Warren Stewart – Page 74 – The Voting News

Arizona lawmaker Rusty Bowers details the pressure put on him by Trump and Giuliani | Ximena Bustillo/ NPR

June 24, 2022

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, told the committee during today’s hearing about the pressure put on him by former President Donald Trump and his allies, including Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Bowers testified that Giuliani told him of allegations of voter fraud committed by undocumented immigrants or dead people who were listed as having voted. Bowers said he and other GOP legislators pushed for explanations into the theories and for Giuliani to provide sufficient evidence to justify recalling the state’s presidential electors. “In my recollection,” Bowers said of Giuliani, “he said, We have lots of theories we just don’t have the evidence.'” Bowers said Giuliani pressured him to call the Arizona legislature back into session — a unilateral move Bowers said he cannot do — to recall the electors that would be going to President Biden after Biden beat Trump in the state. “It is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired,” he said, growing visibly emotional. “I would not do it.” The former president asked him to hold a hearing to investigate allegations of fraud in Arizona, he said, but added he didn’t think the evidence “merited a hearing.”

Full Article: Lawmaker Rusty Bowers details the pressure put on him by Trump and Giuliani : NPR

Colorado guilty plea a first for US election task force | Associated Press

June 24, 2022

A Nebraska man has pleaded guilty to making death threats against Colorado’s top elections official in a what officials say is the first such plea obtained by a federal task force devoted to protecting elections workers across the U.S. who have been subject to increasing threats since the 2020 presidential election. Travis Ford, 42, pleaded guilty in Denver federal court to sending threats to Secretary of State Jena Griswold on social media. Griswold is a national advocate for elections security who has received thousands of threats over her insistence that the 2020 election was secure and that former President Donald Trump’s claims that it was stolen from him are false. Thursday’s plea was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado and was first reported by The Denver Gazette. Ford, a resident of Lincoln, Nebraska, faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 6. It’s the first guilty plea obtained by the U.S. Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which was launched last year to investigate threats of violence against elections workers, the office said. FBI agents in Colorado and Nebraska investigated the case.

Full Article: Colorado guilty plea a first for US election task force | AP News

Georgia secretary of state Raffensperger, defied Trump in 2020, but voting rights groups slam policies | Catherine Buchaniec, Annie Klingenberg and Julia Shapero/USA Today

June 24, 2022

It started with a phone call in early 2021. Soon the money flowed in, the media descended and what would typically be a sleepy race for the chief election official in Georgia quickly became one of the most-watched races of the 2022 primary elections. When Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger defeated a congressman aligned with former President Donald Trump in the Republican primary in May, many hailed his victory as a vindication over lies that the 2020 presidential election results were fraudulent. And Raffensperger’s testimony before the House committee probing the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack burnished that view for many, as he testified about the threats he and his family have received because he refused Trump’s demands to “find” votes and overturn the state’s 2020 election results. But Democrats and various voting rights groups say Raffensperger’s no hero — he’s an official with a history of supporting voter suppression policies. There was “a voter suppressor versus an election denier in the primary,” said Jena Griswold, the chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, ahead of the May 24 election. Secretary of state elections rarely gain national attention. But the job has taken on new significance as Trump-endorsed candidates espouse rhetoric doubting the validity of the 2020 election. “They make the races an existential threat to democracy,” Griswold said.

Full Article: Raffensperger, Georgia secretary of state, faces scrutiny on voting

Ex-Michigan elections director: False electors’ actions should be reviewed | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

June 24, 2022

The actions of 16 Republicans who signed a false certificate claiming Donald Trump won Michigan in 2020 deserve a “close look” from law enforcement investigators, a former state elections director said. Chris Thomas, who served in the role for 36 years under both Democratic and Republican secretaries of state, made the comments Wednesday during a press event for the Defend Democracy Project, a nonprofit. It comes after a U.S. House select committee used a public hearing to examine the efforts of Trump and his supporters in multiple battleground states to reverse the outcome of the November 2020 election. The so-called “alternative” electors in Michigan falsely claimed that Trump had won the state and signed a certificate on Dec. 14, 2020, that was submitted to the National Archives and the U.S. Senate in an attempt to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has previously suggested the false electors violated multiple laws, including one against election-related forgery. Michigan policy bans making or publishing “a false document with the intent to defraud.” The potential penalties are a fine of up to $1,000 or up to five years behind bars. Asked if he believes the false electors in Michigan broke the election forgery law, Thomas, who’s also a lawyer, responded that he wasn’t sure but their actions come “very close.”

Full Article: Ex-Michigan elections director: False electors’ actions should be reviewed

New Mexico lawmakers weigh fallout of election certification drama | Dan Boyd/Albuquerque Journal

June 24, 2022

The drama over certifying New Mexico’s primary election results might be over for now, but there could be a political fallout as lawmakers review a state election code that requires counties to approve their vote results before the statewide canvass can be certified. All 33 counties voted to certify this year’s primary election results in advance of a deadline last week, though some county commissions faced jeers and angry shouts of “cowards” and “traitors” after casting their votes. In addition, a divided Otero County Commission voted to approve the election results only after they faced a state Supreme Court order and possible removal from office. Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, a former state elections director who provides technical assistance and training to county clerks, said Monday the state faces a conundrum. That’s because, he said, some activists who opposed certifying the election results and pressured county commissioners to cast “no” votes made up their minds that election irregularities exist – even when election officials say they did not. “They don’t really want answers,” said Ivey-Soto, an Albuquerque Democrat. He said he’s not sure what specific changes to the state election code lawmakers might consider, but said, “I do think we need to look at the process.”

Full Article: Lawmakers weigh fallout of NM election certification drama – Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico: Screams, threats as counties certify vote | Susan Montoya Bryan and Morgan Lee/Associated Press

June 24, 2022

A standoff over the security of voting machines between a Republican-leaning county in New Mexico and Democratic state officials that threatened to erupt into a wider political crisis was defused Friday after local commissioners voted to certify their election results. The move by the Otero County commission reversed an earlier decision against certifying results of the June 7 primary because of unspecified concerns with Dominion voting systems, a target of widespread conspiracy theories since the 2020 presidential election. The two commissioners who voted in favor said they had been threatened with prosecution by the state attorney general and had no choice under the law — but criticized their position as being little more than rubber stamps. Commissioner Couy Griffin was the lone dissenting vote, but acknowledged that he had no basis for questioning the results of the election. He dialed in to the meeting because he was in Washington, D.C., where hours before he had been sentenced for entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. “My vote to remain a ‘no’ isn’t based on any evidence. It’s not based on any facts,” Griffin said, nevertheless requesting a hand recount of ballots. “It’s only based on my gut feeling and my own intuition.”

Full Article: Screams, threats as New Mexico counties certify vote | AP News

Tennessee: Election Commission lawsuit against Shelby County withdrawn after vote on new machines | Katherine Burgess/Memphis Commercial Appeal

June 24, 2022

The Shelby County Election Commission has withdrawn its lawsuit against Shelby County Government, according to Linda Phillips, administrator of elections. The withdrawal comes after the Shelby County Board of Commissioners, whose members were sued, voted to fund new voting machines for the November election. “Effective yesterday, we mutually agreed to withdraw the lawsuit, and we all look forward to executing the November election with new voting machines,” Phillips said in a written statement. The end of the lawsuit and the upcoming purchase of new voting machines for the county ends a years-long standoff between the majority-Democrat County Commission, which prefers hand-marked paper ballots, and the majority-Republican Election Commission, which prefers ballot-marking devices. The two bodies have clashed in public and private over which method is most cost-effective, least susceptible to hacking and easier to audit.

Full Article: Election Commission lawsuit against Shelby County withdrawn after vote on new machines

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson now says he helped coordinate effort to pass false elector slates to Pence, but his new explanation drew a quick rebuke | Molly Beck and Lawrence Andrea/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

June 24, 2022

After initially claiming to be “basically unaware” of an effort by his staff to get fake presidential elector documents to Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Thursday he coordinated with a Wisconsin attorney to pass along such information and alleged a Pennsylvania congressman brought slates of fake electors to his office — a claim that was immediately disputed. Evidence presented this week by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol showed Johnson’s chief of staff tried to deliver the two states’ lists of fake presidential electors for former President Donald Trump to Pence on the morning of the U.S. Capitol insurrection but was rebuffed by Pence’s aide. Johnson initially told reporters this week he did not know where the documents came from and that his staff sought to forward it to Pence. But he said in a Thursday interview on WIBA-AM that he had since discovered the documents came from Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, and acknowledged he coordinated with Dane County attorney Jim Troupis and his chief of staff by text message that morning to get to Pence a document Troupis described as regarding “Wisconsin electors.” Kelly’s office immediately pushed back on Johnson’s claim, saying: “Senator Johnson’s statements about Representative Kelly are patently false.” “Mr. Kelly has not spoken to Sen. Johnson for the better part of a decade, and he has no knowledge of the claims Mr. Johnson is making related to the 2020 election.”

Full Article: Johnson now says he coordinated effort to handoff false elector slates

Wisconsin election investigator says he deleted records | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

June 24, 2022

The former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice hired to investigate President Joe Biden’s victory in the battleground state testified Thursday that he routinely deleted records, and deactivated a personal email account, even after receiving open records requests. Michael Gableman testified in a court hearing about whether the person who hired him, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, should face penalties after earlier being found in contempt for how he handled the records requests from American Oversight. Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn decided against penalizing Vos for contempt, but said she would determine later whether to penalize Vos for how he handled open records requests. She set a hearing for July 28. Bailey-Rihn said that Gableman gave testimony that conflicted at times, but it was clear that he had destroyed records “that were contrary to what fits into the scheme of things.” Vos hired Gableman a year ago under pressure from Donald Trump to investigate the former president’s loss to Biden by just under 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. The investigation has cost taxpayers about $900,000 so far. Biden’s victory has survived two recounts, multiple lawsuits, a nonpartisan audit and a review by a conservative law firm.

Full Article: Wisconsin election investigator says he deleted records | AP News

Author Archives: Warren Stewart