What the late-night Maricopa County election video shows

What's being said

An Arizona group posted livestream footage of two people working late at night inside Maricopa County's Ballot Tabulation Center, suggesting it showed election systems being altered with a USB flash drive.

What's known

• Maricopa County says that on the evening of October 7, two county employees were doing authorized work to update software and upload election data to a terminal that is not connected to the internet or to ballot tabulation equipment.
• The county says that terminal is the ballot duplication system. When a ballot is damaged and can't be read, a bipartisan board of one Republican and one Democrat uses it to duplicate the ballot so the tabulator can read it.
• The county says USB drives are the only way to load that data because the system is offline, and that their use is standard procedure permitted by Arizona law and the state Election Procedures Manual. It hosted local political party representatives at the center to walk through the footage.
• KJZZ reports that the Maricopa County Recorder's Office referred the claim to the FBI, and that an Arizona Attorney General's Office investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing.

What's unverified

The posts have not shown any changed ballots, altered results or access to the tabulators.

What would settle it

Records or audit findings showing that data loaded that night changed ballots or counts. So far, the county's statement and the attorney general's review point the other way.