Rise of the Machines (by Darin Gaub)

Election Integrity is about Trust and The People, Not the Government  

                I was monitoring the primary elections in Lewis and Clark County, Montana recently and my post was near the help desk and the ballot drop box.  I chose that location for a few key reasons:  

                1. I wanted to see what questions people asked and the answers given.  

                2. I wanted to gauge the attitude of the voters.  

                3. I wanted to see how many people would come in with more than five ballots and drop them all off.  

What I did not expect to hear were so many comments from people talking about how they were dropping off their ballot because they know it’s their responsibility as a citizen, but they didn’t think it would make any difference anymore given how machines count votes in our elections and not people.  They also don’t trust the people in elections oversight who are required to verify the integrity of the results.     

                The battlefield of election integrity is filled with its own version of “the fog of war.”   There are too many people who waited for the kraken to get released but only saw a minnow in the end.  The Maricopa audits were fraught with half-truths and lies that in the end also generated very little in the way of results.  Groups sprung up across the nation begging for funding, few did the hard work and achieved positive results.  Those smaller groups are the ones who didn’t receive millions of dollars, they are the grassroots organizations seeking to find people of honesty and integrity and who will do the hard work even if it means self-funding their efforts.  Groups like WEICU in Washington, Audit the Vote PA, and New Mexico Audit Force.   

                Cutting through this fog of war at times requires a hatchet, and sometimes a scalpel.  What I learned having been involved in election integrity since November 2020 is that it all comes down to one simple statement: we the people and citizens of the United States must be able to trust that our vote counts in a free and fair election.  Whether this last election was as claimed “the most secure in history” is not the measure we should use.  Whether we can trust the system is what matters, and We the People simply don’t trust what is happening.  That is enough to require massive change in how elections are run nationwide.  I do not advocate for a federal takeover of elections for that would make the problem worse, but I do seek to highlight the biggest problem of all, the system is hidden from the people and those who run it don’t think we are owed a look into it even though we pay for it.  

                Trust – that’s what matters.  Voters don’t trust machines and want something else.  Machine manufacturers hide behind contracts restricting access to the inner workings of the hardware and software that all citizens should be able to examine.  When the people are told they can’t see the inner workings of the machines counting their votes they are right not to trust them.   What are the companies hiding from those of us who vote?  Why do the manufacturers provide so much money to organizations like The National Association of Secretaries of State?  This is a clear conflict of interest that violates even the most basic ethics considerations. This fact alone means every county commission in the United States should remove the counting machines.   

We must make the only litmus test about trust, not the presence of absolute and irrefutable proof that the machines are changing counts.  Failure to act to remove these machines means people will continue to lack trust in the system and further the divide in America.  Dominion, ES&S, ballot printing companies, drop box manufacturers, and any company supporting elections must lay everything out for the public to see and be transparent to the extreme.  Our state lottery systems are more secure than our elections and that is sad.  It’s no longer up to the people to prove there was election fraud, it’s up to these companies to prove there wasn’t.   

                   

Lt Col (ret) Darin Gaub is a  Co-founder of Restore Liberty, an international military strategist and foreign policy analyst, an executive leadership coach, and serves on the boards of multiple volunteer national organizations.  The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S.  Government, Department of Defense, or its components.   

 

Hey Bill Barr, where is the DOJ's report on the 2020 election?

Former US Attorney General Bill Barr claims there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the November 2020 election -- but his DOJ never produced a report of the findings of the (alleged) investigation.

There is no report supporting Barr's claims about the election 

The J6 Committee in coordination with the lame-stream media continue to rely on appeals to authority to argue that there was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election.   All three of these appeals to authority have been debunked, as follows:

1) DHS/CISA called it the most secure election in history   This statement has now been debunked given that DHS/CISA confirmed vulnerabilities in Dominion systems).  DHS/CISA has not addressed nor investigated for vulnerabilities in other major election systems like Hart and ES&S.   The agency's claim that these vulnerabilities have not been exploited is not supported by any evidence as neither DHS/CISA nor any other investigative authority has performed a nationwide forensic audit of voting systems.

2) The Courts.  According to the media, Trump lost 60 of 61 court cases related to the election.  This media claim has been debunked because there were over 90 cases filed about the 2020 election by Trump (and related plaintiffs).  Trump and associates prevailed in nearly 2/3 of cases decided on the merits. 

3) Former AG Bill Barr said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.   While Barr alleged that the DOJ was still investigating the fraud in December 2020, there is no evidence in the form of a report that discusses the DOJ's investigative activities.

Moreover, statements from Barr back in December alleging no widespread fraud were at odds with the known election irregularities at that time.  For example, the national news was reporting about complaints that meaningful, bi-partisan observation of the vote count was not allowed in Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta in the days as counting continued after November 3rd.  Given that the elections in Pennsylvania and Georgia were decided by a paltry number of votes, Barr's claim that the fraud wouldn't have changed the outcome is defeated by the math.

There was also the nationally broadcast Senate hearings in December, when Jesse Binnall testified that over 130,000 illegal votes were cast in Nevada.  Biden "won" Nevada by 35,000 votes.   Again, Barr's claim is defeated by the math.

Barr's highly publicized contributions to the J6 Committee show are debunked below.  (Source: CNN)

3/16 Wisconsin Presser Outlines November 2020 Vote Fraud Scheme

 

A press conference (video here) led by election integrity advocate Jefferson Davis highlighted the key attributes of the voter fraud scheme perpetrated in Wisconsin.   

Update: YouTube deleted the video for violating its terms of service and the link to the press conference was also deleted from the internet. 

Davis' presentation was mostly based on the election report authored for former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman.   In addition, other election integrity advocates, including Dr. Frank,  lawyer Dan Eastman, systems security specialist Colonel Sean Smith, and Constitutional law attorney, John Eastman provided information in support of election integrity and decertification.

The press conference was held immediately after the group met with Wisconsin Speaker of the House, Robin Vos, who now believes there was widespread election fraud in the November 2020 election, but mistakenly believes that the state legislature cannot de-certify the election.   Vos' stance against decertification is his mistaken belief that Wisconsin decertification is synonymous with Biden's removal from office....and it's not.  

At the outset of the press conference, Davis noted that there is not a movement to decertify the election and restore Donald Trump as President.   Rather, the Constitution allows the state legislature to decertify the election whenever the election is not held in accordance with state law -- as was the case in Wisconsin.   From Bush v. Gore (my emphasis added):

...that the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution.  Id., at 28–33. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id., at 35 (“[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated”) (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).

Given that Wisconsin's ten electoral votes being decertified would not be enough to cause action to remove Joe Biden,  he would remain as President.    Trump would not be reinstated.

Fraud Scheme Summary:  The Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) COVID-19 Response Grants (aka, Zuckerberg money) provided 8.8 million dollars to the Big 5 counties of Dane, Racine, Kenosha, and Brown counties under the auspices of helping people vote during the pandemic.  Evidence in the presentation revealed that the CTCLs, in coordination with the Election Registration Information Center (ERIC) and Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) officials, were utilizing bloated voter registration rolls to generate votes for Joe Biden.   The software used by the CTCLs was integrated with the software from the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to track every ballot that was sent by mail.  

Yes, you read that correctly...the CTCLs knew how many absentee ballots were in transit through the post office, how many were counted, and how many ballots would be needed to win --  as you will see below.  

Top 10 Smoking Guns of 2020 Election System Compromises

 

Fact:  Votes were often deleted in the 2020 Presidential Election

About 40% of Americans (including 70% of registered Democrats) still believe the lie told by DHS/CISA's Christoper Krebs  that the 2020 U.S. election was the "most secure in American history."  The  majority believe the election was not on the up and up.   Over half of non-affiliated voters and 75% of Republican voters are among those in the latter group.

Kreb's November 12th statement also included this patently false statement:

"There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

There is ample evidence to the contrary.

Here are my top ten 10 examples that 2020 election systems did not produce accurate results.  

To date, no one from the state governments or anyone else have provided  legitimate explanations to refute this proof of systemic error(s) in the election systems.   In some instances, state officials and/or their representatives confirmed the errors.

1.  Nearly 4 million votes subtracted from Biden and Trump over the course of the 2020 election.

2.   a.  No (zero) write-in votes in any race in the city of Detroit, Michigan.

      b.  No (zero) absentee write-in votes (out of 2.84 million) in Michigan

3.a.  Vote shifting in Antrim County, Michigan  

   b. Non-adjudication of write-in votes in Antrim County.

4.   9,000 more votes than possible on election night in Maricopa County, AZ.

5.   Double counting of ballots in Fulton County, Georgia.

6.   No write-in or minor party votes in the City of Milwaukee's 168,000 vote dump.

7.    Folded ballots cause miscounts in Windham, NH Congressional races.

8.    Approximately 70,000 missing votes for Green Party Presidential candidate in Pennsylvania.

9.    64,492 absentee votes removed from Trump in Pennsylvania.

10.   No (zero) absentee write-in votes in the battlegrounds Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.

In the majority of cases, these problems were caused by system issues.  The only exceptions were the 4 million votes subtracted (#1) of which some was allegedly caused by human error and the duplicate ballot scanning in Georgia by unscrupulous election workers (#5).

Absurd Fact Checks on Biden's 8.1M Excess Votes

 

Media fact checkers & experts resorted to hyperbole, appeal to authority, and absurdity in response to solid analysis.

When former Army captain Seth Keshel's analysis of 8.1 million excess Biden votes was published by the Gateway Pundit, the media immediately scrambled to "debunk" Keshel's work.

It bears repeating, if the media labels someone a conspiracy theorist, then it is almost certain that the person is telling the truth.  

Here is the first line of USAToday's so-called fact check (my emphasis added)

"Conspiracy theorists who, months after the 2020 election, still falsely claim voter fraud affected the outcome have started to get creative."

Before getting around to discussing the data, USAToday columnist Daniel Funke also wrote this little gem.

The article, which accumulated nearly 13,000 shares within four days, cites an Aug. 2 post from Keshel on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app popular with far-right extremists.

Absurd. 

The USAToday headline read: "No evidence of 8 million 'excess' Biden votes in the 2020 election."

Nothing in Funke's column directly refuted Keshel's analysis.

Lyin' Josh Shapiro's PA "Audit" Lies

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is petrified of what will be exposed when Senator Doug Mastriano conducts a forensic audit of the 2020 General Election.  Not only will it expose that Biden lost bigly, but that he (Shapiro) did too.

Out of fear, Lyin' Josh went on Twitter and spun up four falsehoods in a single tweet about the Pennsylvania 2020 election and Mastriano's audit.

First, let's address his "two audits" falsehood. 

There were not two "audits" in Pennsylvania if you understand the definition of an audit. 

Most audit definitions come from the world of finance and accounting.  The common thread among audit definitions is that audits "confirm the authenticity" of the records.  In this case, it's ballots and/or votes.

Nothing of the sort happened in Pennsylvania after the November 2020 election that confirmed the authenticity of the ballots.

What happened in Pennsylvania was nothing more than recounts based on a sample of ballots.  Whether those were legal ballots or illegal ballots remains in question.

That's why Democrats all over the US (and their media mouthpieces) are decrying post-election audits in the battleground states. 

Here are the details behind Lyin' Josh's "audits."

The first so-called "audit"was nothing more than a recount of a random sample of ballots.  However, that recount was FATALLY FLAWED because at least four counties had incomplete records of the number of voters (a total of 205,000 more votes were cast than voters).

Wanda Murren, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Secretary of State readily admitted the records were incomplete.

It is improper to draw a sample without first resolving the discrepancy between the number of voters and votes cast.  Was this issue duplicate ballots being counted?  Or was it a record keeping issue as alleged by Murren?  Or was it a combination of the two?

No one knows for sure. Only a forensic audit can resolve the questions.

Obviously, Pennsylvania should not have certified its election until the discrepancy was resolved.   To otherwise do so was illegal.

Maricopa: What happened to 443K excess ballots?

 

Election progress reports reveal that Maricopa County counted 443K excess ballots.

Previous blogposts here and here highlighted that Joe Biden received about 120K excess votes from the first two tranches of votes reported from Maricopa County.

Those tranches were reported by 8:03 PM MST.

In addition, the first two tranches of votes contained 9,000 more votes than the total reported at the end of the election for all of Maricopa County.    

As mentioned in Maricopa County Caught Red Handed, the total from 8:03 PM were unlikely to include the 168K votes cast on Election Day.   There is no accountability for those ballots. 

It may be that some or all of those votes were never counted in the 2020 election due to misalignment or bleed throughs by sharpies.  Time -- and the final audit report -- will tell.

However, the fact remains that nearly 2.1 million votes from Maricopa were counted by 8:03 PM and that's a big problem for Biden and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors -- because at least 443K more votes were counted after the morning November 4th.