Op-Ed: Widespread Election Fraud is Real Which is Why We Must Support Our Idaho County Clerks
By Joseph Gish • September 26, 2022My fellow Idahoans, I have heard reports that county clerks in Idaho are being harassed and even getting death threats. If you follow my Op-Eds, you know that I have spent more than a year researching election fraud and working to make the Idaho voter rolls as accurate as possible. I can honestly report that compared to other states, our Idaho voter rolls are in relatively good shape, and Idaho doesn’t have the degree of widespread election fraud happening in other states. Idaho’s county clerks deserve much of the credit for this, and we must support them in order to make Idaho’s election system even better.
This Op-Ed will summarize two ways widespread election fraud is being conducted in other states, how our county clerks are the first line of defense against election fraud and what controls they can put in place to prevent what is happening in other states from happening in Idaho. I will conclude the Op-Ed with advice for county clerks and concerned citizens about how we can work together to protect and improve our state’s election system.
On the surface, elections appear to be simple and easy with citizens showing up at the polls, filling in ballots and the county clerks counting those ballots. However, behind the scenes elections are much more complicated and our county clerks have an extremely challenging job following the processes that make elections compliant with Idaho election statute. They must register voters, maintain accurate voter rolls, design ballots that are neutral and fair, send out absentee ballots, standup early voting polling stations, manage poll books, standup election day polling stations, enforce “chain of custody” for transporting ballots, count the ballots, adjudicate ballots that can’t be read by the ballot tally machines, etc. The county clerks have their hands full just administering the complexities of this system and its understandable that they believe if they follow the process, they will administer a clean election. Unfortunately, many of these complexities enable election fraud at levels below what is readily visible to the county clerks. However, if county clerks know how election fraud is happening, they can put controls in place to prevent it and can detect if it is happening in Idaho.
Widespread election fraud is happing in two main ways; ballot box stuffing and nefarious software installed on ballot tally machines that creates a predetermined electronic election outcome. Ballot box stuffing is as old as the United States and happens in multiple ways including ballot harvesting, invalid mail-in ballots, invalid drop box ballots, counterfeit ballots, etc. Although there are some election officials around the country facilitating this fraud, I believe this is not widespread in Idaho. The best way to combat ballot stuffing is to maintain accurate voter rolls and track every printed ballot. Ballot tally machine software manipulating votes to create a predetermined electronic election outcome has been proven during the forensic audit of Maricopa County’s paper ballots in Arizona, and in Mesa County, Colorado where an image of the ballot tally machine’s hard drive was created and analyzed. In Mesa County, the ballot tally machines had unapproved software, cellular modems and Wi-Fi chips which connected them to the internet and created copies of vote databases (i.e. two sets of books) to manipulate votes.
To learn more about the forensic audit of Maricopa County paper ballots, watch this summary:
To learn about machine manipulation of votes in Mesa County, Colorado, read the reports at this link:
https://www.tinapetersforcolorado.com/election-reports
The analysis of the ballot tally machine in Mesa County led to the development of a method to statistically analyze the tally machine’s Cast Vote Record (CVR) that detects vote manipulation without having to analyze the machine’s hard drive directly. This has led concerned citizens across the country to request election CVRs from County Clerks. County Clerks in Idaho are getting hundreds of Public Record Requests (PRRs) from Idahoans and from citizen across the country. Early analysis of the CVRs that have been received show that vote manipulation by the software on ballot tally machines is widespread across the United States.
Idaho County Clerks and concerned citizens must strive to understand each other’s concerns and learn to work together to make Idaho’s elections as clean as humanly possible. What may seem like a lack of transparency on the part of a county clerk is most likely the clerk being inundated with PPRs to which they are unable respond. Unreasonable request for records are most likely concerned citizens not understanding how to ask for the data they want. The results are two groups that want the same thing being suspicious of each other and not advancing toward their common goal of election integrity. Idaho County Clerks and citizens must find a way to work together or the election fraudsters will eventually win.
County clerks can do much to improve transparency and implement controls to verify ballot tally machine results. By doing so they will dramatically reduce the number of PRRs they are receiving. I am a computer scientist and software engineer, and I believe that software driven ballot tally machines can never be made in a way that prohibits election manipulation. Everyone must understand that the vote tally machines used in the United States are made by private companies and have closed software source code that our government is not allowed to review. We have no idea what is happening inside these black box voting machines. If I were a county clerk, I would never sign my name to certify the results of an election where ballots were counted solely by machine because I have no way of knowing how the “black box” software counted the votes. Any machine counted ballots must be verified with a hand count to ensure the software is not manipulating votes.
We will not be getting rid of the ballot tally machines before the next election, but there are two very simple things Idaho County Clerks can do to secure our election results. First, audit the machine count by randomly selecting 4 or 5 precincts to hand count. This hand count should be performed immediately after machine counting the ballots. Precincts should be selected at random after the machine count by rolling dice or using some other random selection process. Volunteer electors should be used for the hand count and their results should be compared with the machine count. If there is a major difference in those counts, the cause of the discrepancy must be investigated. Second, if your machine can produce a Cast Vote Record, turn on that configuration option and place the CVR file on your website immediately after the election. I believe if a county clerk commits to doing these two things, most of the PRRs directed at the their office will stop.
There are many ways concerned citizens can support their county clerks. First, get to know them. The county clerks work for you and should want to know your concerns. Make an appointment with them to discuss your concerns and offer to help them. Empathize with the difficult job they have. Second, understand what you are asking for prior to submitting a PRR, don’t hesitate to ask the clerk’s office if the information you want even exists. Third, show your county clerk this Op-Ed and ask them if they are open to doing some random hand counting of precincts as a way to audit the machine count. Offer to help recruit volunteers for this hand counting.
I believe most Idaho County Clerks are so focused on following election processes that they are unaware of the evidence out there proving the existence of wide spread election fraud. I also believe once they know how the fraud is happening, they will work to put controls in place to secure our elections. The county clerks’ authority over elections in their counties and small precinct sizes decentralize ballot tallying and make it difficult to statistically hide election fraud. There is a major push in this country to move away from county clerks running our elections and go to centralized voting centers where election fraud’s statistical anomalies can be easily hidden. The best way for we citizens to make sure centralized elections do not happen in Idaho is to support our county clerks and maintain their distributed authority over our elections. Our county clerks are the good guys and we citizens should support them any way we can.
Joseph Gish
This Op-Ed was submitted by Joseph Gish. Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.
Tags: 2022 Election, Arizona, Ballot, Ballot Harvesting, Colorado, County Clerk, Election Fraud, Elections, Joseph Gish, Maricopa County, Mesa County, Voter Rolls
10 thoughts on “Op-Ed: Widespread Election Fraud is Real Which is Why We Must Support Our Idaho County Clerks”
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THANKS for the explanation on how those vote counting machines can be manipulated. Scary.
Good counter measures for those who live in an area large enough to have those machines. We do not.
Simplify the system by eliminating the machines and drop boxes. Elections should be one day, one vote with ID and on paper.
I agree with you Steve. Any other way I consider fraud – cheating.
Thank you for supporting the County Clerks in Idaho. I appreciate that you understand how much work it is to administer an election. I help at an elections office and am a poll worker so I actually do a lot of the behind-the-scenes work to make our elections safe and secure. It takes MONTHS to get things done for each election and the safety steps WE take, would boggle the mind. Regarding records, YES!, the public needs to understand WHAT they are asking for instead of demanding a record that they were told about at a “election integrity” seminar. That record may not exist or may already be accessible. Seminars are NOT necessarily bastions of accurate information. I witnessed a self-proclaimed “expert” on election integrity manipulate an audience to believe there was local voter fraud WITHOUT ONE SHRED of evidence. He actually told the audience that the representative of the company that makes our tabulating machines (who graciously came to Idaho to explain how the machines work) would LIE to them – WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE to back up his claim – and that company doesn’t even have machines in the state the “expert” resides. He had no idea what he was speaking about but that didn’t keep him from making FALSE claims. The livelihood and reputation of this company depends on their machines being accurate and so far with recount and audits in my county they have been spot on. Unless you can show a money trail and motive to flip a local election (which has been the accusation here) WHY would they risk their business and jail to change a mayoral race or a state rep race or a school board race, etc.? And don’t say follow the money because there has been NO EVIDENCE of that at all. As to hand counting – a random precinct hand count by VOLUNTEERS might be acceptable IF we could actually get people to volunteer. The state-directed random precinct audit done by the SOS after May showed our machines SPOT ON. However, a COMPLETE state-wide hand-count (as some are demanding) would be expensive and time-consuming AND would also be a risk for fraud as PEOPLE can manipulate ballots just as well if not better and it is a proven fact that hand counts have more errors than machine tabulators. I have noticed that those making accusations and demanding had counts are NOT the people volunteering their services to work the polls or help with hand counts. They would rather scream “fraud” and complain rather than seek the truth., IT does NO GOOD to accuse your elections office employees of creating fraudulent results just because you don’t like the results of the vote. Exposing the national fraud (and I believe there was fraud in some areas – mostly large Democrat-run cities. No one legitimately delivers ballots in the middle of the night and considers that proper chain-of-custody) and suddenly believing fraud is happening EVERYWHERE makes We-The-People look like fools. Become informed, volunteer your services at the polls, learn what records are public and what have to be requested, find out what remedies candidates have if they believe a vote was questionable and ASK the candidate IF they have taken those remedies…there are MANY things a concerned voter can do BEFORE they accuse anyone of “fraud”.
I have never outright or even intimated that our election clerks are committing fraud. I have raised inquiries about the process and details. I respect all election officials for what they do.
That said, I bristle when the notion of election fraud is summarily dismissed as a “crazy conspiracy theory.” That is like a radar operator on Diamond Head dismissing a massive radar contact for being a flock of birds, when it was actually the Japanese main strike wings approaching.
I make it a point to be first voter at my precinct in order to inspect the system personally. I sometimes get a sarcastic remark from poll workers about making sure that “no funny business” will occur. It’s NOT a laughing matter. So, you might want to pass it along that when a voter sounds concerned at the polls about fraud, DON’T joke about it. Address the concern with the same respect that you are asking for your poll worker colleagues. You ask for collaboration, we are willing to give it, if you ask properly. It’s a two way street.
Good article, thanks.
Good supporting article for our county clerks. I have voted in Idaho for so many years I prefer not to say. But in my county it appears that there is manipulation going on…I have witnessed people being allowed to vote in a general election where they have no proof of residency, no utility bill to prove residency and they mearly tell the poll worker that they just moved and are living with a friend. These people did not bother to register to vote and just showed up at the poll. In a 15 minute period, I saw three such incidents. They were given a ballot and told to register the next week.
More recently, we are asked to sign in with our fingers on a new type of checkin machine. I will tell you that no one could match my hand written signature to this scribble that occurs on the machine. The argument is that “we checked your ID and you would not be able to sign unless it matched. Well that gives just too many loopholes in my book. Any registered person who does not show up to vote and also did not order an absentee ballot could be seen by those who would commit fraud. It would be easy for them to sign for these people and cast a fake ballot on their behalf. I am not sure where the money came from for these machines, but I do know that Zuckerberg gave a big sum of money to the SOS in Idaho. I think we need to eliminate all machines from the voting process. We should also make it more difficult for people to order absentee ballots. They should not be mailed, but rather brought to the clerks office unless the person is out of the area. Our county has been affected by voter fraud and I have witnesses several kinds of it here. We need to stop these real loopholes before the November election.
I appreciate all that honest poll workers do and I also believe that Idaho’s elections are mostly run honestly, however I suspect that some counties, especially ADA are compromised to a degree. How much, I do not know, but some aspects don’t make sense on observation. I do know that HART machines are vulnerable and are used by 3 or 4 counties (ADA uses them). I wish we would return to hand counts. And just because Idaho appears to be fairly clean of fraud, that doesn’t mean we cannot devolve into the makings of an Arizona or Pennsylvania type of corruption.
According to Mike Lindell Idaho does have fraudulent votes/machines.
Enlist and train the National Guard to protect our vote, to police the machines and ballots, check ID’s, and post up at all polling locations, have a central command for reporting fraud, and election crime. Advertise to all Idahoans to report any suspicious activity to the central command. Switch to a paper ballot system and get rid of machines, and mail in ballots. If someone is unable to physically vote at a ballot location, notify guard in advance and a team will check ID, guard the ballot to counting location. Have the guard oversee the computer workings, and the counting. This should be done in every state. ASAP