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This right here is why Republicans are pushing for election integrity measures.
According to Post Millennial, a recent election review training conducted in Seattle, Washington found some…shall we say interesting…factoids about what exactly constitutes a legal ballot in that state.
After discovering the rather lax qualifications for a valid ballot, one must question the integrity of elections in Washington State.
According to PM, during the training where participants were reviewing ballots which were improperly completed, an official with King County elections actually said that if someone were to mail in a candidate’s name written on a napkin, including the position they were running for, that ballot would be counted as an official ballot and the vote counted.
Seriously.
The ballot in question was for a voter who was attempting to vote for Seattle Democratic mayoral candidate Lorena Gonzalez in this month’s elections.
The “ballot in question involved an envelope with a missing ballot. Enclosed in the envelope was a newspaper clipping of Gonzalez. At the bottom of the clipping was a pen mark which looked like a check mark, along with the letter “L” apparently for “Lorena,” therefore it was apparently an acceptable ballot.
Another trainee in the room asked the election official about the napkin vote:
“So, even if someone took a napkin and wrote the office, the race, and their selection, that would be enough?”
“That would be enough and we would count that as a vote,” the official replied.
WOW! During a review board, officials in Seattle admit that if someone were to write a candidates name on a napkin their vote would be counted.pic.twitter.com/EXHjuxtmGJ
— Katie Daviscourt🇺🇸 (@KatieDaviscourt) November 13, 2021
Gee, wonder why Washington State will never elect a Republican? Well, at least a real one.
This is what passes for a real ballot? You wonder why some states are trying to pass election integrity laws which take our voting privilege seriously, it’s no doubt to offset clown shows like this.
Former Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman (R) said that Washington is a “voter intent” state by law. In other words, voters are “not disenfranchised” if they mark a ballot differently than directed. Whenever a voter’s intent can be discerned, she said, the vote will be counted.
If you want a foray into the madness of this kind of system, read through the regulation…it’s mind boggling.
Of course Joe Biden just appointed Wyman to work in the White House and head up the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to “protect future elections from foreign and domestic interference.”
If it’s anything like Washington State’s “election integrity” efforts, we’re doomed. Wyman of course was picked by Biden because she’s a never-Trumper. She downplayed the former president’s claims of fraud in last year’s presidential election and called the audit in Arizona’s Maricopa County “political theater.” No wonder Biden chose her.
After the US Capitol siege on Jan. 6, Wyman rued her choice to stay as a Republican:
“I think every Republican elected official right now in the country is really having to do some soul searching about why they’re Republican, and what it means to them, and why they are a part of the party. I know that I’ve been doing that.”
Where it concerns voter fraud, she initially said, “If that’s what my party stands for now, I don’t know that I can continue being a Republican, because that’s not what republicanism is about.”
She later tried to walk back those comments, PM said.
CNN says that Wyman will serve as a federal liaison to state and local officials and would offer “…resources and support to protect election infrastructure from hacking and voters from disinformation campaigns.”
In case you missed what a “real” voter integrity program would look like, we invite you to read our prior report on what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing:
DIG DEEPER
WEST PALM BEACH, FL- DeSantis strikes again. America’s favorite governor (at least among Conservatives and patriots) just threw an outside slider to liberals and Democrats and as usual, they swung and missed.
On Wednesday, DeSantis announced he was going to create a new police unit in Florida which would be tasked with enhancing election integrity in Florida. Cue the liberals:
“Under the governor’s proposal, Florida would create an “Office of Election Crimes and Security” that would have 25 sworn law-enforcement agents as well as other investigators to probe voter fraud and other election law violations.”
Not good.https://t.co/IK5sWsZS8Q
— Ash (@AscheHousewares) November 3, 2021
The new unit’s only role will be to target election fraud on a full-time basis. The new “Office of Election Crimes and Security” would detail 25 full-time sworn law enforcement officers and other investigators to investigate voter fraud and other election law violations, RedState reports.
DeSantis announced the new unit at a news conference in West Palm beach and it comes just a few months after the governor signed new election integrity laws which tightened security for mail-in ballots and came at the same time a number of states are seeking statewide audits of 2020 election results.
The governor guaranteed that efforts to curb election fraud would be ongoing:
“I guarantee you this: The first person that gets caught, no one is going to want to do it again after that.”
DeSantis said he would ask the Florida legislature, controlled by Republicans to add additional restrictions on the use of ballot drop boxes, which indicated the popular Florida governor no longer supports the use of drop boxes due to security concerns.
“I don’t even think we should have drop boxes,” DeSantis said.
One area where DeSantis indicated where the new unit would work was as follows:
“If someone’s ballot harvesting, you report it to these people and this is their sole job. Some of these counties, some of them will do the cases but that’s not their expertise. They got all these other crimes that they have to deal with. So by the time it happens, the election’s already over.”
For those unfamiliar, “ballot harvesting” is “the practice of allowing political operatives and others to collect voters’ ballots and turn them in en masse to polling stations,” and has drawn criticism and concerns from voter integrity watchdog groups, fearing it breeds voter fraud, Fox News said.
Democrats of course lost their mind over the new unit, led by Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani:
“More attacks on voting coming to Florida. Just like in 2020 we had elections last night in our state w/no issues. Why does our Governor keep creating partisan chaos? Why can’t we just focus on problems like housing, hunger, taxes, our environment & public transportation.”
More attacks on voting coming to Florida. Just like in 2020 we had elections last night in our state w/no issues.
Why does our Governor keep creating partisan chaos. Why can’t we just focus on problems like housing, hunger, taxes, our environment & public transportation? https://t.co/BkeaMHeuw0
— Rep. Anna V. Eskamani 🔨 (@AnnaForFlorida) November 3, 2021
Eskamani’s statement bears the question…what do Democrats have to hide? Why is she calling it “partisan chaos” as if Democrats are the only ones who are committing election fraud?
Under the new unit, DeSantis said, “If someone’s ballot harvesting, you report it to these people, and this is their sole job,” Gateway Pundit reported. He is seeking to classify the new “ballot harvesting law” as a third-degree felony.
The governor then addressed the current economic malaise affecting the country.
“A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. A recover is when Dr. Fauci loses his. He’s been wrong time and again. His policies have been damaging to tens of millions of people.
And we know what the NIH has been doing, is cruelty to animals, with what they’re doing to these beagles and these puppies. I’m sorry our tax dollars should not be going to that, and I think the whole lot of them need to be cleaned out and we need to figure out what’s going on.”
DeSantis also addressed the breast cancer diagnosis of his wife, and thanked everyone for the prayers and support lifted up to her.
The best part?
People chanting “Let’s Go Brandon” at Gov. DeSantis Election Integrity press conference.
Massive triggering of liberals underway 😂😂😂pic.twitter.com/qGtes86Cda
— Trump4America (@trump4_america) November 3, 2021
For more on election integrity, we invite you to read a piece we did from last year on that topic.
DIG DEEPER
PHILADELPHIA, PA- Philadelphia seems to be ground zero for possible election fraud, and according to Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center details some questionable incidents over the past month or two in the city, along with a long history of fraud.
In October, according to an article in the Patriot News, a company that supplies voting machines to Philadelphia was broken into, with an employee’s laptop and data-filled USB drives stolen, as reported in 6ABC in Philly.
At the time, election officials claimed that the laptop did not contain any election materials on it, nor was it capable of programming election machines. They also said that the stolen USB drives were encrypted and allegedly contained multiple levels of security to protect the data, officials said.
However, according to WHYY, one of their reporters was able to enter the warehouse unabated and roam around the warehouse for several minutes before being asked to leave. The reporter said he was able to walk past hundreds of voting machines, various boxes and other unidentified equipment without running into anyone. The reporter noted that he did not see any security cameras in the facility.
That wasn’t the only issue apparently. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, they confirmed the lack of security cameras in the warehouse although employees had previously asked that they be installed.
In addition, an inspection of the voting machines which was implemented after the theft showed that more than 20 cases where the serial numbers on the seals did not match up with records kept by election officials. They dismissed the discrepancy on a logging error, and claimed it is not evidence of tampering.
After the security lapses became public, a spokesperson for Mayor Jim Kenny claimed that police had established an around-the-clock presence, and that strict log-in procedures had been implemented for anyone entering or exiting the building.
That was the least of the problems, however. The machines have apparently been incorrectly recording votes. A previous election in Northampton County showed that voters who voted Republican apparently suffered “a weird technical glitch” which resulted in votes being cast for Republicans went to an “instructional text box.”
According to the manufacturer, it was a result of “human error” while claiming that it only affected around 30% of the machines.
According to Greenfield, Northampton County is said to be a “bellwether” county, and allegedly flipped over to Biden, while reporting that margins in some key precincts were limited to between “a handful to hundreds of votes.”
Reuters, however reported that there were problems with 366 of the same model of voting machines in Philadelphia. Last year, the city replaced its obsolete voting machine equipment with 3,750 ExpressVote XL machines.
Last November, some 320 machines in Northampton County were said to have been “configured improperly at our factory prior to delivery to Northampton County,” the outlet said.
The manufacturer stated that voting machines will only accept “certified and approved USB flash drives containing encrypted data,” which were the ones apparently stolen prior to election day.
At the same time the laptop and USB drives went missing, there were issues in other parts of Philadelphia. In Allentown, an elections judge was charged with “insertion and alteration of entries in documents and prying into ballots.”
The morning call reported that the Reverend Everett E. Bickford, who apparently now identifies as “Eriika” who wears flowers in his/her hair along with heavy makeup was arrested, however still allowed to act in the capacity of an election judge.
According to current numbers, Biden allegedly beat President Trump in Bickford’s 3rd Ward 522 to 173.
Pennsylvania apparently has a long and not-so distinguished history of voter fraud.
Greenfield said in 1986, for example a Philadelphia councilman named Lee Beloff, who was the son of a judge, was apparently charged along with his legislative aid and reputed mob boss “Little Nicky” Scarfo for extortion of $1 million along with an apartment for his mistress.
In addition, Beloff was also indicted along with his wife and two Democratic committee members for “conspiracy, voting more than once and giving false information on voter registrations to elderly people living in a nursing home.”
Greenfield said that Beloff received a pardon from the Pennsylvania governor for interfering with a poll watcher so he could run for public office.
Beloff had been sentenced to ten years and served six of that. When he got out of jail, he became a Democrat ward chairman.
Try to follow along here. A photo taken of Beloff last year showed him with a man named Ozzier Myers. Myers is yet another “superstar” fraudster and former Democrat congressman. He had been convicted of bribery and conspiracy, and was sentenced to three years in prison for the Abscam scandal.
He was once again indicted this year, this time for “conspiring to violate voting rights by fraudulently stuffing the ballot boxes for specific candidates in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections, bribery of an election official, falsification of records and voting more than once in federal elections.”
Want more? How about Domenick J. Demuro, an election judge in the 39th Ward, who pled guilty to having “accepted bribes in the form of money and other things of value in exchange for adding ballots to increase the vote totals for certain candidates on the voting machines in his jurisdiction and for certifying tallies of all the ballots, including the fraudulent ballots.”
A Pennsylvania judge, Anthony Scirica said of voter fraud in Philadelphia that “…the practice of voting dead or non-resident citizens is no stranger to Pennsylvania, especially to the City of Philadelphia.”
In the 1990’s, William Stinson, assistant Deputy Mayor to Mayor Ed Rendell was running for state senate, with Democratic control of the Senate at stake. A poll showed that he was 4% behind his Republican opponent and it was alleged that he ordered campaign workers to get black and Latino voters to sign absentee ballots.
Campaign workers were allegedly given a dollar for every ballot for which they “helped” voters fill in.
In a subsequent election fraud case, evidence was heard that campaign workers had filled in the names of dead people and prison inmates.
The following will sound familiar: when the votes were counted, Stinson had garnered 80% of absentee ballots. His Republican opponent and others thought something didn’t sound right, and when The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed voters, they found 220 irregularities along with another 24 incidents where documents were forged.
In this case, mostly minority voters were targeted, told to check boxes, vote for family members and misled into voting for the wrong candidate. It was found that in one ward, only 15% of absentee ballots had been legal.
“There were probably mistakes made by workers not understanding the rules of absentee ballots,” said Rick Bloomingdale, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and future leader of the AFL-CIO said. “It was all intended to increase voter participation.”
And cheat.
Stinson was eventually removed and replaced with his Republican opponent by a federal judge, since he had been winning prior to the absentee ballots arriving, while accusing the Democrat candidate and the Philadelphia County Board of Elections of a “massive scheme.”
A subsequent state investigation led to charges against Stinson and two Democrat campaign workers. While Stinson admitted to unlocking voting machines and opening absentee ballots, he claimed he never actually looked at them. He was acquitted in just a few minutes.
Philadelphia appears to be ground zero for political shenanigans. Here is more.
A photo in the Public Record features Beloff and Myers entitled “The Good Things We Must Do Must Be Made a Part of the Public Record.” There is also another man in the picture…Bob Brady. Brady is the Chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party.
Greenfield noted that Brady is famous for two things—winning every election with over 80% of the vote, and apparently stealing the Pope’s cup. He joked about the latter, “Like I’m not gonna take that cup?”
Brady spent 20 years as a House Democrat, where he served as ranking member of the Committee on House Administration and on the Subcommittee on Elections, being forced to step down after an FBI investigation into a payment of $90,000 by his campaign in order to get his opponent to drop out, while trying to bury it as payment for a poll.
While two of his aides were sent to jail, Brady and his opponent were spared such a punishment. After he got out of prison, one of the aides, Ken Smukler went back to work with Brady and other Democratic leaders fighting to get Biden the win in Pennsulvania. The Biden campaign allegedly doesn’t know him.
Ah Pennsylvania.
Editor note: In 2020, we saw a nationwide push to “defund the police”. While we all stood here shaking our heads wondering if these people were serious… they cut billions of dollars in funding for police officers. And as a result, crime has skyrocketed – all while the same politicians who said “you don’t need guns, the government will protect you” continued their attacks on both our police officers and our Second Amendment rights.
And that’s exactly why we’re launching this national crowdfunding campaign as part of our efforts to help “re-fund the police”.
For those looking for a quick link to get in the fight and support the cause, click here.
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