Tag: Ballots

Ranked-Choice Voting Proves to Be Lightning Rod Issue in Several States

The Center Square

Bills to ban ranked-choice voting are causing passionate debate over a method to cast ballots that some say is fairer and some say is confusing and could lower voter turnout.

Ranked-choice voting allows people to rank the candidates, with “one” being their favorite. The votes are tallied in rounds. After the first round, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated. The voter’s second preference is then added to the tally. The process continues until a winner is determined.

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VoterGA’s Garland Favorito Slams Georgia Secretary of State’s Request for Funds to Audit Ballots

Kaitlin Housler
Georgia Voting Machines

VoterGA, a nonprofit election integrity organization, spoke out against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s request for more taxpayer funds from the Georgia Legislature to implement an audit of Georgia’s QR-coded Dominion Democracy Suite 5.5 voting system.

On Monday, Raffensperger called on the Georgia State Senate to “agree to funding for new technology approved by the House that would give election officials the ability to audit the text of every choice on every ballot, in every contest – without the use of QR codes.”

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Commentary: Post-Election Audits Should Be the Norm for Every State

Admin

I may be dating myself, but the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

We can get much more than an ounce’s worth of prevention by engaging in post-election process audits. It is much easier to fix process problems early before they blow up and become problems that require litigation and other nasty fixes. Ahead of the 2024 election, state legislatures should require full process audits to ensure transparency and build trust in our elections.

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Judge Allows Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Kari Lake for Accusing Him of Election Improprieties to Proceed

Rachel Alexander

A defamation lawsuit that Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer filed against Kari Lake is being allowed to proceed, despite the fact Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law  First Amendment Clinic joined Lake in her defense requesting that the lawsuit be dismissed.  Richer’s lawsuit, which is being paid for by the Protect Democracy Project,  accused Lake of falsely stating that he intentionally sabotaged the election. Approximately 300,000 ballots in the 2022 election lacked a chain of custody, a class 2 misdemeanor, but the county has strenuously fought litigation efforts to allow Lake to inspect the ballot affidavit envelopes and other requests from her and voter integrity groups related to the election anomalies.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jay Adleman, who heard oral arguments on Lake’s Motion to Dismiss on December 19, issued his ruling denying the motion that same day. He indicated he already found Lake guilty without putting on a trial first. “In the Court’s view, Defendant Lake’s statements are ‘provably false’ under prevailing Arizona law,” he said.

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Federal Judge Rejects Bid to Remove Trump from West Virginia Ballot

Admin
Trump Happy Courtroom

A federal judge rejected a bid Thursday to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot in West Virginia.

Obama-appointed District Judge Irene Berger ruled that John Anthony Castro, the little-known presidential candidate who brought the lawsuit to remove Trump, lacked standing to sue. The decision comes days after Colorado’s Supreme Court found Trump was ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, likely setting up Supreme Court review of the issue.

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State Bar of Arizona Finds Probable Cause Against Kari Lake’s Three Election Attorneys, Gives Them Opportunity to Admit Guilt

Rachel Alexander

The State Bar of Arizona announced that it found probable cause to pursue disciplinary charges against three attorneys representing Kari Lake in her election-related cases. The attorneys are Bryan Blehm, Kurt Olsen, and Andrew Parker. The charges relate to election lawsuits the three filed for Lake. The Arizona Bar has increasingly come under criticism for targeting conservative attorneys.

Blehm, who is accused by the Arizona Bar of criticizing the Arizona Supreme Court for setting up a disinformation task force, told The Arizona Sun Times, “If the ethical rules can be interpreted such that lawyers must remain silent in the face of unconstitutional conduct by the very courts they serve then I question the validity of those ethical rules and/or the veracity of those interpreting them. We are duty bound as attorneys to defend the Constitution of the United States of America and that is the proper function of the courts. When the courts themselves violate the Constitution somebody must say something because there is nowhere left for the people to turn. When our courts fail us, we are no longer a constitutional republic.”

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Commentary: Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin Are Wrong About Ranked-Choice Voting

Admin

U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney recently praised Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), lauding it respectively as “mesmerizing…we should do it” and “a superior way to proceed.” But the two lawmakers are wrong.

Their statements might ring true if they understood they are endorsing a system that encourages fringe candidates and skews election outcomes.

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Arizona Judge Rules Election Vendor Runbeck Not Subject to Public Records Law, Ignores Precedent Set in Cyber Ninjas Case

Rachel Alexander

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bradley Astrowsky issued a ruling Friday dismissing a complaint filed by We the People AZ Alliance (WPAA) that requested video surveillance from Runbeck Election Services. Although another judge ruled previously that the private company Cyber Ninjas was subject to public records requests due to conducting a partial audit for the Arizona Senate of the 2020 election, Astrowsky refused to apply the same reasoning to Runbeck, the vendor that processed all of Maricopa County’s mail-in ballots prior to signature verification.

The judge, appointed by Gov. Jan Brewer in 2012, has served on the bench for a little more than a decade. A court insider familiar with Judge Astrowsky’s decisions told The Arizona Sun Times he is well-known as a moderate in legal circles.

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Verity Vote Issues Report on Numerous Chain-of-Custody Problems by Maricopa County During 2022 Election

Rachel Alexander

Maricopa County failed to maintain chain-of-custody records for hundreds of thousands of early ballots dropped off at third-party contractor Runbeck Election Services, and a new report is out analyzing the extent of the illegal behavior, which is a class 2 misdemeanor. Election integrity organization Verity Vote issued its analysis last week.

The report observed that then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs admonished Cochise County prior to the 2022 election about deviating from the state’s Election Procedures Manual. Yet “just one month later, Hobbs chose to disregard Maricopa County’s admitted deviations from the EPM and violations of law as she oversaw and certified her own election.” Verity Vote asserted that documents “long withheld” were finally produced revealing the lack of chain of custody, and “Maricopa officials misled the court about the process and the records.”

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18 States, DC Accept Ballots after Election Day, with North Dakota’s Deadline Facing Lawsuit

Just the News
Poll workers counting ballots

North Dakota is facing a lawsuit over its acceptance of mail-in ballots 13 days after Election Day and is among 18 states and Washington, D.C., that accept and tabulate ballots post-election.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday against North Dakota State Election Director Erika White, alleges that the state’s law to accept ballots up to 13 days after Election Day violates federal law.

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In Advance of Possible Trial, Kari Lake’s Attorney Tells Judge During Hearing That Election Was ‘Rigged’ with ‘Clear Misconduct and Intent’

Rachel Alexander

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson heard oral arguments Friday in Kari Lake’s election contest.

Thompson is considering a Motions to Dismiss filed by the defendants and a 263-page Motion for Relief from Judgment filed by Lake’s attorneys urging the court to bring back her second count regarding “illegal BOD printer/tabulator configurations,” which Thompson had previously dismissed.

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Arizona Supreme Court Declines to Sanction Kari Lake’s Attorneys, Issues Fine

Rachel Alexander

The Arizona Supreme Court declined to award significant sanctions against Kari Lake’s attorneys for contesting the election results of the gubernatorial race. Instead, on Thursday the court ordered $2,000 in sanctions against her attorneys for asserting it was an “undisputed fact” that 35,563 ballots were inserted into the ballot counting process at Runbeck Election Systems. The court declined to award attorneys fees to her opponents.

The Arizona Supreme Court said in its opinion that Lake “repeatedly” asserted in pleadings that 35,563 ballots were “added” or “injected” at Runbeck. “Not only is that allegation strongly disputed by the other parties, this Court concluded and expressly stated that the assertion was unsupported by the record, and nothing in Lake’s Motion for Leave to file a motion for reconsideration provides reason to revisit that issue.”

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After Abe Hamadeh Files New Pleading in Request for Retrial Alleging Hobbs Withheld Evidence, Judge Grants Oral Arguments

Rachel Alexander

Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen scheduled oral arguments for May 16 on whether Abe Hamadeh should get a new trial.

Jantzen dismissed his complaint challenging his loss to Kris Mayes for Arizona Attorney General in December. Jantzen’s ruling came shortly after Hamadeh filed an additional pleading to bolster his request, which accused then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of withholding evidence from him and cited new arguments due to the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling in Kari Lake’s election contest.

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Connecticut’s Early Voting Costs Could Top $9 Million

The Center Square
Early Voting

Connecticut’s embrace of early voting will make it more convenient for millions to cast a ballot, but comes with a hefty price tag for the state and local governments.

That’s according to a new report by the state’s Office of Fiscal Analysis, which determined the move could cost from $6.9 million to $9.2 million over the next several years, depending on how many days of early voting are offered. 

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Former Arizona AG Attorney Denounces Maricopa County’s ‘Lackluster’ Investigation Dismissing the Printer Issues in the 2022 Election

Rachel Alexander

Maricopa County officials tapped former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth McGregor to investigate the printing problems in the 2022 election, and on Monday, the county released her report blaming the thickness of the ballot paper. Jennifer Wright, who was the Election Integrity Unit civil attorney for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office during the election and who performed her own investigation of Maricopa County’s election problems going back to the 2020 presidential election, told The Arizona Sun Times the report was “meaningless” since it did not include an analysis of the printer logs.

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Close Political Races Like Abe Hamadeh’s Where the Outcome Partially or Completely Flip-Flopped

Rachel Alexander

The election challenge in the race for Arizona Attorney General is not over yet, and may go on longer than expected due to new ballots showing up favoring Republican Abe Hamadeh. After the recount, which was ordered automatically due to the close race, Democrat Kris Mayes’ lead dropped from 511 to 280 votes. Throughout U.S. history in extremely close races, ballots are closely scrutinized and often some are thrown out, or others that weren’t counted were added in, often flipping the race. 

Hamadeh tweeted on Thursday, “Katie Hobbs and SOS Office abused our courts and made a mockery of the justice system. They knew the results of the recount was going to show a LARGE discrepancy due to tabulation errors and fought against our election contest knowing this. They deceived the courts.”

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Pennsylvania County that Ran Out of Paper Ballots Doesn’t Certify Election

Just the News

Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County has failed to certify the results of the Nov. 8 midterm elections by the Monday deadline.

The Board of Elections split 2-2 on certifying the results, with one abstention. The county attracted national attention after it ran out of paper ballots on Election Day. Two Republican board members opposed certification, while two Democrats backed it, and one Democrat abstained, the Epoch Times reported.

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Two Arizona Counties Delay Certification of 2022 Midterm Results as Irregularities Probed

Just the News

Two Arizona counties, Cochise and Mohave, will delay certifying their ballot canvasses for the Arizona 2022 election results for a while longer as a result of some potential irregularities.

Arizona took a week to announce the projected winner of the governor’s race due to irregularities in Maricopa County where ballots took longer to be counted and some machines didn’t work for a period of time.

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Prominent Pollster Says Time for America to Mandate All Ballots Be Counted on Election Day5

Just the News

With states like Arizona, Nevada and Alaska taking days to determine midterm election results, influential pollster Scott Rasmussen says there is overwhelming support for America to mandate ballots be in and counted by Election Day.

“One of the 80% issues, and there aren’t a whole lot of 80% issues in America-one of them is that all ballots should be in by Election Day,” Scott Rasmussen said Wednesday night on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “We should know the results on Election Day.”

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Philadelphia Elections Department Says Counting of Up to 30,000 Ballots to Be Delayed After Lawsuit

Just the News

The department that oversees elections in Philadelphia said that it will delay counting of up to 30,000 ballots due to a lawsuit from a conservative group that sought oversight for possible “double counting” mistakes in the 2022 midterm elections. 

The Philadelphia City Commissioners “said it will delay counting thousands of paper ballots after the polls close Tuesday night because of a lawsuit that accused it of being open to double counting,” the New York Times reported on Tuesday. 

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Election Integrity Storm Brewing in Pennsylvania: Over 250K Ballots Sent to Voters with Unverified I.D.

Just the News

More than 250,000 ballots have been mailed to Pennsylvania voters without their identities being verified, according to state data collected by election integrity group Verity Vote.

On Tuesday, 15 Pennsylvania state legislators sent a letter to acting Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Leigh Chapman regarding unverified ballots sent to voters. As of Thursday, state data show that more than 250,000 ballots have been mailed to voters without verifying their identification.

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Ohio Secretary of State Pushes Prosecutions for Illegal Voters

Hannah Poling

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose referred 75 people to the Ohio attorney general and county prosecutors for additional investigation and potential prosecution based on accusations that they illegally voted during the 2020 general election.

LaRose’s office states that individuals who allegedly voted in one state and then cast an additional vote in Ohio, violating state law, have been identified.

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‘Free, Fair and Honest’: Former Trump Spokesperson Praises States’ New Election Laws

Admin

Former Trump spokesperson Hogan Gidley praised seven states for protecting election integrity in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Seven states are being praised by the America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Center For Election Integrity (CEI) in a new report for recent legislative efforts to prevent voter fraud. Hogan Gidley, director of the CEI, explained the importance of the report during an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Voters Increasingly Returning to In-Person Ballots over Mail

Admin

In many states across the country, voters appear to be returning to in-person voting for their top preference, after vote-by-mail was greatly increased and heavily promoted during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Associated Press, many states, including key swing states, have seen massive drops in the number of requests for mail-in ballots. In Georgia, where nearly one million ballots were cast by mail in the primary elections in 2020, only about 85,000 voters have requested mail-in ballots for this year’s primary. Other states that saw similar declines include Ohio, West Virginia, and Indiana.

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Commentary: No More Ballots in the Wild

Admin

When the French people voted for a new president in April, they did so on a single day using paper ballots filled out in the privacy of official polling stations. France, being a normal First World democracy, takes election security seriously. Electronic voting machines are virtually never used. Mail-in voting has been banned nationwide since 1975 out of security fears. Voter rolls are regularly purged of the dead and those who have moved. It is a given that every French voter must show identification before being allowed to fill out a ballot. 

The United States, by contrast, is an oligarchy (a regime where the elite rules) that is only pretending to be a democracy. This is why we use a Third World banana republic election system. 

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Georgia Ballot Harvesting Probe Advances as State Elections Board Approves Subpoena

Admin
"VOTE ONE MORE TIME" sign on an electric pole in Atlanta, Georgia

The Georgia Elections Board has approved a subpoena to secure evidence and testimony in an ongoing investigation into whether third-party liberal activists illegally gathered thousands of absentee ballots in the 2020 general election and a subsequent runoff that determined Democrat control of the U.S. Senate.

The vote was a major win for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who announced the investigation into alleged ballot harvesting in January and was seeking the subpoena authority to assist the probe.

The subpoena power will allow Raffensperger’s team to secure evidence about a whistleblower who alleged to an election integrity group that he participated in a large operation to gather ballots in which activists were paid $10 for each ballot they delivered.

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Arizona Senate Study Estimates 200K Ballots Counted in 2020 with Mismatched Signatures

Admin

Astudy of Maricopa County’s mail ballots in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election estimates that more than 200,000 ballots with mismatched signatures were counted without being reviewed, or “cured” — more than eight times the 25,000 signature mismatches requiring curing acknowledged by the county.

Commissioned by the Arizona State Senate, the signature verification pilot study was conducted by Shiva Ayyadurai’s Election Systems Integrity Institute, which released its final report to the public on Tuesday. Ayyadurai is an engineer and entrpreneur with four degrees from MIT who bills himself as the inventor of email, a claim which critics have alleged is exaggerated.

Of the 1,911,918 early voting mail ballots that Maricopa County received and counted in the 2020 presidential election, the county reported that 25,000, or 1.3%, had signature mismatches that required curing, but only 587 (2.3%) of those were confirmed mismatched signatures.

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Election Watchdog: ‘Not Ready for 2024’ Elections, ‘Still Have Many of the Same Problems’ from 2020

Admin

Election integrity issues from the 2020 presidential election have yet to be resolved, “so we are not ready for 2024,” Phill Kline, Director of the Amistad Project, warned on Monday.

Kline was asked by “Just the News, Not Noise” TV show cohosts John Solomon and Amanda Head if election integrity issues had been solved after the 2020 election. “No, we still have many of the same problems,” he replied, explaining that this is “because the legislatures have not taken the time to understand the problem.”

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Republicans Move to Ban Federal Funds to States, Cities That Allow Non-Citizens to Vote

Admin

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is leading a coalition of Republicans in Congress to sponsor legislation that would ban federal funding to states or localities that allow foreigners to vote in U.S. elections.

The new legislation, dubbed the Protecting Our Democracy by Preventing Foreign Citizens from Voting Act, was introduced after many liberal municipalities from San Francisco to New York have moved in 2021 to allow non-citizens to cast ballots in local elections

“It’s ridiculous that states are allowing foreign citizens to vote,” Rubio said. “However, if states and localities do let those who are not U.S. citizens to vote in elections, they shouldn’t get U.S. citizen taxpayer money.”

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Outside Organization Finds Discrepancies After Examining Michigan Voter Registration Lists, Calls for More Transparency

Cooper Moran

The Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), an outside organization that has reviewed multiple states’ voter registration lists, called for more transparency in Michigan’s voter rolls.

When analyzing the data, the group claimed that the state has a discrepancy between the number of voters listed as having voted in the 2020 general election and the number of ballots reported being cast according to states’ official canvass and turnout reports.

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More Votes Counted Than Cast in Georgia 2020 General Election, Analysis of State Voter Data Shows

Admin

An analysis of 2020 election results and individual Georgia Department of Elections data shows a 3,742-vote difference between those marked as having participated in the election and the number of ballots certified as being cast.

That’s according to the non-partisan Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), which released an audit of the 2020 race. It compares the state of Georgia’s official certified vote totals to its official individual voter history files, which report who voted– and who didn’t vote– last November.

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Federal Indictment Alleging Iranian Hack Further Erodes Narrative of Perfect 2020 Election

Admin

During the dizzying days after the November 2020 election, the Homeland Security cyber-security chief was fired by a frustrated President Donald Trump, then went on national TV to insist the election was fully secure.

“There was no indication or evidence that there was any sort of hacking or compromise of election systems on, before or after November 3,” ex-Cyber-Security and Infrastructure Agency Chief Chris Krebs declared on “60 Minutes.”

On Thursday, nearly a year later, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed a dramatic indictment that conflicts with that clean bill of health.

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More Than 70 Georgia Counties Can’t Produce Original 2020 Election Ballot Images, Says Election Integrity Group

Chris Butler

Exactly 74 Georgia counties are unable to produce all the original ballot images from the November 2020 election.

VoterGA co-founder Garland Favorito said this at a press conference Tuesday in Roswell. The group, according to its website, is a nonprofit whose members said it wants to restore election integrity to the Peach State.

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Commentary: The Wall Street Journal’s Shabby Rebuttal of Trump Settles Nothing

Admin

President Trump’s October 28 letter to the Wall Street Journal detailing some of his complaints about the 2020 election and the Journal’s editorial comment on it the following day clearly reveal the shortcomings of both sides of this argument. But the important thing to note is that there are two sides to the argument over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election result.

The prolonged and intensive effort in which the Wall Street Journal has eagerly participated, to suppress and throttle the merest suggestion of illegitimacy surrounding the 2020 election result, has failed. It has always been understandable why there would be a great body of opinion that would wish to suppress any consideration of the question. It is a sobering and demoralizing thing to imagine that the vastly important process of choosing the president of the United States could possibly be an erroneous or even a fraudulent process.

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School Board Recall Elections in Kansas and Wisconsin on Ballot November 2

The Center Square

by Abbey Smith   One Kansas school board member and four Wisconsin school board members are facing recall elections on Nov. 2. Supporters of both efforts listed the school board’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the reasons for recall. In the Nemaha USD 115 in Kansas, District 1 representative Amy Sudbeck is facing a yes/no recall question. If a majority of voters cast ballots in favor of the recall, Sudbeck will be removed from office. If a majority of voters cast ballots against the recall, Sudbeck will retain her office. The recall petition said that Sudbeck had failed to perform her duties and alleged that she had violated state statutes by voting to require masks in schools rather than allowing them to be optional. In response to the recall, Sudbeck said, “It’s unfortunate that this issue has caused division in our community. I voted with the majority to allow our kids freedom to participate in activities, stay in school and keep them out of a quarantine invoked by the health department.” Sudbeck was appointed to her position on the seven-member board in 2020. She is seeking re-election in 2021. She advanced from the primary on Aug. 3…

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Push to Reverse Arizona Election Reform Laws Fails to Make Ballot

Admin
Arizona Capitol

An effort to reverse three recently enacted election integrity laws has failed.

Petitioners couldn’t collect the required signatures to put three questions on the 2022 general election ballot regarding whether to reverse three laws passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Gov. Doug Ducey over the summer.

“We did not collect enough signatures to submit to the Secretary of State to stop SB1485, HB 2569 and SB 1819 by the deadline today, so the fight to protect voting rights will go on,” Arizona Deserves Better, who spearheaded the drive, said Tuesday.

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Commentary: Fundamentally Transforming America

Admin

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” 

That was the “composite character” David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, on the campaign back in 2008. By “we,” the composite character meant himself and running mate, Senator Joe Biden. In 2021, with the Delaware Democrat in the White House, an update on the transformation process is in order.

In 2008 the United States was already a democratic republic, in which the people had selected presidents as different as Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. After FDR’s New Deal and  LBJ’s Great Society, the United States was already a top-heavy welfare state. Any fundamental transformation, therefore, would have to come through different channels. 

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Report: Wisconsin Lost Track of 82,000 Ballots in State Biden Won by 20,000

Admin

Wisconsin lost track of more than 82,000 mail-in ballots cast in the state in the November 2020 elections—more than four times the margin of difference separating the two presidential candidates in the state, according to a report by the nonprofit Public Interest Legal Foundation.  

The legal foundation, an election integrity watchdog group, released a research brief Friday looking at one of the most closely contested states in the 2020 presidential election. 

However, the Wisconsin Elections Commission disputes those findings, as the commission spokesman said the report “mischaracterizes election systems and cherry-picks data,” adding, it is “unreliable and frankly, it’s sloppy work.” 

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Commentary: Reject Federal Takeover of Elections – Again

Admin

Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

That is exactly how Americans must feel as they learn that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is trying to ram through another bill orchestrating a federal takeover of elections, despite the previous failed attempt in the Senate.

The bill, H.R. 4, is expected to come up in the House of Representatives this week, and it is stunning in its breadth. In short, Pelosi would give broad, sweeping powers to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to rewrite every state and local election law in the country.

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Report: Minnesota Election System ‘Weakest in the Nation’

Admin

A Minnesota think tank released a new report this week exposing flaws in the state’s election system and recommending a number of possible reforms.

The “‘vote now, check later’ verification process” that Minnesota uses for same-day voter registrants has a number of “weaknesses,” according to the report.

Minnesotans who register to vote prior to Election Day are subjected to a verification process before their vote is counted. Same-day registrants go through the same verification process but only after the election.

“Their vote is counted,” the report says. “The county auditor runs the same verification using the Department of Public Safety database and the Social Security database. But if a problem is discovered, it is too late, because the vote has already been counted.”

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Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano Initiates Forensic Investigation of 2020 Election

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Doug Mastriano

The Pennsylvania state senator who led a hearing on election fraud in Gettysburg, PA, last November, has initiated a “full forensic investigation” into 2020 election results in several counties.

Republican State Sen. Doug Mastriano said in a statement that as chair of the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee, that he has issued letters to several counties representing “different geographical regions of Pennsylvania and differing political makeups,” requesting “information and materials needed to conduct a forensic investigation of the 2020 General Election and the 2021 Primary.”

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Commentary: What Americans Lost When We Abandoned the Secret Ballot

RealClearWire
Person putting mail-in ballot in ballot return box

My father likes to say that the secret ballot means that he doesn’t have to listen when I tell him how I voted. This joke conceals a serious point: Ballot secrecy is not just a right of the individual but also a guarantee to all that my vote was not wrung from me by bribery or intimidation.

Out of a desire to make voting “easier” and perhaps exaggerated fears of public gatherings during the pandemic, most U.S. jurisdictions permitted unrestricted mail-in balloting in 2020. What did Americans lose when ballot secrecy was attenuated or vanished altogether?

Make no mistake, ballot secrecy is incompatible with secure mail-in balloting. At the polls, we each go into a little booth and make our choices in private. By contrast, no one knows where a mail-in ballot was filled out, or if a party or union activist hovered over the voter or even filled in the circles. Nobody knows what inducements, whether cash or threats, were offered to ensure that the person voted “correctly.” And if the ballot was “harvested” – turned in to the vote-counters by activists instead of by voters themselves – our suspicions deepen.

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‘Horrendous’: Georgia Audit Lawyer Demands Full Investigation into Fulton County’s Ballot Irregularities

Admin

Alawyer spearheading a major ballot audit inside Georgia’s largest county is warning the irregularities apparent in that county’s election management are “horrendous” and cut against “the basic principle of our democracy.”

Atlanta-based attorney Bob Cheeley made those claims while talking to Just the News editor-in-chief John Solomon on Tuesday night’s “Securing our Elections: Protecting Your Vote” special on Real America’s Voice.

Cheeley is among the investigators approved by a Georgia court to audit the 2020 absentee ballots of Fulton County, Ga., a county critical to Joe Biden’s historic 2020 win of Georgia that helped propel him to the White House.

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Commentary: Georgia Conducting Secret 2020 Ballot Review –– Keeping Plaintiffs in the Dark

RealClearWire

After several Fulton County, Ga., poll monitors testified last year that boxes of mail-in ballots for Joe Biden looked liked they’d been run through a photocopy machine, state investigators quietly broke the seal on one suspicious box and inspected the hundreds of votes it contained for signs of fraud, RealClearInvestigations has learned exclusively.

At the same time, a key whistleblower told RCI that state investigators pressured her to recant her story about what she and other poll monitors had observed — what they called unusually “pristine” mail-in ballots while sorting through them during last November’s hand recount.

“I felt I was under investigation,” said Suzi Voyles, a longtime Fulton County poll manager whose sworn affidavits have been used by election watchdogs to sue the county for access to the ballots in question.

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Arizona Senate on the Verge of Beginning Major Audit of Maricopa County Ballots

Admin
Karen Fann

The Arizona Senate is poised to begin a major audit of over two million ballots cast in the 2020 election in the state’s largest county, a process the state Senate president claims has been stymied by county officials and which the county claims rests on legally uncertain ground.

Senate subpoenas to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for information and equipment needed to perform the audit have been pending since Dec. 15, 2020 and were upheld by a judge on Feb. 25. In mid-March, the state Senate announced that Republicans in that chamber would be conducting a “broad and detailed” review of Maricopa’s ballots, one that would involve “testing the machines, scanning the ballots, performing a full hand count and checking for any IT breaches,” among other approaches.

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