Trump allies in 5 states breach U.S. voting systems in search of 2020 fraud ‘evidence’

[essentialsaltes]

Chasing proof of vote-rigging conspiracy theories, Republican officials and activists in eight U.S. locales have plotted to gain illegal access to balloting systems, undermining the security of elections they claim to protect.

Previously unreported surveillance video captured one such effort in August in the rural Colorado town of Kiowa. Footage obtained by Reuters through a public-records request shows Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder, the county’s top election official, fiddling with cables and typing on his phone as he copied computer drives containing sensitive voting information.

Schroeder, a Republican, later testified that he was receiving instructions on how to copy the system’s data from a retired Air Force colonel and political activist bent on proving Trump lost because of fraud.

Schroeder is now under investigation for possible violation of election laws by the Colorado secretary of state, which has also sued him seeking the return of the data. Schroeder is defying that state demand and has refused to identify one of the lawyers who took possession of the hard drives. The other is a private attorney who works with an activist backed by Mike Lindell, the pillow mogul and election conspiracy theorist.

The episode is among eight known attempts to gain unauthorized access to voting systems in five U.S. states since the 2020 election. All involved local Republican officeholders or party activists who have advanced Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods or conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines, according to a Reuters examination of the incidents.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Georgia county under scrutiny after claim of post-election breach
Effort by county official to investigate 2020 contest underscores growing threat to election security, experts say

Trump had carried the conservative county by 40 points, but elections supervisor Misty Hampton said she remained suspicious of Joe Biden’s win in Georgia. Hampton made a video that went viral soon after the election, claiming to show that Dominion Voting System machines, the ones used in her county, could be manipulated. She said in interviews that she hoped the Georgia businessman who visited later, Scott Hall, and others who accompanied him could help identify vulnerabilities and prove “that this election was not done true and correct.”

Hampton said she could not remember when the visit occurred or what Hall and the others did when they were there. She said they did not enter a room that housed the county’s touch-screen voting machines, but she said she did not know whether they entered the room housing the election management system server, the central computer used to tally election results.

“I’m not a babysitter,” she told The Post.



“Insider threat, while always part of the threat matrix, is now a reality in elections,” said Matt Masterson, who previously served as a senior U.S. cybersecurity official tracking 2020 election integrity for the Department of Homeland Security.

...

The state board referred the findings [of these and other shenanigans] to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) for potential civil penalties. A spokeswoman for Carr told The Post this week that the review remains “active and ongoing.”

 

[Tom 1]

Chasing proof of vote-rigging conspiracy theories, Republican officials and activists in eight U.S. locales have plotted to gain illegal access to balloting systems, undermining the security of elections they claim to protect.

Previously unreported surveillance video captured one such effort in August in the rural Colorado town of Kiowa. Footage obtained by Reuters through a public-records request shows Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder, the county’s top election official, fiddling with cables and typing on his phone as he copied computer drives containing sensitive voting information.

Schroeder, a Republican, later testified that he was receiving instructions on how to copy the system’s data from a retired Air Force colonel and political activist bent on proving Trump lost because of fraud.

Schroeder is now under investigation for possible violation of election laws by the Colorado secretary of state, which has also sued him seeking the return of the data. Schroeder is defying that state demand and has refused to identify one of the lawyers who took possession of the hard drives. The other is a private attorney who works with an activist backed by Mike Lindell, the pillow mogul and election conspiracy theorist.

The episode is among eight known attempts to gain unauthorized access to voting systems in five U.S. states since the 2020 election. All involved local Republican officeholders or party activists who have advanced Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods or conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines, according to a Reuters examination of the incidents.

Fake it until you make it.

 

[Desk trauma]

Fake it until you make it.

...or have the power to take it.

 

[inquiring mind]

Chasing proof of vote-rigging conspiracy theories, Republican officials and activists in eight U.S. locales have plotted to gain illegal access to balloting systems, undermining the security of elections they claim to protect.

Previously unreported surveillance video captured one such effort in August in the rural Colorado town of Kiowa. Footage obtained by Reuters through a public-records request shows Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder, the county’s top election official, fiddling with cables and typing on his phone as he copied computer drives containing sensitive voting information.

Schroeder, a Republican, later testified that he was receiving instructions on how to copy the system’s data from a retired Air Force colonel and political activist bent on proving Trump lost because of fraud.

Schroeder is now under investigation for possible violation of election laws by the Colorado secretary of state, which has also sued him seeking the return of the data. Schroeder is defying that state demand and has refused to identify one of the lawyers who took possession of the hard drives. The other is a private attorney who works with an activist backed by Mike Lindell, the pillow mogul and election conspiracy theorist.

The episode is among eight known attempts to gain unauthorized access to voting systems in five U.S. states since the 2020 election. All involved local Republican officeholders or party activists who have advanced Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods or conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines, according to a Reuters examination of the incidents.

Doubt will never end with either party, especially now, until there are tighter voting requirements, close supervision by both parties in all cases, and probably standard voting timeframes in every state. The longer it's drawn out, the more flexible it is, the easier it could be abused.

 

[TLK Valentine]

Based on the number who got caught, what's the over-under for the total number of GOP attempts to illegally interfere with the electoral process?

 

[inquiring mind]

I suppose it's better to be accused of 'searching for voter fraud evidence' than accused of 'voter fraud.'

 

[essentialsaltes]

I suppose it's better to be accused of 'searching for voter fraud evidence' than accused of 'voter fraud.'

Not when the search is illegal and may have compromised voter data and future elections.

 

[inquiring mind]

Not when the search is illegal and may have compromised voter data and future elections.

Rereading the article, I see there was one conviction, so apparently something stuck. Seems like a very biased report though.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Seems like a very biased report though.

Reuters. Biased. Hilarious.

 

[Tom 1]

Rereading the article, I see there was one conviction, so apparently something stuck. Seems like a very biased report though.

What is about it you think is biased, specifically?

 

[inquiring mind]

Reuters. Biased. Hilarious.

Yeah, certainly no loaded words or phrases there.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Tina Peters (the first of these to be uncovered) points the finger at Lauren Boebert.

Mesa County, Colorado, election Clerk Tina Peters, who was indicted on 10 criminal counts, has revealed to The New York Times that Representative Lauren Boebert (R) “encouraged” her to commit the alleged crimes she is being accused of committing.

Boebert has denied any involvement in the crimes, calling Peter’s [sic] claims “false.”

--

Tina Peters is also up for election to be Secretary of State in Colorado. Primary is tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, who has become Colorado’s most prominent election denier and faces a series of legal battles after years of efforts to undermine the state’s mail-in voting system, is seeking the Republican nomination in Tuesday’s primary to become secretary of state.

But in the county on Colorado’s Western Slope where she is barred by a district judge from performing her election-oversight duties, many voters – including some unaffiliated voters who typically back Democrats but had voted in this year’s Republican primary because of Peters’ presence on the ballot – said they want to stop her.

“Yes, there was voter fraud. She caused it,” said Daria Kent, a 24-year-old teacher and unaffiliated voter in Grand Junction.

 

[essentialsaltes]

In related news...

‘Constitutional sheriffs’ want to be able to seize Dominion voting machines for ‘investigation'

...That’s especially the case with Michigan “constitutional sheriff” Dar Leaf, who was exposed recentlyspearheading a broader effort to enlist other sheriffs in seizing voting machines from local election officials to ostensibly prove Donald Trump’s Big Lie about fraud in the 2020 vote.

The report from Matt Shuham at Talking Points Memo [paywalled] details how Leaf, the chief lawman in Barry County and one of the more prominent “constitutional sheriffs” in Michigan, had undertaken to seize at least one ballot tabulator in 2021. According to the county clerk, the machine was then disassembled in Detroit and then reassembled with its seal broken.

More worryingly, the organization behind the far-right law-enforcement movement, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), wants to encourage other sheriffs around the country to do likewise.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Thankfully, Tina Peters lost her primary battle. Colorado GOP also selected a pro-choice senate candidate.

Joe O’Dea won the GOP Senate nomination after saying he supported a late-term abortion ban but, before then, the decision should be left up to “a woman and her God.”

At the same time, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who has been indicted for her role in a break-in of her county’s own election system, lost her bid for the party’s secretary of state nomination. It was won instead by Pam Anderson, a former suburban Denver clerk who has been critical of former President Trump’s election lies, which Peters has embraced.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Thankfully, Tina Peters lost her primary battle.

Or did she? Dunh dunh daaah.

Indicted Election Denier Tina Peters Loses Her Own Election—and Denies She Lost
“It’s not over,” Tina Peters said, as she was down by 15 percentage points.

“Biggest fraud!!! We caught them!!!” Lindell, the MyPillow mogul, frantically texted The Daily Beast late on Tuesday night, referring to the Peters race. “We caught them in their fraud!!! Prison for Dominion!”

 

[essentialsaltes]

3rd arrest made in alleged Colorado election security breach

DENVER (AP) — The former elections manager for a Colorado clerk indicted on charges of tampering with voting equipment has been arrested on allegations that she was part of the scheme, an official said Wednesday.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Thankfully, Tina Peters lost her primary battle. Colorado GOP also selected a pro-choice senate candidate.

And now she's headed to jail for violating her bond conditions.

 

[Pommer]

And now she's headed to jail for violating her bond conditions.

Pro tip: don’t file court papers notarized in another State if you aren’t to leave your own state.

 

[rturner76]

Based on the number who got caught, what's the over-under for the total number of GOP attempts to illegally interfere with the electoral process?

Yeah, it seems like when the actual evidence comes out, it's the GOP making shady maneuvers on the voting machines/ballot boxes or whatever. Instead of proving the Democrats rigged the election, they are proving their own tampering. I wonder what they will try to pull off in the next election.