During Friday's hearing, Desai noted that blue pens were distributed to workers inside the facility. But the state's election procedures manual allows only red pens. Red ink cannot be read by ballot tabulating machines. Blue ink and black ink can be read by those machines, however.
The existence of the blue pens on the floor was reported by an Arizona Republic reporter who was an observer at the coliseum. Reporters are otherwise not allowed to watch the proceedings in person.
“We need this audit to stop at a minimum until all the blue pens are out of the coliseum so there is no question about whether people are marking ballots as we speak with pens that can be read by tabulation machines,” Desai argued."
