SelfRIGHTeously exposing voter fraud in U.S. counties
October 3, 2022 8:21 AM Subscribe
Activists Flood Election Offices With Challenge, New York Times, 9/28/2022 [alternate archive.today link] — Activists driven by false theories about election fraud are working to toss out tens of thousands of voter registrations and ballots in battleground states, part of a loosely coordinated campaign that is sowing distrust and threatening further turmoil as election officials prepare for the November midterms. [This is happening from Maine to Missouri to Montana across the USA: check with your local election office.]
Shameless self-promotion for a couple of related stories I worked on:
Trump allies have interviewed nearly 200 election officials to probe for weaknesses
Election activists are seeking the “cast vote record” from 2020. Here’s what it is and why they want it.
posted by Four String Riot at 8:51 AM on October 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
Trump allies have interviewed nearly 200 election officials to probe for weaknesses
Election activists are seeking the “cast vote record” from 2020. Here’s what it is and why they want it.
posted by Four String Riot at 8:51 AM on October 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
The US seems a consequence-free attack surface for right-wing extremists. I wonder to what extent not throwing the book at the Jan. 6 seditionists has emboldened their fellow travelers.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:19 AM on October 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:19 AM on October 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
FSR - As reported in the Montana story, did you find that people requesting cast vote records simply described themselves as apolitical ‘concerned citizens’, ‘residents’, etc. who just want to ‘know the truth’? I wonder if these folks are tallying Republican voter record errors as well as Democratic and Independent errors.
posted by cenoxo at 9:20 AM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by cenoxo at 9:20 AM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
I wonder if these folks are tallying Republican voter record errors as well as Democratic and Independent errors.
don't be silly... this isn't about fairness or balance or principles... this is a temper tantrum by children who do not know shame or fear of consequences
posted by kokaku at 9:25 AM on October 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
don't be silly... this isn't about fairness or balance or principles... this is a temper tantrum by children who do not know shame or fear of consequences
posted by kokaku at 9:25 AM on October 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
The political establishment relies on both parties operating more-or-less in good faith and still hasn't adjusted the the Republican Party's wholesale abandonment of same, even though it goes back decades.
posted by Gelatin at 9:31 AM on October 3, 2022 [26 favorites]
posted by Gelatin at 9:31 AM on October 3, 2022 [26 favorites]
did you find that people requesting cast vote records simply described themselves as apolitical ‘concerned citizens’, ‘residents’, etc. who just want to ‘know the truth’? I wonder if these folks are tallying Republican voter record errors as well as Democratic and Independent errors.I wasn't the primary reporter on that story, so I didn't have a lot of first-hand encounters with the people making the requests, but the thing about the cast vote records is that it doesn't actually tell you anything about errors in a meaningful way. There's (very intentionally) nothing that can tie an individual line in the CVR to a specific person, unless the ballot was marked in an preset way by the voter in question and you knew to look for those things--the scenario one researcher brought up was that if you were buying votes, you could theoretically check the CVR for people who marked downticket/uncontested races with a pattern that would encode their ID number before paying them.
But of course, if you were doing that, the simpler way to verify a purchased vote would be to have the voter take a photo of their ballot, which is perfectly legal. There's no reason to go spelunking around a big CVR sheet for it. As always, the funniest/saddest thing about these kinds of Q-adjacent conspiracy theories is that they're bound and determined to find drama in the most banal of places. They're like sovereign citizens but for voting.
posted by Four String Riot at 9:38 AM on October 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
Ballot photography isn't totally legal everywhere: Here is map from 2020
posted by soelo at 11:24 AM on October 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by soelo at 11:24 AM on October 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
“Activists” is not an accurate description of these trolls. “Anti democratic/anti voting activists? Republican activists? Election deniers? Trump supporters? This is coming from one side and that needs to be made clear in news stories, including the headlines.
posted by TedW at 12:08 PM on October 3, 2022 [22 favorites]
posted by TedW at 12:08 PM on October 3, 2022 [22 favorites]
Too much of our democracy is built on the concept of "no one in their right mind would...". It was not prepared for an age where no one is in their right mind and there aren't enough "checks and balances" to go around.
posted by tommasz at 1:22 PM on October 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 1:22 PM on October 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
As it happens, just last Thursday I attended a presentation given by the borough clerk and borough attorney of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough (in Alaska, boroughs are an intermediate level of government between cities and the state, much like a county in other states except that not all of the state is incorporated into boroughs). It was the first time they had ever felt the need to give a public pre-election presentation on their election procedures and security measures and I expected it to be relatively mundane.
I had not counted on, nor expected, the dozen or so audience members who had been worked up enough by baseless election fraud conspiracies to come to a mid-day public meeting, all revved up by circulating misinformation, but I could clearly hear the echoes of right wing news networks and social media in their questions.
To their credit, the clerk and the borough attorney had done an excellent job of preparing their presentation and had ready answers to counteract the extravagant theories introduced by some of the attendees. They even managed to reassure some of the most vocally skeptical audience members about the integrity of our local elections. Unfortunately, I fancied I could see some of the audience members simply moving on to the next conspiracy on their list (e.g. "Well okay, maybe our local elections are not being stolen by bus-loads of undocumented immigrants dumping boxes of ballots in the tabulator to change the outcome of the library vote, but they're still fixing things in [insert far-right boogeyman location]..")
The effort to undermine people's confidence in our elections has been depressingly successful and some of the people affected by it will never recover their trust. That in many places they will react to the misinformation they've been fed by replacing honest election officials with obviously corrupt ones is an abominable but entirely predictable outcome of this despicably cynical campaign.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:29 PM on October 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
I had not counted on, nor expected, the dozen or so audience members who had been worked up enough by baseless election fraud conspiracies to come to a mid-day public meeting, all revved up by circulating misinformation, but I could clearly hear the echoes of right wing news networks and social media in their questions.
To their credit, the clerk and the borough attorney had done an excellent job of preparing their presentation and had ready answers to counteract the extravagant theories introduced by some of the attendees. They even managed to reassure some of the most vocally skeptical audience members about the integrity of our local elections. Unfortunately, I fancied I could see some of the audience members simply moving on to the next conspiracy on their list (e.g. "Well okay, maybe our local elections are not being stolen by bus-loads of undocumented immigrants dumping boxes of ballots in the tabulator to change the outcome of the library vote, but they're still fixing things in [insert far-right boogeyman location]..")
The effort to undermine people's confidence in our elections has been depressingly successful and some of the people affected by it will never recover their trust. That in many places they will react to the misinformation they've been fed by replacing honest election officials with obviously corrupt ones is an abominable but entirely predictable outcome of this despicably cynical campaign.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:29 PM on October 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
It's not loosely coordinated. It is in fact quite well funded from the top down. What's mentioned in the post is just one aspect of the fuckery.
posted by wierdo at 2:13 PM on October 3, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 2:13 PM on October 3, 2022 [20 favorites]
It's always the goddamn "M" states that stir up trouble, isn't it?
Except Maryland. Maryland is okay.
posted by Naberius at 3:22 PM on October 3, 2022
Except Maryland. Maryland is okay.
posted by Naberius at 3:22 PM on October 3, 2022
I was watching the Folding Ideas video "In Search of a Flat Earth" the other day, which halfway through shifts without warning into being a video about Qanon after Dan Olson observes that the Flat Earth movement has been dwindling since 2018... and then pulls out the kicker, "because they're all going to Qanon."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
The other day I was thinking about Qanon, what happened to Qanon? Do 10% of the entire US population still subscribe to this conspiracy theory, or has it dwindled away since Trump lost the election, as Ron Watkins actually predicted in the Qanon HBO documentary that pegs him as the last person to write as Q?
But of course, what actually happened is that all the Qanon conspiracy theorists moved on to working on the "Election Fraud" conspiracy. Which just happens to usefully be helping the GOP once again now that they've also moved on from Trump and are focused on "doing something with elections" - as in "this is the first year since the Voting Rights Act expired in 2020 that we can do something with the elections" - but that's just a coincidence, I'm sure.
posted by subdee at 6:13 PM on October 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
The other day I was thinking about Qanon, what happened to Qanon? Do 10% of the entire US population still subscribe to this conspiracy theory, or has it dwindled away since Trump lost the election, as Ron Watkins actually predicted in the Qanon HBO documentary that pegs him as the last person to write as Q?
But of course, what actually happened is that all the Qanon conspiracy theorists moved on to working on the "Election Fraud" conspiracy. Which just happens to usefully be helping the GOP once again now that they've also moved on from Trump and are focused on "doing something with elections" - as in "this is the first year since the Voting Rights Act expired in 2020 that we can do something with the elections" - but that's just a coincidence, I'm sure.
posted by subdee at 6:13 PM on October 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
"For decades, the RNC was barred from so-called “ballot security” measures after it settled an early 1980s case in which it was accused of voter suppression in violation of the Voting Rights Act, including sending armed police officers off duty to polling places in minority areas. In 2018, a federal judge allowed that consent decree to expire.
“The 2020 election would have been the first year that the RNC could have done anything with election integrity,” said Seifried in the tapes.
‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections (Politico).
posted by subdee at 6:22 PM on October 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
“The 2020 election would have been the first year that the RNC could have done anything with election integrity,” said Seifried in the tapes.
‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections (Politico).
posted by subdee at 6:22 PM on October 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
If you open Four String Riot’s Votebeat [*] Arizona article link “Election activists are seeking the “cast vote record” from 2020. Here’s what it is and why they want it.” and scroll down to its “What’s a cast vote record?” section, there’s a good explanation of CVRs (with some animated graphics):
*More about Votebeat at NiemanLab.
posted by cenoxo at 9:44 PM on October 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Scanned ballots are fed into a tabulator machine — essentially, a scanner similar to the ones used for standardized school tests. Depending on the manufacturer, the tabulator may save individual files for each ballot, including an image of the ballot itself and a text record of the votes it recorded. Later, election staff can refer to these files to help audit election results.Call me a skeptic, but I don’t think the Trumpists requesting CVRs give one whit about understanding them. They definitely want to use them to create fear, uncertainty, doubt, delays, and obstructions in the voting process.
Instead of (or in addition to) those files, tabulators may produce a single file that reflects all the ballot markings it has scanned, which is easier to audit than thousands of individual files. This single file is usually referred to as the "cast vote record" (CVR), and can be in several formats, including, frequently, a spreadsheet.
If this seems tedious and routine, that’s because it is. The CVR is essentially a receipt of everything the machine scanned, and it’s mostly used by researchers and political scientists. Cast vote records can help experts audit tabulated votes to ensure accuracy, though they don’t account for votes processed in other ways, such as ballots that have to be adjudicated and manually added to the count.
The exact information included as part of a cast vote record depends on the manufacturer and the model of tabulator. But a typical CVR will have information about the ballot in rows down the left, and the candidates or contests in columns across the top. The votes from each ballot are recorded at the intersection of those rows and columns.
Depending on how large the county or town is, the files can be massive. A layperson, using the files alone, would have little understanding of what they’re looking at or how it could be used….
*More about Votebeat at NiemanLab.
posted by cenoxo at 9:44 PM on October 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
The thing I hate is that this stuff usually turns out to have some level of success. The democratic party is still stuck on idea that people are fundamentally good, but the republican party is not hindered by any limits as long as it helps them win.
posted by joelr at 11:44 PM on October 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by joelr at 11:44 PM on October 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think it's more than the Democratic party benefits if more people vote, and the republican party benefits if less people vote.
Democrats expanded access to voting in a huge way in 2020 bc of COVID and by filing tons of court cases, republicans are trying to roll those gains back and then some.
posted by subdee at 3:19 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
Democrats expanded access to voting in a huge way in 2020 bc of COVID and by filing tons of court cases, republicans are trying to roll those gains back and then some.
posted by subdee at 3:19 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
Boisterous agitators disrupt election machine test, badger secretary of state in Hays County — “Can we go back to focusing on the testing, please?” official pleads as crowd demands answers to conspiracy theories., Natalia Contreras, Votebeat Texas, Sept 23, 2022:
posted by cenoxo at 3:35 AM on October 4, 2022 [15 favorites]
About a dozen activists demanding responses to conspiracy theories about election integrity this week disrupted what is typically an uneventful public testing of voting machines ahead of an election in Hays County.They’re not interested in improving the voting process, they want to invade and disrupt it. There are echoes of January 6th in this.
The activists shouted at the county election administrator and Texas’s secretary of state, who was present for the testing. County officials said they’d never previously encountered such intense hostility at the routine event.
The crowd surrounded members of the election test board — which consisted of political party representatives, county officials and election workers — who were assigned to test the machines, pressing in and looking over their shoulders. Many filed into the election department’s large conference room at county headquarters holding notebooks and pens, ready to take notes.
As soon as the testing began, the activists began to raise familiar questions. “Are the machines all connected?” one asked Jennifer Doinoff, the county’s elections administrator. “How many Bluetooth devices are there?”
No, the machines are not connected, Doinoff responded, nor were there any Bluetooth devices. The questioning continued, sparking side conversations and repeatedly drowning out the voices of those doing the testing. Doinoff, over and over, had to ask the crowd to lower their voices….
posted by cenoxo at 3:35 AM on October 4, 2022 [15 favorites]
They’re not interested in improving the voting process, they want to invade and disrupt it. There are echoes of January 6th in this.
Not to mention the so-called 2000 "Brooks Brothers Riot," in which what turned out to be a bunch of Republican partisans disrupted the voter count in Florida, delaying the count long enough for a partisan Supreme Court to step in and hand the election to George W. Bush.
posted by Gelatin at 4:19 AM on October 4, 2022 [12 favorites]
Not to mention the so-called 2000 "Brooks Brothers Riot," in which what turned out to be a bunch of Republican partisans disrupted the voter count in Florida, delaying the count long enough for a partisan Supreme Court to step in and hand the election to George W. Bush.
posted by Gelatin at 4:19 AM on October 4, 2022 [12 favorites]
“The effort to undermine people's confidence in our elections has been depressingly successful and some of the people affected by it will never recover their trust.”
It's very important that we be aware that undermining trust in the process of democracy is a key part of the rise of fascism. And I think that those of us on the left should be aware of how much we've internalized this messaging ourselves — preceding both the recent presidential elections there've been many conspiracy theories on the left about ballot machine tampering and other election fraud.
Fascism is rising here and elsewhere because we've been infected by a disease that promotes an intense cynicism and a profound sense of powerlessness — we antifascists may be feeling these things because of the rise of fascism, but we should be cognizant that messaging that our democracy is broken and unrepairable just empowers fascism all the more.
Anyway, I'm less concerned with that (the left repeating and amplifying cynicism about democracy) than I am that it's imperative that we understand that the rise of fascism is fundamentally about vibes and that this coordinated sowing of distrust about voting is extremely important and relevant to the fascist project. On the one hand there's the message that democracy is broken in practice and probably flawed in theory, while on the other hand are the autocratic violations of political and even legal norms by people like Trump and DeSantis. These things are parts of a whole.
This is probably not the right place for me to make this argument, but I feel that especially in the last six months or so the shape of 21st century American Fascism has become very, very clear to me and it's far past time that it's seen for what it is (not mere Trumpism), distinctly named, and fought with singular and determined purpose on an organized national level.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:13 AM on October 4, 2022 [8 favorites]
It's very important that we be aware that undermining trust in the process of democracy is a key part of the rise of fascism. And I think that those of us on the left should be aware of how much we've internalized this messaging ourselves — preceding both the recent presidential elections there've been many conspiracy theories on the left about ballot machine tampering and other election fraud.
Fascism is rising here and elsewhere because we've been infected by a disease that promotes an intense cynicism and a profound sense of powerlessness — we antifascists may be feeling these things because of the rise of fascism, but we should be cognizant that messaging that our democracy is broken and unrepairable just empowers fascism all the more.
Anyway, I'm less concerned with that (the left repeating and amplifying cynicism about democracy) than I am that it's imperative that we understand that the rise of fascism is fundamentally about vibes and that this coordinated sowing of distrust about voting is extremely important and relevant to the fascist project. On the one hand there's the message that democracy is broken in practice and probably flawed in theory, while on the other hand are the autocratic violations of political and even legal norms by people like Trump and DeSantis. These things are parts of a whole.
This is probably not the right place for me to make this argument, but I feel that especially in the last six months or so the shape of 21st century American Fascism has become very, very clear to me and it's far past time that it's seen for what it is (not mere Trumpism), distinctly named, and fought with singular and determined purpose on an organized national level.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:13 AM on October 4, 2022 [8 favorites]
The problem gets really thorny when the Fascists are successfully messing with free and fair elections as they are now.
On the one hand there's danger in amplifying the right's mythology of democracy as a fake or sham. On the other hand there's danger in NOT sounding the alarm when they ramp up their efforts to suppress the vote and break the mechanisms of democracy.
The US has never really had a fair election, the right has always succeed to one extent or another in suppressing the vote and otherwise cheating. But those efforts wax and wane and they're in a strong waxing phase right now and we need to talk about that.
How to thread that needle I don't know
posted by sotonohito at 8:44 AM on October 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
On the one hand there's danger in amplifying the right's mythology of democracy as a fake or sham. On the other hand there's danger in NOT sounding the alarm when they ramp up their efforts to suppress the vote and break the mechanisms of democracy.
The US has never really had a fair election, the right has always succeed to one extent or another in suppressing the vote and otherwise cheating. But those efforts wax and wane and they're in a strong waxing phase right now and we need to talk about that.
How to thread that needle I don't know
posted by sotonohito at 8:44 AM on October 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
I wonder if these folks are tallying Republican voter record errors as well as Democratic and Independent errors.
We all know the answer to this.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:02 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
We all know the answer to this.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:02 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
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