained through a public records lawsuit by The Arizona Republic of the USA TODAY Network.

Around the time these texts were exchanged, Mastriano was publicly calling for a similar 2020 election probe in Pennsylvania. He released an op-ed in praise of Cyber Ninjas' audit project in Arizona less than a week after Logan and Lambert shared these private concerns about him.

"A county audit like the one authorized by the Arizona State Senate is critically necessary for our Commonwealth," Mastriano wrote following a tour of audit operations at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix with fellow state Sen. Cris Dush (R-Jefferson) and state Rep. Rob Kauffman (R-Franklin).

"Those who have concerns about the accuracy of the 2020 election will have a forensic audit to investigate their concerns. Those who think that there was zero voter fraud, no irregularities, and the elections were conducted perfectly will have the chance to be vindicated."

The Cyber Ninjas report in Arizona did not include evidence of massive voter fraud and ultimately confirmed President Joe Biden's win of the state.

It's unclear why Logan and Lambert distrusted Mastriano, a staunch anti-abortion conservative whose ill-fated 2022 bid for governor of Pennsylvania was endorsed by Trump. Logan, Lambert and Mastriano did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

'Spy games'

Pennsylvania is frequently discussed by Logan and Lambert in their texts about reviewing the 2020 election, tied to their efforts to access election data in at least four swing states.

On June 10, 2021, Logan and Lambert discussed Center for Tech and Civic Life grants to municipalities in the Keystone State. The Center for Tech and Civic Life was the nonprofit that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used to distribute more than $300 million to election departments across the country for election-related expenses such as ballot drop boxes.

Republican critics have derisively called these funds "Zuckerbucks," and Pennsylvania's General Assembly banned their use in the commonwealth last year under Act 88 signed by then-Gov. Tom Wolf.

Through texts, Lambert exchanged info with Logan about voting machine vendors used in the Pennsylvania counties of Allegheny, Tioga, Philadelphia and York. At one point Logan asked about BlueCrest, an absentee ballot processing company.

Lambert called BlueCrest "corrupt" without providing evidence, adding that it stores "tons of data."

Later that June, Logan told Lambert he learned that people, including Pennsylvanians, were coming to Arizona to learn about the audits in order to conduct their own.

"Why can't everyone just be honest and straightforward?" Logan wrote. "I am so sick of playing spy games with trust."

In mid-August that year, Logan said a staffer with Dush's office informed him Mastriano was telling people that Cyber Ninjas was "out-of-business" and that Pennsylvania would be using a different vendor called Internal Audit Services.

When Lambert questioned whether Pennsylvania was proceeding with an election audit, Logan replied: "I got an email on Wednesday from Mastriano's office helping with subpoena items. ... Doesn't make any sense if there isn't an audit."

By the end of that month, then-Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Centre) ousted Mastriano from the legislative committee dedicated to election review. Dush was appointed as Mastriano's replacement.

Corman, widely regarded as one of the most powerful Republicans in Harrisburg before leaving public office in 2022, said Mastriano "was only ever interested in politics and showmanship and not actually getting things done."

Mastriano, meanwhile, had accused Corman of "stonewalling" his call for a full forensic audit of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania. He was banned by Corman from attending private GOP meetings and strategy sessions.

In texts sent Aug. 27, 2021, We the People AZ Alliance member Matt Van Bibber asked Logan and others what they thought of Mastriano being removed from a potential election audit efforts in Pennsylvania.

"I've been informed not to be concerned about Mastriano not being involved; and it should be better this way," Logan said.

Van Bibber replied: "Ok excellent, (I) still had some concern with him too ... something felt off."

Logan's communications also included mention of both Wake TSI and Speckin Forensics. These companies were involved in both the Arizona audit and voting machine inspections improperly approved by commissioners in Fulton County, Pennsylvania.

In July 2021, Logan informed Lambert that Wake was threatening to sue him for lack of payment.

"We have close to $100,000," Lambert said in response. "Tell them you will make a payment as soon as you receive the money."

At Lambert's insistence, Logan also enlisted the help of Speckin.

"Just trust me," Lambert said on Aug. 16, 2021. "You asked for his specialty."

Last year, Speckin quietly conducted a review of Dominion voting machines in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, reporting that a Python script that can "exploit and create any number of vulnerabilities" had been found on one of the workstations.

Fulton County's Republican commissioners were unsuccessful in suing Dominion for breach of contract based on the Speckin report. Lambert was herself subsequently sued in connection to her work in Pennsylvania: A New York-based company called XRVision has claimed in a federal court filing that she asked them to falsely claim that Fulton County voting machines had been hacked prior to Speckin's involvement.

Bill Bachenberg, a Pennsylvania entrepreneur and former Trump campaign committee chair, is listed with Lambert as a co-defendant in the XRVision suit for allegedly refusing to pay the company after it found no fraud in the Pennsylvania county.

Logan makes apparent reference to Bachenberg in a text to Lambert on Sept. 21, 2021.

"I completely understand when after this project you can't work with me, and I don't take it personally at all. I know Bill (Bachenberg) is your primary financer, and he clearly thinks I'm a moron," Logan said. "That probably means you don't get more money if you're with me, and I know you're not in a place where you can be choosy right now."

"FYI, he started threatening me today and calling me names ... I'm done with the threats, and I'm done with everyone now having a huge opinion about this."

How did the USA TODAY Network get the AZ audit texts?

Logan's messages were obtained by The Arizona Republic of the USA TODAY Network, which requested emails, texts and other communications from Cyber Ninjas and the state Senate in June 2021.

When the company and lawmakers refused, The Republic filed lawsuits alleging violations of the Arizona Public Records Law. A judge in January 2022 ordered Logan to turn over all records and communications related to the audit and fined his company $50,000 a day until he complied.

Logan turned over more than 39,000 text messages in haphazard, nonsequential batches and in different formats, so threads were broken and not easily searchable.

A bulk of the messages, released in November and December 2022 and February and March of this year, were not organized chronologically or in any other discernable order. He redacted 3,000 more without explanation and in apparent violation of court orders.

Data analysts with The Audit Guys have long challenged Logan's ballot review as "fiction" and after an exhaustive analysis of data in 2021 concluded that Logan's report was inaccurate. The Audit Guys are Larry Moore, the founder of Boston-based election technology company Clear Ballot Group; Benny White, a prominent Pima County Republican data analyst; and Tim Halvorsen, Clear Ballot's retired chief technology officer.

Their stated mission is to "debunk election disinformation and confront those who use their power to spread it."

Bruce Siwy is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network's Pennsylvania state capital bureau. He can be reached at bsiwy@gannett.com or on X at @BruceSiwy.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Arizona 2020 election audit texts on Pa. Sen. Doug Mastriano