"Specifically, providing these routers puts sensitive, confidential data belonging to Maricopa County citizens — including Social Security numbers and protected health information — at risk. Further, the Maricopa County Sheriff has explained that the production of the routers would render MCSO internal law enforcement communication infrastructure extremely vulnerable to hackers,” wrote Thomas Liddy, civil division chief for the County Attorney's Office.

The Senate's contractors say the routers are needed to check whether the county's voting machines were connected to the internet during the election. But county officials say the auditors already received the information and machines needed to perform that check.

The county transfers election results from vote centers using flash drives and the server that stores election results is not connected to the internet — an independent audit commissioned by the county in February proved this.

Gates said he thought it was telling that the renewed demand for the routers came shortly after former president Donald Trump mentioned at a rally that the supervisors had not provided them.