By BOB COOPER | Guest Columnist, Rocky Mountain Voice
Polling shows more than 55% of voters believe the voting system in the United States is problematic: a huge concern for a republic. What is fueling this? Elected officials who openly crush any form of transparency and block investigations, and a news media that does not question or investigate anything related to election claims.
Across the country, we see and hear a repeated theme of “gold standard” elections, yet elected officials controlling voting systems provide evidence to the contrary. Did you know verifying election systems is not the role of law enforcement, but of citizens?
Elected officials and election officers should insist on transparency in all cases and commit to providing citizens with confidence their voting system is accurate and secure. In many states, behavior indicates cover-ups and lack of transparency. Let’s examine some examples of behavior destroying confidence in the system.
In Colorado, one of the greatest examples is the Mesa County controversy with Dominion voting systems. The Secretary of State immediately responded to this situation by directly attacking the clerk in Mesa County who is now facing a trial on criminal charges. If Jena Griswold truly stood behind her “Gold Standard” voting system, why didn’t she offer to conduct a full audit of the Mesa County vote? Instead, she blocked it – fueling even more distrust. A full audit might have proven Tina Peters’ claims were bogus, as alleged. Millions still do not trust the security of the voting system and the Secretary of State brands Ms. Peters a “conspiracy theorist”.
Maricopa County, Ariz., is another example. Many do not know County officials did everything possible to inhibit audits and label them “Fraudits”, with full support from the media. Yet since, 2020 there have been six audits performed on this voting system where every audit found evidence of mal-administration or election crime. This included evidence of more than 150,000 counterfeit ballots voted in 2020. This was covered up by media and top ranking Arizona politicians in both parties. Why did not one politician mention these audits?
In Fulton County, Ga., a legal battle has occurred for more than three years. VoteGA’s (a citizens’ group) requested a forensic audit of 147,000 absentee ballots. Forensic audits can detect if a ballot is counterfeit (while a hand count does not). Affidavits by election workers claimed observing “strange ballots”, which generated the request for an audit. After a court order (to make those ballots available) Fulton County continues to block ballot access. The 2020 Presidential election in Georgia was decided by just more than 12,000 votes. If there were no issues on those ballots, why is an audit blocked by both state and county officials?
More litigation is underway in Michigan, where Secretary of State Jocylyn Benson ordered county clerks to delete election-related thumb drives from the 2020 election. Fortunately, four concerned state clerks chose to disobey the order (which violated election data retention laws) and involve local sheriffs. There is now a legal battle involving Michigan’s attorney general, secretary of state, county clerks and sheriff. Media coverage is minimal, with no mention the legal battle is based on the Michigan secretary of state illegally ordering the deletion of election records. Why would an elected official order deletion of records?
Are Federal agencies behaving poorly? In litigation for 3 years, consider this case involving the U.S. Postal Service. Jesse Morgan testified his truck was loaded with thousands of completed ballots he transported from New York to Pemmsylvania. Freedom of Information data confirms Bill Barr ordered federal investigators to stand down and not investigate this case. A legal action was filed in federal court to obtain the shipping information from USPS. This would include a bill of lading documenting what was on the truck as well as who paid for the shipments. After two years of pursuing this in federal court it was proven the shipments were hundreds of thousands of ballots, not thousands. The court ordered USPS to provide information on who paid for the shipment. In court, officials from USPS said they would not reveal the person/s. To this day, the federal judge has not ordered any arrests for disobeying a court order. In summary, U.S. Attorney General Barr blocked the investigation, USPS executives refused to provide information on the invoice, and a Federal Judge has done nothing in regards to disobeying a court order. The case is still not closed.
There are many more examples. When officials behave in a way where they openly block access to information or investigations, that behavior should set off an alarm that something is wrong. Our media no longer questions officials who block information…so you must question them. Behavior is evidence.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.