Wyoming officials are facing mounting pressure to audit the 2020 election from pro-Trump activists asserting, without evidence, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from the former president through widespread voter fraud. Activists across the state have flooded state lawmakers’ inboxes and voicemails with demands to investigate the state’s elections. These calls align with partisan efforts to relitigate election results in swing states like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Activists have also repeatedly implored staffers of Gov. Mark Gordon and Sec. of State Ed Buchanan to pursue policies to bolster “election integrity.” County-level post-election audits are already commonplace in Wyoming, and are required by statute. That has not stopped the activist tide; State Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, said he’s received “dozens” of emails calling on lawmakers to pursue an election audit. “I’ve gotten to a point now that when people write about [voter fraud], I’d say they’d have to tell me that you understand that it’s not true, it didn’t happen, and that all you’re trying to do is trying to help frame your candidate for future elections,” Gierau said. “I want them to tell me they know that [Trump] did not win, that there was no substantive proof of election fraud anywhere in this country.” The “Wyoming First Audit” chatroom on the online messaging app Telegram has attracted more than 1,000 members — though some are organizing a wide-ranging effort to combat perceived voter fraud.
National: Partisan Republican vote ‘audits’ are making elections less safe, officials say | Josh Marcus/The Independent
Even though they’re often conducted under the nominal banner of election security, Republican efforts to scrutinize the 2020 election results have made elections less safe, according to cyber security experts. Earlier this month, copies of the widely used Dominion Voting Systems election software were shared with attendees at an election event organised by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a Trump supporter and booster of election conspiracy theories. It’s unclear how the software reached participants, but cyber experts told the Associated Press that now that the Dominion software, which is used in roughly 30 states, is out in public hands, it may make it easier for hackers and others bad actors to find vulnerabilities. “It’s a game-changer in that the environment we have talked about existing now is a reality,” Matt Masterson, a former top election security official in the Trump administration, told the AP. “We told election officials, essentially, that you should assume this information is already out there. Now we know it is, and we don’t know what they are going to do with it.”
Full Article: Partisan Republican vote ‘audits’ are making elections less safe, officials say | The Independent