Voter Suppression/Election Integrity

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

She's currently being held without bail. 

This warms my heart.  Thank you.

I’ve been trying to follow the Dominion Voting and Smartmatic defamation cases, and the cases are being ordered to proceed pretty much intact wherever they’ve been filed.  The Grand County situation may be added to an exhibit list for Dominion.

I read an article that a group has formed to look at the involvement of every attorney who signed on to election overthrow lawsuits nationwide, including members of congress, to potentially file complaints with their respective state bar associations.  I’ll see if I can track that down, if it’s not already posted in another thread.*  So much crazy. 

*It’s called the 65 Project.  Here’s one link:

Forbes article on 65 Project

Edited March 10, 2022 by CTRLZero
Add link.

[Howl]

20 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

I’ve been trying to follow the Dominion Voting and Smartmatic defamation cases, and the cases are being ordered to proceed pretty much intact wherever they’ve been filed.  The Grand County situation may be added to an exhibit list for Dominion.

Grand County had to replace all of their voting machines at significant cost due to Peters actions.  I'm wondering if the county will sue Tina Peters in an attempt to recoup costs.  

Another potential lawsuit, should he choose to pursue it:  The Colorado Sun article discussed something that I hadn't realized, and it had to do with "Gerald Wood".  

On May 23, Peters used her access badge to enter a secure area in the elections office. Security credentials for a man named Gerald Wood were also used to enter the area. 

Despite rules that only allow people working for the secretary of state, Dominion and the county elections office to be present, emails show that Wood was listed on the attendee list as an “administrative assistant”  during a  May 25 "trusted build" update. 

In court documents, Peters referred to Wood as an “expert consultant” and said she authorized making copies of the hard drives in order to determine “whether the trusted-build process erased or destroyed election records.”

As it turns out, Tina Peters is a lying liar who lies, under oath, no less, because "Gerald Wood" was not there.  

Wood told the grand jury that Peters called him to do contract work with Dominion Voting Machines that the county’s IT department could not perform. He obtained a county access badge on May 19, but returned the badge on the same day and “was never hired by Mesa County in any capacity” and never did “any work for Mesa County,” the indictment says.

In the Tangled Web We Weave Dept, Peters and her deputy clerk, Belinda Knisley, face criminal impersonation charges for using Wood’s identity.

The Colorado Sun does not identify the man introduced as "Gerald Wood" and allowed into the secure room during the trusted build process, but I really want to know who he is. 

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Arizona Republicans are pushing to divide Maricopa County. Critics say it’s about revenge for 2020 — and planning for 2024."

Quote

PHOENIX — In a state increasingly dominated by a single county, the first-term Arizona lawmaker offered a simple yet audacious solution: break Maricopa County into four.

By redrawing the state’s maps to create three new counties where only one mega-county now exists, state Rep. Jake Hoffman argued, Arizona could ensure local government “remains representative and accountable to the people it is designed to serve.”

“At its core, it is a Jeffersonian idea,” the Republican told colleagues last month before a House committee advanced his bill on a party-line vote.

But behind the high-minded rhetoric, the bill’s critics see ulterior motives that they say could add to the already considerable pressure on Arizona elections — and on democracy itself.

With some Republican lawmakers continuing to push to have Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat overturned, the legislation is viewed by the former president’s opponents as a thinly veiled attempt to punish GOP supervisors in Maricopa who defied efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the vote.

Election experts say the proposal by Hoffman — who was among the so-called “fake electors” who falsely certified Trump had won Arizona — could also be an attempt to lay the groundwork for challenges to vote tabulation and certification in 2024.

“The current Maricopa supervisors have taken their responsibility very, very seriously. They’ve stood firm in the face of death threats,” said Tammy Patrick, a former top Maricopa elections official who is now a senior adviser at the nonpartisan Democracy Fund.

But with the creation of three new counties — all of which would be solidly Republican after the reddest parts of Maricopa are cut away — Patrick said the supervisors elected there might be willing to “go along with extralegal reviews and do things for partisan reasons, rather than follow the law.”

The fight over Maricopa’s future — and the fact that the outcome could have any bearing on a presidential vote — reflects just how critical local officials are to the functioning of American elections.

In swing states that Trump lost, once obscure officeholders, such as county clerks and canvassing board members, were subject to threats and abuse as the former president and his backers demanded they reverse a result he has repeatedly and inaccurately dismissed as fraudulent.

The pressure has not let up in the 16 months since the vote. Nationwide, there has been an exodus of officials with responsibility for overseeing elections. Trump and his supporters have also waged a concerted effort to put loyalists who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 outcome into key election-related jobs.

Creating entirely new counties in Arizona would be a novel way to gain leverage over election administration. But Democrats insist it’s all part of the strategy to inject doubt about the outcome of the next election — or even to overturn it. County officials in Arizona have critical roles in the counting and reporting of results.

“This is about putting more chips on the roulette table so you can win your bet,” state Rep. Lorenzo Sierra, a Democrat, argued in vain before Hoffman’s bill passed in committee following just over an hour of debate. “One of these three counties, I’m sure, would decertify this election in a heartbeat.”

Hoffman is among the 11 Arizonans who signed a document falsely declaring they were empowered to cast the state’s electoral votes for Trump. Before becoming a legislator, he was suspended from Twitter after his digital marketing company, working on behalf of a pro-Trump youth group, hired teens to flood the Internet with Trump talking points — including falsehoods about the election.

Hoffman, who declined an interview request, has repeatedly denied his bill has anything to do with elections — either past or future. He argues it is, instead, all about bringing power closer to the people in a county that has grown too unwieldy as the population has surged.

By any measure, Maricopa is a colossus. The P-shaped county — stretching from craggy peaks in the northeast to vast deserts in the southwest, with the sprawling Phoenix metro area in between — covers more than 9,000 square miles, making it geographically larger than four U.S. states. At 4.4 million people, its population is greater than that of about half of all states and every other county in the nation, save three: Los Angeles County in California, Cook County, Ill., and Harris County, Tex.

About two-thirds of Arizona’s population lives in Maricopa — a concentration that is only expected to grow in the coming decades and, according to Hoffman, only further amplifies the need for a breakup.

If lawmakers don’t act soon, “we will be kicking ourselves in 30, 40, 50 years that we never did this,” Hoffman said at the February committee meeting. “And it is much easier to do it now than it will be then.”

But Hoffman acknowledged that doing it now will be by no means easy.

Splitting Maricopa means four times the number of elected officials, a lineup that includes not only supervisors, but also assessors, school superintendents, treasurers and sheriffs. It would also mean new facilities, such as county office buildings, courthouses and jails. And it would mean a potentially fractious divorce as assets are divvied up and precious revenue sources are fought over.

“It’s a lot more government. So for a limited-government guy, it doesn’t make any sense,” Republican state Sen. Paul Boyer said. “Maricopa County is big, I get it. But I believe they run it efficiently.”

Boyer said he did not want to speculate as to why his colleagues — who identify as conservatives — would back a bill that would grow the size of government, cost untold millions of dollars and may ultimately force local officials to raise taxes. But he said it was hard to ignore the broader political atmosphere in some quarters of his caucus.

“There’s residual anger at the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for not playing ball, for not buying into the lie that the election was stolen,” he said.

The county board is dominated by Republicans, who hold a 4-to-1 advantage in a county that had long swung right but has lately become a bellwether as the demographics have diversified. Joe Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Maricopa since 1948, carrying the county by about 45,000 votes, more than enough to account for his 10,457-vote margin statewide.

The county board — including Bill Gates, the current chair — triggered the ire of Trump by certifying the outcome, in line with the law. Board members then resisted cooperation with the Republican-led state Senate after it hired the cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas to audit the results in Maricopa. The audit — conducted by a firm with no experience in election recounts — was riddled with procedural flaws and ultimately confirmed Biden’s victory.

In a statement on the breakup bill, Gates did not address the possible implications for elections. But he made his opposition clear to a proposal that he said would probably lead to higher taxes, at least in some of the new counties. The bill, he said, “appears to be an attempt to grow government, and as a Republican, I can’t support that.”

County Assessor Eddie Cook — another Republican — has been outspoken in opposition, saying the bill is a solution in search of a problem. County leaders, he told lawmakers, are “able to manage the activities in the county today, tomorrow and into the future. They’re able to scale.”

Key city leaders in Maricopa’s municipalities have also voiced opposition. Peoria Mayor Cathy Carlat — who leads the League of Arizona Cities and Towns’ executive committee — said the proposal “would significantly expand the size and cost of government, with no evidence to indicate that this is in the best interests of our citizens.”

The idea of splitting Maricopa is not entirely new. Previous proposals to divide the county’s east and west valleys — which are distinct both culturally and politically — were floated decades ago, before being abandoned because of their difficulty and cost.

Hoffman has argued that water is at the heart of the new proposal. The state faces dwindling supplies as its population surges, and by creating three new counties — which he has proposed should be called Hohokam, Mogollon and O’odham — citizens in different parts of present-day Maricopa would have their interests better represented, he has said.

But Craig Sullivan, who leads the County Supervisors Association of Arizona, said setting water policy is not a county role.

“There are many stakeholders that are involved in water,” including the state and its municipalities, he said. “But the county does not have statutory authority.”

Democrats at the hearing pressed Hoffman on whom he had consulted in drafting his proposal; the lawmaker did not give names but acknowledged he had not spoken with leaders in Phoenix — Maricopa’s largest city, which would be divided between counties under the plan — or with the Indigenous communities in Maricopa, of which there are several.

One person who said he had been consulted was Austin Smith, who directs Turning Point Action, an affiliate of the pro-Trump youth organization Turning Point USA. Smith’s organization contracted Hoffman’s marketing firm to pay young people to pump out pro-Trump messaging online in the lead-up to the 2020 vote.

Smith described the effort as “sincere political activism,” but Twitter dubbed it “political manipulation,” and Hoffman’s firm was banned by Facebook after The Washington Post revealed the workings of what critics called a “troll farm” in October 2020.

Smith, who is now campaigning to join Hoffman in the state legislature, told lawmakers at the February hearing that Maricopa needed to be broken up so the new counties could better represent the political interests of their citizens.

Currently, he said, Maricopa “may have Republican representation. That doesn’t mean they’re doing the right representation.”

That answer, said Sierra, the Democratic lawmaker, gets at the heart of what he believes to be the proposal’s true aims: to replace a politically up-for-grabs county where leaders have to fight for their seats in the general election to ones where officials have safe seats and can play to their bases. For a growing number of Republicans, he said, that means going along with Trump’s fraud claims — and possibly using their positions to influence the outcome of elections.

“It’s going to be a fight for it not to happen,” he said. “Now that it’s in the bloodstream, who knows if it can be stopped?”

Despite passing at the committee level last month, the bill to divide Maricopa appears to have stalled. Opposition from Boyer, the Republican state senator, is one reason it is considered almost certain not to pass this year. With Republicans holding razor-thin majorities in the House and the Senate, any break in their ranks can doom a bill.

But Boyer is leaving the legislature after this term. Another lawmaker who has been critical of the bill — Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) — will not be in charge of the House next year, having decided to seek a state Senate seat instead. Meanwhile, unabashedly pro-Trump candidates — such as Smith — are seeking office up and down the ballot, with many campaigning on debunked claims that Trump won two years ago.

If they triumph in the governor’s race, and if Republicans can expand their majorities in the legislature, Boyer said next year may turn out very differently. Not only could the Maricopa bill succeed, he said, but so could any number of proposals that he says take direct aim at voting rights — all in time for the 2024 election.

“You’re going to see all of these bills pass,” he predicted. “100 percent.”

 

 

[Becky]

"Hoffman is among the 11 Arizonans who signed a document falsely declaring they were empowered to cast the state’s electoral votes for Trump. Before becoming a legislator, he was suspended from Twitter after his digital marketing company, working on behalf of a pro-Trump youth group, hired teens to flood the Internet with Trump talking points — including falsehoods about the election."

Wouldn't that be a crime?  How is this guy still a legislator?  

[Xan]

6 hours ago, Becky said:

Wouldn't that be a crime?  How is this guy still a legislator? 

I don't understand it either.  After Watergate, Nixon ended up resigning.  That was just a break-in of the DNC headquarters.  If that happened now, some Republicans would give the burglars a medal.  It's like we no longer have rules because about 30-35% of the population is having a permanent tantrum about Democrats actually holding office.  Nobody wants to upset them.  

I guess it boils down to the fact that businesses like Republican administrations and they're the ones that nobody really wants to upset.  Therefore, the rightwingers can keep doing what they're doing without repercussions.

[Cartmann99]

Meadows Nixed From North Carolina Voter Roll Amid Probe Into Fraud Allegations

Quote

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is reportedly no longer listed in North Carolina’s voter rolls amid an investigation by state authorities into allegations of election fraud in the 2020 election.

Macon County Board of Elections Director Melanie Thibault confirmed the move to the Asheville Citizen Times on Tuesday. Thibault said she removed Meadows the day before from the county’s active voter list.

Thibault told the Citizen Times that she consulted the North Carolina Board of Elections staff in Raleigh after she found records that the former Trump official was registered in Virginia and North Carolina.

The county official reportedly found that Meadows was registered in Virginia when he voted in a 2021 election. The last election Meadows voted in Macon County was in 2020, she said.

 

[CTRLZero]

On 3/11/2022 at 4:36 AM, Howl said:

Grand County had to replace all of their voting machines at significant cost due to Peters actions.  I'm wondering if the county will sue Tina Peters in an attempt to recoup costs.  

From the Washington Post - Peters lost the primary.  Whew!
 

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, a Republican who was indicted on a charge of trying to prove the false claim that the 2020 election was rigged, lost her party’s primary race for Colorado secretary of state Tuesday.

The nomination will go to Pam Anderson, a former Jefferson County clerk, the Associated Press projects.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Justice Dept. sues Arizona over requiring proof of citizenship to vote"

Quote

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging an Arizona law that requires voters in presidential elections to show proof of citizenship, setting up a fight over a provision similar to one the Supreme Court called unconstitutional in 2013.

State Republicans, who passed the new measure in March on a party-line vote, said the law is a safeguard against voter fraud, which supporters of then-President Donald Trump falsely claimed was a factor in him losing the state to President Biden in 2020. Arizona’s attorney general said in April that his office investigated allegations of voter fraud in the state’s largest county and found no evidence of any widespread irregularities that would have affected the presidential election.

Democrats have lambasted House Bill 2492 as another of the state GOP’s long-standing efforts to restrict voting and make it more difficult for some residents, including naturalized immigrants, to take part in elections.

The bill requires voters to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers, on a federal voter registration form. It also mandates that county officials cross-check voter registration rolls with citizenship records and disqualify those who are not listed as a citizen in the databases.

Democrats and voting rights experts have said the safeguards are not necessary, given the absence of evidence that significant numbers of noncitizens are trying to participate in U.S. elections. Critics of the law also say it could disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters, especially those who are poor, since they may not have easy access to the proper documentation. Experts have said such requirements have had a discriminatory effect on communities of color and the poor.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke called the Arizona law, which is scheduled to take effect next year, a “textbook violation” of the National Voter Registration Act. “Arizona has passed a law that turns the clock back on progress by imposing unlawful and unnecessary requirements that would block eligible voters from the registration rolls for certain federal elections,” she said.

Justice Department officials said the law flouts a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar attempt from Arizona to enact a proof-of-citizenship requirement. At that time, a majority of the court said the move violated federal statutes that do not require such documentation.

In the lawsuit, federal prosecutors said the federal voter registration form “already includes an attestation demonstrating a prospective voter’s citizenship, which Arizona continues to accept for in-person voting in congressional elections.”

Whether a prospective voter is able to provide documentary proof, the lawsuit says, “is not material to whether that voter is qualified to vote by mail or in presidential elections.”

Arizona Republicans have said the law is not unconstitutional, arguing that the 2013 Supreme Court decision concerned congressional elections and did not specifically mention presidential contests. But the state legislature’s legal counsel warned lawmakers ahead of the bill’s passage that it could be unlawful.

A spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey (R) declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. When he signed the bill, he characterized it as a tool to address a rise of new voters participating in elections, saying there were more than 13,000 active registered voters who had not checked the box on the federal voter registration form attesting to their citizenship.

“Election integrity means counting every lawful vote and prohibiting any attempt to illegally cast a vote,” Ducey wrote.

The sponsor of the Arizona law, Rep. Jake Hoffman (R), did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Hoffman is a Trump supporter who was among 11 state GOP lawmakers who sent a letter on Jan. 5, 2021, falsely declaring themselves as the state’s presidential electors. They asked then-Vice President Mike Pence not to accept electors from states won by Joe Biden during the congressional tally scheduled for the next day — the day when a mob of Trump supporters left a rally headlined by the then-president and breached the Capitol.

Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) said in a written statement that he looked forward to defending Arizona’s election law in court. He characterized the Justice Department’s lawsuit as an effort to allow undocumented immigrants “a chance to vote.”

A statement issued by Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who oversees the state’s elections, made clear her opposition to the bill since its introduction. In a March 24 letter asking Ducey to veto the measure, Hobbs wrote that it would create barriers for voters, violate “clearly-settled federal law” and lead to expensive litigation.

The fight over the measure comes as voters in Arizona are preparing to cast early ballots in a slew of races defined on the Republican side by lingering questions over the 2020 election and vows to crack down on potential fraud in the future.

At a recent campaign event east of Phoenix, one GOP Senate hopeful also called for new voter identification requirements, echoing Ducey’s concern about the thousands of people who fail to fill out the citizenship box on the federal voter registration form.

“All you do is check a box that says, I’m a U.S. citizen, I swear,’” Blake Masters told a crowd. “And that’s it. No one ever checks it.”

 

[Ozlsn]

So Tina Peters has gone AWOL and now has a warrant out for her arrest. Apparently the "don't leave the state without permission" part of the bail conditions were a bit hard to follow, or didn't apply if she was invited to speak in Las Vegas or something.

And who invited her to speak? A sheriff's conference. You think at least one of them might have suggested she do it via zoom instead .. and it's still dodgy as hell. Who next, a drug dealer? 

 

[CTRLZero]

16 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

So Tina Peters has gone AWOL and now has a warrant out for her arrest. Apparently the "don't leave the state without permission" part of the bail conditions were a bit hard to follow, or didn't apply if she was invited to speak in Las Vegas or something.

And who invited her to speak? A sheriff's conference. You think at least one of them might have suggested she do it via zoom instead .. and it's still dodgy as hell. Who next, a drug dealer? 

 

And now her arrest warrant has been quashed after she returned.  Her attorney took responsibility for the “mistake.”  Per the article, the judge was agitated and deemed her a flight risk.  Sorry she’s not sitting in jail, but glad she got a scolding.

CNN article re Tina Peters

[Howl]

Lots of crazy in Boebert country.  This tweet pretty much says it all: 

Belinda Knisley, deputy clerk in Mesa County/Grand Junction, CO, has agreed to a plea with no jail time + 2  yrs unsupervised probation and will testify against Tina Peters, county clerk. 

Details and refresher on Tina Peters' skullduggery here: Deputy elections clerk in Colorado to testify against boss

"Peters and Knisley were being prosecuted on allegations they allowed a copy of a hard drive to be made during an update of election equipment in May 2021."

Peters is facing numerous felony charges but has decided to sue the Colorado Secretary of State and every other clerk and recorder in the state. So there! 

Mesa County Clerk & Recorder Tina Peters is suing every other clerk & recorder in the state  Demands include that future recounts be done on taxpayer dollars and that she be provided a refund for her previous recounts

 

[CTRLZero]

14 minutes ago, Howl said:

Peters is facing numerous felony charges but has decided to sue the Colorado Secretary of State and every other clerk and recorder in the state. So there! 

Oh, goody, one of my favorites!  I see the judge isn’t putting up with Knisley’s whining about just following orders (though a pretty wimpy plea deal).  However, I hope the entire book is thrown at Peters, and I hope her specifically disparaging Dominion Voting’s name bolsters their lawsuits.  Thanks for the updates! 

[Howl]

11 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

Thanks for the updates! 

You are so welcome!  I'm fascinated by this and glad to see the hammer coming down on Tina Peters.  She, as they say, f**ked around and is finding out. She's full on MAGA crazy; not sure is she got on board the Q wagon. 

I fully expect to see her some doing prison time. What she did is egregious and cost Mesa county a boatload of money because they had to replace all their voting machines

I googled a bit and it appears that Tina is still in her county clerk position, although she is blocked from supervising or otherwise being involved in elections in any way. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

And this is why the GQP will fight tooth and nail to suppress voters, increase gerrymandering, and generally screw over the country. I'm not sure I agree with the number of states he shows as blue (like Idaho and Texas), but he's right that there would be more blue if the GQP didn't cheat.

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, more election fraud perpetuated by rethuglikans.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Yeah, the rethugs never miss an opportunity to suppress voters, especially likely dem voters.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, another rethuglikan voting more than once…

 

[zeebaneighba]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Gee, another rethuglikan voting more than once…

 

It wasn't more than once in the same election.  It's just that he used a fake ID in multiple elections.

[Ozlsn]

On 10/6/2022 at 6:45 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Gee, another rethuglikan voting more than once…

 

I honestly don't know what surprises me more - that me made a fake ID or that it was accepted. I mean surely the guy has a valid driver's licence? It's a lot of trouble to go to for what exactly?

[GreyhoundFan]

Typical MAGA hypocrisy. 

 

[47of74]

Iowa is not able to ensure candidates and elected officials live in the places they represent.  They rely on people being honest. Guess how well that works with Republicans. 

Quote

Two candidates changed their address to run in specific districts this November. One candidate, Sen. Jack Whitver (R-Grimes), claims to reside in a home records show hasn’t used water since February.

According to the Secretary of State’s Office, Iowa law requires candidates for the state legislature have residency for at least 60 days before the general election along with living in the state for one year. Our KCRG-TV9 i9 Investigative Team in a collaboration with our sister station KCCI Investigates in Des Moines found the law is virtually unenforceable because nobody is checking to ensure candidates live in their district.

Woodbury County Auditor Pat Gill (D) said people can register to vote at an address, which becomes somebody’s residency, with no other supporting documentation. He said state law requires county auditors to assume the information is correct and his office doesn’t have the resources to check every voter registration.

Another Republican who has filed to run for a rural Black Hawk County district claims to live in Hudson.  But it appears he actually lived in Waterloo. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, more fraudulent voting by an R:

 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Gee, more fraudulent voting by an R:

 

Yeah, I was just coming here to talk about that.  I don't see the likes of MeinPillow Mikey, Four Seasons Rudy, Major Failure Greene, or any of the other Branch Trumpvidian fanatics calling Ms. Taylor out for her crimes. 

Just remember, every Republican accusation is a confession.

[47of74]

Of course.  These fuckers DO NOT want our military voting.

Quote

Ohio's restrictive new election law significantly shortens the window for mailed ballots to be received — despite no evidence that the extended timeline has led to fraud or any other problems — and that change is angering active-duty members of the military and their families because of its potential to disenfranchise them.

The pace of ballot counting after Election Day has become a target of conservatives egged on by former President Donald Trump. He has promoted a false narrative since losing the 2020 election that fluctuating results as late-arriving mail-in ballots are tallied is a sign of fraud.

Republican lawmakers said during debate on the Ohio legislation that even if Trump's claims aren't true, the skepticism they have caused among conservatives about the accuracy of election results justifies imposing new limits.

The new law reduces the number of days for county election boards to include mailed ballots in their tallies from 10 days after Election Day to four. Critics say that could lead more ballots from Ohio's military voters to miss the deadline and get tossed.