election integrity Archives - Grassroots America

Chair Allen West: Audit Dallas Co. Elections Dept.

Jun 17, 2024 | GAWTP Featured Post

June 17, 2024

Dallas County Republican Party

Chairman

LTC Allen West (RET)

Calls for 3^rd Party Audit of Dallas County

Elections Processes

BEFORE the November 5 2024 Election

Today, in his signature “straight talking” style, Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Allen West held a press conference to release An Open Letter to Dallas County Voters.

In the detailed statement, West makes a solid detailed case for a third-party audit of Dallas County Election Processes. Dallas County has long been known for questionable election processes and procedures.

Most recently, March Republican Primary candidate HD 108 Barry Wernick’s recount uncovered high value election process evidence needed to push Republicans to secure elections for November.

Grassroots America applauds Chairman West for his bold leadership to restore confidence in Dallas County election results.

Dallas County Republican Party Chairman West: “It is imperative that we provide confidence in our Dallas County election systems. There have been many recent issues with voting system equipment, processes, operating procedures, and protocols with elections in Dallas County. In the aggregate, these have led to a serious erosion of electoral confidence in the County’s declared election results, and we propose lawful solutions to address these concerns.

“There has never been a serious third-party examination and analysis of Dallas’s voting system equipment, processes, procedures, and protocols. Now is the time.”

Be sure to read Chairman West’s detailed case – PROPOSALS FOR TRUSTWORTHY TABULATIONS & RELIABLE AUDIT TRAIL here.

Note: If you are aware of specific, detailed operational proposals and plans to secure YOUR county’s election processes and procedures as we head into the November 2024 Presidential Election, please send a copy to TCGCoalition@outlook.com.

Wrong, Wrong | Ballot Secrecy

Jun 8, 2024 | GAWTP Blog

Bazooka vs. Laser? Stop Committing Unconstitutional Acts!

Hat tip and applause to Laura Pressley and Larry Korkmas for putting a spotlight on this.

The Problem: A federal lawsuit filed in April 2024 by Dr. Laura Pressley, Robert Bagwell, Teresa Soll, Thomas Larry Korkmas, and Madelon Highsmith claims ballot secrecy was breached for over 60,000 Williamson County, Texas, voters in the November 2023 election.

According to court documents, the Plaintiffs obtained Williamson County election records through the Public Information Act. In those records, repetitive algorithmic patterns were discovered that map over 60,000 voter names to the exact ballot they cast in Williamson County in the November 2023 election.

Redacted federal court documents reveal that included in the 60,000 voters are the exact ballots cast by prominent elected officials including: Williamson County Sheriff, County Judge, County Attorney, District Attorney, County Commissioners, District Judges and more.

“Solutions” from the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Texas Secretary of State Destroy the Ability to Audit Elections; Fail to Solve Problem

On June 6, 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a legal ruling in response to a request for records under the Public Information Act, reiterating that governmental entities have a legal duty to redact any personally identifying information on voters’ ballots when a Public Information Act request is made. Read 6.6.24 AG Opinion here.

Unfortunately, Paxton’s opinion on countywide polling gives a green light for counties to redact the polling location from election records and is open to interpretation to allow county redaction of precinct information from ballots. This quote is from the 6.6.24 OAG Opinion, page 2:

“…regarding the locations at which some of the voters cast their ballots constitutes personally identifiable information that could tie a voter’s identity to their specific voting selections. Accordingly, the personally identifiable information of voters contained in the requested information must be redacted.”

Redacting the polling location and/or precinct information from election records released to the public will 1) destroy the ability to complete an audit of election results, and 2) enable county employees and their agents to continue to breach ballot secrecy for some voters who cast ballots at countywide locations.

Later, on June 6, 2024, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson issued an “Emergency Guidance on Voter Privacy” Advisory through Christina Worrell Adkins, Director of Elections to Texas Counties. The SOS advisory demonstrates just how much this wrong-headed approach will convolute and slow down the entire public information process as well as destroy the ability to audit election results. See 6.6.24 SOS Advisory.

Summation of the Matter

Once again, this is the state government taking a bazooka approach to something that could be resolved with a pinpoint laser! All the State of Texas needs to do is remove the computerized ballot numbering system for in-person voters and get back to the ballot numbering specified in the law – in the Texas Election Code!

The consecutively numbered ballot laws in Texas – Tex. Elec. Code Sections 52.062, 51.006, 51.007, 51.009, 51.010, 62.007 and 62.009 – all work together to preserve ballot secrecy and enable the detection and prevention of ballot fraud.

Instead of adhering to those laws, counties are using illegal voting system software and hardware to assign, print, and store random unique identifiers/ballot trackers on in-person ballots cast at the polls. Why are counties doing this? Because the Texas Secretary of State unconstitutionally issued waivers of the law to allow it!

From the Williamson County federal lawsuit press release: “The Texas Secretary of State has waived many ballot numbering laws in the state since 2019 as seen in Election Advisory 2019-23 Section 13, and in lieu of those laws, created its own computerized ballot numbering system for in-person voters.

“Secretary of State Jane Nelson, through her Elections Division Director Christina Adkins, has authorized election administrators across the state to uniquely number each ballot with what they call “ballot tracking through the voting system software” with over 200 counties using some form of ballot numbering through the voting system software. Court documents claim such authorization by the Secretary of State violates both state and federal law, as described in detail in Plaintiffs’ Original Complaint and Motion for Preliminary Injunction.”

The unconstitutional waiving of law by the Texas Secretary of State is a prolonged, tiresome, and unnecessary problem. The Texas Constitution, Article 1 | Bill of Rights, Sec. 28., clearly states, “SUSPENSION OF LAWS. No power of suspending laws in this State shall be exercised except by the Legislature.”

As we see it, this week’s two proclamations from the AG and the SOS have actually made the case for the Pressley, Korkmas et al federal lawsuit. They’ve actually admitted what the Plaintiffs claim, but in no way do they remove the method by which ballot secrecy is destroyed via the SOS-sanctioned ballot numbering, ballot tracking method!

What is Grassroots America doing about it?
Today, we sent a written inquiry with our assessment to members of the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee (and Senator Bob Hall). At the time of this writing, Chairman Hughes and three other state senators had acknowledged receipt.

The Texas Senate State Affairs Committee is currently working on an “Interim Charge on Elections” from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. They have the ability to address ballot secrecy AND face down the usurpation of their legislative authority by the Secretary of State. This is a matter of urgency.

Bottom line Solution
Simply stop issuing waivers, Secretary of State, and follow the laws we already have on the books! We repeat – the consecutively numbered ballot laws in Texas – Tex. Elec. Code Sections 52.062, 51.006, 51.007, 51.009, 51.010, 62.007 and 62.009 – comply with the Texas Constitution, which requires consecutively numbered ballots. These parts of the Texas Election Code all work together to preserve ballot secrecy and enable the detection and prevention of ballot fraud.

Whether we title it “Bazooka vs. Laser” or “Just Stop Doing Unconstitutional Stuff,” this caused great angst, extra work, and a super-pressurized Friday for the already exhausted Texas conservative grassroots. Meanwhile, some elected officials just cannot understand why we’re so “out of sorts!”

You just can’t make this stuff up!

Be safe. Mind how you go. Hang in there with the Lord,

SOS Voter Errors Update

Feb 29, 2024 | Voter Info

This is an update on our alert last evening exposing the SOS duplicate voters showing up in Early Voting files.

Read through this first, in case you missed the alert.

Also, please direct all voter data questions to our lead data analyst Brett Rogers, brett@shootmealready.com.

Interesting! We noticed this morning that the alert we sent yesterday demonstrating how voter duplicates had been added into the voter cumulative totals shown on the SOS website got somebody’s attention! The duplicates we highlighted last evening are now removed.

That’s nice, but it swept the problem under the rug. That did not address The Problem. We downloaded the data for Feb. 27 and Feb. 28 and found these duplicates in new counties:

The underlying problem remains! There are no controls in place to prevent this from happening in the first place. There should be and we won’t stop until the necessary controls are there. Like you, we are tired of the foot-dragging on the most basic elements of election integrity!

This is NOT a new problem. We downloaded the data from the 2022 Republican Primary and found these duplicates as well. NOTE the instances where the SAME Voter Unique Identifier (VUID) shows up voting by mail and in-person!

And don’t get us started with the 2022 General Election results…

The bottom line is this: there needs to be controls in place to prevent this from happening. Those controls are not in place, and if election integrity matters to those in office here in Texas, then those in charge of managing this need to know that we are monitoring this and will continue to point it out until those controls are in place.

Warning Voter Data Errors Found

Feb 28, 2024 | Voter Info

Warning! What you are about to see is disturbing.

Grassroots America is providing total transparency –
documenting a very real, serious problem with actual early voting data.

Inaccurate voter data must be corrected NOW – and prevented –
before any “official” results of the 2024 Primary Election are published.

Our Executive Director has been alerting elected officials for the last few days and spoke with a Deputy Attorney General today.
It’s time you know about it, see it for yourself, and demand answers.

FACT: The Texas Secretary of State’s “official” early voting results lack integrity controls.

This is not a statistical anomaly,
but specific, auditable examples of duplicate early voter records.

Grassroots America’s data analysts* have discovered:

Several thousand duplicate votes recorded for the same VUIDs (VUID = Voter Unique Identifier) over six days!
Duplicate voters recorded for the same VUID on DIFFERENT days!
Duplicate voter records for the same VUID voting in person AND by mail!

These duplicates are included in the Secretary of State’s Official Election Results.

This is absolutely provable.
It is NOT acceptable.
It must be corrected now.
It cannot wait until after early voting closes!

There may well be some erroneous data coming from the counties. But the real problem lies at the Secretary of State’s Office – the agency charged with enforcing election integrity laws and the repository of “official” election results. They obviously do not have the most rudimentary controls in their intake, data validation, and batch control processes, or these duplicates could not be recorded.

FACT: Grassroots America’s data team has discovered that there are duplicates in the cumulative voter totals at the Secretary of State website. Now, we’ll show you how you can replicate the problem yourself – see below:

The following counties show duplicates:

Potter, Hale, Medina, Bandera, Wichita, Brazoria, Dickens, Camp, Fort Bend, Young, Delta, Zavala, Culberson, Wheeler, Comal, and Jack counties. There may be more in the days ahead.

This demands an investigation by the Attorney General,
the Secretary of State, and county officials.

Appropriate safeguards and integrity measures must be in place to prevent this! Prevention of recording duplicate votes is a reasonable expectation and a BASIC standard!

Contact your State Republican Executive Committee representatives and request the Republican Party of Texas take action. Find contact form at the bottom of this linked site.

Call Secretary of State Jane Nelson. Let her know you are aware of a problem that needs her immediate attention!
(512) 463-5770

Contact SoS Nelson’s Director of the Elections Division, Christina Adkins (512) 463-9859 | Email: CAdkins@sos.texas.gov

Contact your State Representative and State Senator. Find contact information here.

See the proof for yourself! Replicate the report and view the SOS duplicates with these steps:

STEP 1: Go to: https://earlyvoting.texas-election.com/Elections/getElectionEVDates.do

STEP 2: Select the March 5^th Republican Primary.

STEP 3: Then select February 23^rd and click Submit.

STEP 4: You will get the following report. Scroll down to CAMP county and use Click Here to download the CSV file.

STEP 5: Open the CSV in Excel, you can see the duplicates (just as we found below).

Want to see all duplicates, which counties have duplicates on which days? Go to:
https://grassrootspriorities.com/20240227_dupes.xlsx

Note: For the tech folks: This four-minute VIDEO documents the actual steps our data team followed to validate the duplicate voter record problem. You can also view the actual .CSV files downloaded from the SOS site in a zip file HERE.

*Two of our leading data analysts:
Brett Rogers | 30 years in the IT business and over twenty years with enterprise database tools; worked for Fortune 100 companies and dozens of small and mid-size clients. brett@rightrally.com

Tom Fabry | Led the design, construction, and operation of a global network of six engineering and research & development labs across four continents for Hewlitt-Packard (HP) and their global clients, a position he held until retiring. tcfabry@yahoo.com

After the 2024 Primary, Will Our Legislators Try to Hide Their Actions from You?

Feb 29, 2024 | GAWTP Blog

After the 2024 Primary,

Will Our Legislators Try to

Hide Their Actions from You?

By Brett Rogers | Feb. 28, 2024

What government – any level of government – does in secret, it does without the consent of the governed.

If ours is truly a government of “We the People,” then transparency is prerequisite. Transparency holds those who commit bad actions accountable. Publication of the actions of government officials provides essential transparency. Transparency safeguards citizens, thereby undergirding enduring liberty.

In this past year, Grassroots America We the People created something unique – a legislative transparency tool that connected dots, and summarized for understanding, the network of actions of the actors from within our Texas legislature. The website highlighted the good and the bad, and made all of this available for free to the people of Texas. We call this website Grassroots Priorities (grassrootspriorities.com).

What we learned is that an overwhelming amount of information available at Texas Legislature Online (TLO) makes it easier for our government to act in secret. For example, very few people knew what a “Statement of Vote” was prior to the development of Grassroots Priorities. Now, during the 2024 Primary Election cycle, this legislative addendum to record votes on the floor of the House is a central topic in some races.

By making such information transparent to the public, it’s almost certain that legislators will curb future use of a “Statement of Vote,” which allows a legislator to state in the House journal that his/her vote “yes” really should have been a vote “no” – or vice versa.

The people also learned that this action by a legislator changed nothing. A vote miscast is forever an error. What’s cast is cast.

Our legislators should be careful about their votes. It’s a major part of what they are hired at the ballot box to do on our behalf. And whether miscast or not, they should be judged on their actual voting record. Why? Because their actions have long-term consequences for the people of Texas and future generations.

Many other aspects of the legislature’s activity were exposed, and our legislators were then called to answer for their actions. This is good and necessary – and most importantly – it must continue. And if anything is to change, it must be made easier to obtain this public data, not more difficult.

Having taken “heat” from their constituents, legislators might be tempted to make the transparency we achieved harder to achieve in the future. Political actions taken in darkness endanger every Texan.

Grassroots America – We the People believes the 2024 Texas Republican Party Platform should include a plank that calls for this public legislative data (bills, actions, testimonies, committee actions, journal activities, record votes in both chambers, fiscal notes, etc.) to simply be available as files for download for any citizen to obtain. Anything less must be unacceptable.

We’ve heard from many other states that they would love a tool such as we now have in Texas. The citizens of those states should push for such data to be available for summary and analysis.

And yes, the same should be true at the federal level.

Any legislator who wants to curb our access to the records of our government should be reprimanded and hopefully removed in a robust primary.

We’ve made every effort to ensure that the massive amount of information we made available through Grassroots Priorities was accurate and lined up with the information found with the public record at Texas Legislature Online (TLO). Much of what we produced, links or points directly back to the TLO itself, so that people would not have to just take our word for it. Grassroots America WANTS the people to see the facts and reach conclusions for themselves. Why? Because this builds a strong, independent, informed citizenry – the essential ingredient for enduring liberty!

We strongly believe that if data is made available to the public, then those who summarize and analyze the data should also be held accountable – just as any news organization. This is why we have an FAQ section on our Grassroots Priorities website, which explains any changes we make on the website. If any corrections need to be made, we’ll always post those.

Truth. We are all better off when we have the truth made known to us. No one can make good decisions without good and accurate information.

From those elected to “govern,” we must insist upon a renewed respect for and commitment to this First Founding Principle of Liberty – Consent of the Governed.

In order to give or withhold informed consent, We the People must have access to the data needed to fully review both the planned and completed actions of those elected to act on our behalf – because only that can be called “good” government.

BR 2024