Maricopa County, Arizona, is discarding the voting equipment it was forced to turn over to election auditors, saying it cannot guarantee the machines have not been compromised. 

The county’s decision, announced Monday, comes after Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs wrote a letter to Maricopa officials expressing her “grave concerns regarding the security and integrity of these machines, given that the chain of custody, a critical security tenet, has been compromised and election officials do not know what was done to the machines while under Cyber Ninjas’ control.”

Cyber Ninjas is the small Florida cybersecurity firm contracted by Arizona’s Republican-led Senate to lead the audit despite its inexperience handling recounts. 

“The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured, the County will never use equipment that could pose a risk to free and fair elections,” the county said in a statement Monday.

Republicans in the state Senate ordered the audit in response to allegations of election fraud, subpoenaing Maricopa’s voting machines and 2.1 million ballots. Democrats have criticized the audit as sloppy, unnecessary and biased. Even Maricopa’s Republican-dominated Board of Supervisors has called the review a “sham.”

Maricopa County investigated and upheld its election results three times. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by 10,457 votes in Arizona — and 45,109 in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county and home to Phoenix.

Among the complaints from critics is that Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan has promoted election conspiracies on social media and appears in a new documentary alleging the presidential election was rigged. 

Maricopa County said it is working with Dominion Voting Systems to replace the machines before November’s elections. It’s not clear how much replacing the equipment will cost taxpayers or whether the county or state will foot the bill. The Arizona Republic reported the county’s three-year lease with Dominion runs through December 2022 and that the Election Department still owed about $3.3 million as of May. The Senate signed an agreement with Maricopa saying the county would not be liable for any damages to the equipment. 

The audit has no formal legal authority and cannot change the results of the presidential election. But it’s being closely watched by Trump and his supporters.

The Associated Press reported last week that auditors have finished counting and photographing the ballots, but that a final report of the findings was still weeks to months away.