Ohio

Ohio secretary of state pushes new security directive for county election boards | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Monday announced a new security directive for the state’s 88 boards of elections, targeting a broad range of protocols and security controls designed to safeguard election systems that enjoy diminished federal support. In a May 29 directive, LaRose directs the state’s county boards of elections to strengthen their physical security, bolster their cybersecurity practices and comply with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. The directive, the sixth to come from LaRose since he took office in 2019, covers a broad swath of tasks, from implementing cybersecurity awareness training to ensuring websites can withstand heavy traffic. He notes in the directive that while similar work had previously been supported by federal funding from the Help America Vote Act, such funding sources can no longer be consistently relied upon. Instead, LaRose wrote, he’s asking Gov. Mike DeWine and the state legislature for funds — $10,000 per county — so counties will be able to implement his directive. Read Article

Ohio: Security concern forces half of state’s counties to use paper pollbooks for May election | Anna Staver/The Cleveland Plain Dealer

A security violation involving an electronic pollbook in Perry County is prompting half of Ohio counties to check voters in using paper pollbooks for the May 6 election. The device–a tablet-style electronic similar to an iPad–was intended to check voters in on Election Day. Perry County never used it for an election. Instead, local officials reported irregularities that “violated Ohio’s election security standards. I’ve directed our Election Integrity Unit and cybersecurity team to work with the Perry County Board of Elections to analyze the equipment purchased by the board… ,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a statement. “As an added precaution, I’m directing the boards of elections who use this specific style of pollbook to use paper pollbooks for the May election.” Read Article

Ohio Secretary of State orders investigation of Perry County electronic pollbook | Perry County Tribune

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has announced the investigation of a voter check-in tablet purchased by the Perry County Board of Elections. County Elections Board Director Jamie Snider told The Perry County Tribune that her office noticed some “irregular activity that we needed to report, and that was done immediately when we were advised it was happening.” She said the devices “were fresh out of the box, brand new. We just purchased them in December, received them in February, and as we were unboxing them, we noticed some things on them that were out of the norm. So we reported it to the state like we should have.” Read Article

Ohio GOP stoked fears of non-citizen voting. In reality, it’s rare | Julie Carr Smith/Associated Press

Before the November presidential election, Ohio’s secretary of state and attorney general announced investigations into potential voter fraud that included people suspected of casting ballots even though they were not U.S. citizens. It coincided with a national Republican messaging strategy warning that potentially thousands of ineligible voters would be voting. “The right to vote is sacred,” Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, said in a statement at the time. “If you’re not a U.S. citizen, it’s illegal to vote -– whether you thought you were allowed to or not. You will be held accountable.” In the end, their efforts led to just a handful of cases. Read Article

What Ohio voters need to know about what happens before and after casting your ballot | Megan Henry/Ohio Capital Journal

Election Day is one week away and the League of Women Voters of Ohio recently hosted a webinar that went over the state’s post-election procedures to highlight the security of elections and the safety mechanisms in place when handling ballots and verifying results. The results of the election are unofficial until Secretary of State Frank LaRose certifies the election results after they are officially submitted by county boards of elections. “Election night is not results night, and that’s okay,” said Jessica King, Verified Voting’s senior policy associate. “Election officials have their processes and procedures that they’re going to follow, and again, we need to give them that space and time to do that.” Read Article

Ohio election administrators say their workers are overworked, underpaid, and strained by attacks | Susan Tebben/Ohio Capital Journal

Ohio’s local election workers are overworked, underpaid and strained by conspiratorial attacks, and the state could be doing more to leave politics out of the election process, according to a voting rights group who talked with local election administrators. All Voting is Local Ohio partnered with research firm Public Circle, LLC, to study the evolution of the work election administrators at the local level do as they prepare for another highly-contested election. “Today, these professionals are straining under the weight of back-to-back statewide special elections and rhetorical attacks on their trustworthiness, character and patriotism,” the report stated. Read Article

Ohio: Election security group praises cybersecurity efforts while chiding eleventh hour voting changes | Nick Evans/Ohio Capital Journal

The Center for Election Innovation & Research has some good news and a few pointed critiques ahead of this November’s election. In a survey of states’ efforts to protect their voter registration databases from cyber-attacks, the group found election administrators have made great strides in protecting the voter rolls from outside threats. CEIR executive director David Becker explained that in 2016, Russian actors briefly gained access to Illinois’s voter registration database. His organization has been surveying states about security protocols every federal election cycle since. “Our nation and the 50 states are doing a very good job with voter registration database security,” he explained. “I think it’s one of the reasons that we’ve seen, to my knowledge, no real successful efforts to breach voter registration databases over the last several election cycles after the 2016 wakeup call.” But at the same time election officials are thwarting threats from without, they’re also undermining voter confidence from within through last-minute, legally dubious audits and policy changes. Read Article

Ohio law violates rights of voters with disabilities, judge says | Haley BeMiller/Columbus Dispatch

Ohio’s election law violates the rights of people with disabilities who rely on caregivers or family members to return their absentee ballots, a federal judge ruled Monday. The decision came down in a lawsuit that challenged a rule allowing only certain family members to help relatives who are hospitalized or homebound because of an illness or disability. While the list includes spouses, parents, siblings and grandparents, the state does not allow grandchildren or caretakers to handle another person’s absentee ballot. U.S. District Judge Bridget Meehan Brennan said that violates the federal Voting Rights Act, which allows voters with disabilities to get help from anyone except their employer or union representative. Her decision means Ohio’s law can no longer be enforced. Read Article

Ohio voter advocates warn group is making troubling challenges, ask Secretary of State to guide counties | Susan Tebben/Ohio Capital Journal

Voting rights advocacy organizations are calling on the Ohio Secretary of State to create consistency within the county boards of elections when it comes to voter registration challenges. The urgency comes in particular because of one group, the Ohio Election Integrity Network, which advocates say has been approaching multiple Ohio counties with lists of hundreds of voters they say are ineligible to vote in Ohio and should be removed from rolls. The way in which they are approaching county boards goes against the existing process of maintaining voting rolls, elections advocates say. “Really all of it is centered around poking holes in the election systems and the processes we’ve been using,” said Kelly Dufour, voting and elections manager for Common Cause Ohio. Read Article

Ohio Republican lawmakers working on sweeping changes to election administration | Nick Evans/Ohio Capital Journal

Legislation in the Ohio House and Senate would make sweeping changes to the way Ohioans vote and how those votes are counted. Despite sterling post-election audits in Ohio and the arrival last year of strict new photo voter ID requirements, backers insist more must be done to secure the state’s elections. Among their demands are provisions allowing hand-counted ballots, and new voting machine requirements that could force counties across the state to replace the voting machines they have. Moreover, certified voting machines don’t exist that would meet the bill’s standards, and hand-counting has been shown to be more time-consuming and less accurate than the currently certified voting machines that do exist. The bill would also extend photo ID requirements to absentee voting — making voters include a photocopy of their ID with their completed ballot. And the drafters have plans for in-person voting as well. The bill directs county boards to include a voters’ photograph in the pollbook, so poll workers won’t simply compare a photo ID to person standing in front of them, but also to a photo on file from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Read Article

Ohio elections officials group opposes bill to change laws on voting machines, counting ballots | Karen Kasler/The Statehouse News Bureau

The Republican sponsor of a bill that makes a lot of changes to voting laws says it’s about stopping hackers and blocking cybersecurity threats. But the group that represents the people who would have to put those changes into place is solidly against the bill. House Bill 472 would make changes in the name of improving election security in Ohio, in a system that even the sponsors call the “gold standard” for elections. But they’ve so concerned elections officials that the trustees for the bipartisan Ohio Association of Elections Officials voted unanimously to oppose it. “We agree with the sponsors that we want to have safe and secure elections in Ohio,” said Aaron Ockerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials. “But unfortunately, we also recognize that many of the provisions that are contained in the bill actually move us in the wrong direction.” Read Article

Ohio Republican bill would require replacement of voting machines, allow hand-counting of ballots | Andrew J. Tobias/Cleveland Plain Dealer

>Republican state lawmakers are considering a sweeping overhaul of Ohio’s voting system that is pitting the state’s bipartisan elections officials against a right-wing citizen’s group that echoes arguments made by advocates of the widely rejected theory that the 2020 presidential election was marred by widespread fraud. House Bill 472 would require the state to replace all its voting machines while allowing citizens to propose requiring hand-counting of elections ballots on a county-by-county basis, something elections officials say would result in delayed and less accurate election results. It also would newly require Ohioans to show a photo ID to register to vote – not just to cast a ballot like under current law – and expand a recently passed voter ID requirement to also apply to mail-in voting – a carve out that was retained in the last elections overhaul lawmakers passed in late 2022. Read Article

Ohio House passes Biden ballot fix bill despite DNC remedy | Isabella Murray/ABC

Ohio’s state House passed two bills on Thursday — one of which ensures President Joe Biden appears on the state’s general election ballot in November despite the Democratic National Committee’s announcement earlier this week that they would remedy the issue on its own. The ballot bill delivers a temporary extension to the state’s current ballot certification deadline of Aug. 7. Democrats were set to nominate Biden at the party’s convention, which starts Aug. 19 — meaning Biden wouldn’t be eligible to make it on the Ohio ballot given the earlier August deadline. More than 30 Republicans joined Democrats in passing that bill, which is now superfluous after the national party announced they’d virtually nominate the president ahead of Ohio’s certification cutoff. Read Article

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine calls for lawmakers to get Joe Biden on ballot. Calls situation ‘absurd’. | Anthony Shoemaker and Erin Glynn/Columbus Dispatch

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called for a special session of the Legislature to get President Joe Biden on the November ballot. The special session will begin Tuesday, May 28. During an unexpected press conference on Thursday, DeWine called on lawmakers to pass legislation to get Biden on the ballot and to prohibit campaign spending by foreign citizens on ballot issues. DeWine ordered the special session under Article III, Section 8 of the Ohio Constitution. The issue keeping Biden off the ballot is because the current law says Ohio officials must certify the November ballot on Aug. 7, 90 days before the election, but Biden won’t be nominated until the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19 in Chicago. Read Article

Ohio: Why Biden isn’t on the November ballot — yet | Caroline Vakil/The Hill

Ohio state legislators are scrambling to get President Biden on the November ballot after members failed to break a legislative impasse this week.  State law says presidential candidates need to be certified with the state 90 days before the November election; this year, that date is Aug. 7. But Democrats are on track to miss that goal, given Biden is set to be formally nominated during the Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug. 19. Legislators in the state Senate and state House worked on competing proposals, but efforts to pass them through the state Capitol have stalled — raising questions around what steps members will take next to make sure Biden gets onto the ballot in the coming months. Read Article

Ohio bill on voting law changes would require security reviews, allow hand-counting of ballots | Karen Kasler/Statehouse News Bureau

A group of conservative Republicans in the Ohio House is pushing for a bill, HB 472, aiming to overhaul state election laws to enhance security, including measures like requiring voter ID, changing early voting procedures, and permitting hand-counting of ballots. Critics argue that the bill’s measures, such as requiring voter ID and restricting early voting procedures, are thinly veiled attempts at voter suppression. They contend that the bill’s provisions, including limiting options for voter identification and delaying ballot scanning, could disenfranchise voters and undermine the democratic process. Additionally, concerns have been raised about the bill’s potential to exacerbate disparities in access to voting, particularly among marginalized communities. Read Article

Ohio Supreme Court to hear open meetings lawsuit centered on Stark County voting machines | Robert Wang/Canton Repository

The Ohio Supreme Court is set to hear arguments regarding whether the Stark County Board of Elections violated the state’s Open Meetings Act by privately deliberating the purchase of Dominion voting machines. Look Ahead America, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, argues that such closed-door meetings hinder the public’s right to know about officials’ decision-making processes. However, even if Look Ahead America wins, it won’t reverse Stark County’s acquisition and use of 1,450 Dominion Voting Machines ICX touch-screen machines, as the funding and contract for the purchase were authorized by the Stark County commissioners. Read Article

Ohio: Pickaway County unofficial election results inaccurate, include pre-election test vote data | Jim Wilhelm/Columbus Dispatch

The Pickaway County Board of Elections revealed discrepancies in the unofficial results of the March 19 primary election, clarifying that these errors stemmed from a USB flash drive used during pre-election logic and accuracy testing being mistakenly left in a tabulation computer, thus incorporating test data into the unofficial vote count. This mistake inflated absentee vote totals, affecting the reported results. While the board assures that the official outcomes of contests remain unaffected, they emphasize the importance of providing accurate vote counts and express their commitment to rectify the situation and prevent similar errors in the future. Read Article

Ohio: Misinformation is flowing ahead of abortion vote. Some is coming from a legislative website. | Julie Carr Smyth and Christine Fernando/Associated Press

The official government website of the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate is featuring inflammatory language opposing a reproductive rights measure, which is typically seen in contentious campaign initiatives. The messaging, warning of extreme scenarios related to the measure, is not only promoted by anti-abortion groups but is also present on the government website. This content, published on the “On The Record” blog, is impacting online search results for information about the reproductive rights measure, Issue 1, which is set to be voted on by Ohio citizens on November 7. The blog is presented as an “online newsroom” providing perspectives not covered by mainstream news outlets, and includes content from Republican state senators and conservative figures. Experts consider this effort by Republican lawmakers to be unprecedented, as it aims to influence public perception through a government platform, potentially misguiding voters seeking objective information. Read Article

Ohio: Boards of elections use different approaches, similar voting equipment | Roger LaPointe/Fremont News-Messenger

Sandusky and Ottawa counties have different approaches to election equipment, but both emphasize the importance of their election board members in ensuring secure and accurate voting. Sandusky County, a smaller rural county, prefers paper ballots and uses a combination of hand-marked paper ballots and ballot marking devices with optical scanning for mailed ballots. They have a ballot marking device available for disabled individuals but mostly rely on paper ballots. Ottawa County, with approximately 30,000 registered voters, employs a hybrid system using both tabletop and kiosk-type ExpressVote units for ballot marking. They use a commercial electronic poll book for tabulation, ensuring security and privacy in the voting process. Both counties highlight the dedication and collaboration of their bipartisan election boards as a key factor in maintaining trust in the electoral process. Read Article

Ohio: Trump ‘White House in waiting’ helped develop voting bill touted as model for states | Zachary Roth/Ohio Capital Journal

A new bill announced by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to standardize and modernize state voting records is being welcomed by election administrators and some voter advocates, who say it could increase transparency and confidence in elections. But the first-of-its-kind legislation was developed with help from a think tank that is leading the charge nationally for more restrictive voting rules and has been called a “White House in waiting” for a second Trump administration. The bill also is winning praise from conservative activists who have spread fear about illegal voting as part of an effort to pressure election officials to more aggressively purge voter rolls. The measure, known as the Data Analysis Transparency Archive (DATA) Act, could offer a glimpse of a future conservative agenda on voting issues. At a Feb. 22 press conference announcing the bill, LaRose, a Republican, thanked the America First Policy Institute for “helping with the development” of the legislation. AFPI reportedly aims to create a policy platform for former President Donald Trump.  A spokesman for LaRose did not respond to an inquiry about AFPI’s role in developing the bill. But Hilton Beckham, AFPI’s director of communications, said via email that the group did not write the bill. Beckham said it came out of an AFPI report released last year, which found that many local election offices are failing to retain election data as required by law, and that in many counties, the total number of ballots cast doesn’t match up with the total number of registered voters who cast ballots.

Full Article: Trump ‘White House in waiting’ helped develop Ohio voting bill touted as model for states – Ohio Capital Journal

88 Ohio counties, 11 different voting systems. Will that change anytime soon? | Abigail Bottar/Ideastream Public Media

Depending on what county you vote in, the way you actually cast your ballot may differ. There are 11 different voting systems used across Ohio’s 88 counties. That’s according to the Secretary of State’s office. However, when it comes to those 11 systems there is one big difference: paper or touchscreen? Richland County has used touchscreen technology for over a decade. Voters use the touchscreen machine which then prints their selections before they cast their ballot – all in one place. They rarely have problems with this technology, Board of Elections Director Matt Finfgeld said. “The voters in Richland County are pretty experienced with it,” Finfgeld said. “That’s what they’ve used and that’s what they’ve known for 15, 16 years.” This is what Lake County Board of Elections Director Ross McDonald calls a culture of touchscreen voting. Like in Richland, Lake has used touchscreen voting machines since the early 2000s. Unlike Richland, however, Lake recently moved to new technology. Voters still vote using a touchscreen but now the machine prints out a physical ballot that voters feed into a precinct scanner to be tabulated.

Full Article: 88 Ohio counties, 11 different voting systems. Will that change anytime soon? | Ideastream Public Media

Ohio elections officials still get calls about 2020. Here’s what they want you to know | Scott Wartman/Cincinnati Enquirer

Hamilton County Board of Elections gets questions from the public about the 2020 election and election security every day, even almost two years later. As the 2022 election nears, the number of emails and public records requests from members of the public regarding the 2020 election have spiked, said Alex Linser, the board’s deputy director. In the past two weeks, they have averaged about three a day, he said. “There are two common themes that we receive — distrust of the voting machines, and the other seeking reproduction of all of the documents created in the 2020 election,” Linser said. The latter, which includes every ballot ID envelope, costs $75,000 to copy every sheet. No one has taken the board of elections up on that offer, Linser said. It’s not just Hamilton County. Backers of former President Donald Trump and his false claims of a stolen 2020 election have swamped the boards of election in more than two dozen states and counties all across Ohio, the Washington Post, National Public Radio and other news agencies reported. “The board of elections receives a lot of communication from people who are questioning the integrity of the 2020 election,” Linser said. “We know that was the most accurate and safe and secure election in American history. The good news is, you don’t have to take my word for it. We can show you.”

Full Article: What security procedures are in place for the 2022 election?

All 88 Ohio election boards report getting requests for 2020 election documents. Why? | Karen Kasler/NPR

With just eight weeks till the November vote, boards of elections in all 88 Ohio counties report getting a small number of requests for records from the 2020 vote, just as they were about to be destroyed. The requests appear to be identical, and they’re asking for a huge haul of documents, such as all ballots and voter ID envelopes. There’s a source that seems to be generating the idea. As of September 3, it’s been 22 months since the 2020 vote, and documents and records related to that federal election are set to be destroyed. But at the Warren County Board of Elections in southwest Ohio, that’s not happening. Warren County Board of Elections Director Brian Sleeth said he got a handful of identical and huge requests for those documents, starting with 180,000 ballots from the election that the requesters have asked to review. But that’s not the only type of request the Warren County Board of Elections received, he said. The people making the requests have asked to see the paper tape from the voting machines. “They’ve asked for register – it’s like a cash register tape, the results tapes out of our voting machines for that election,” Sleeth said. “It’s about 70 to 80 foot long, and that’s just one piece of paper.”

Full Article: All 88 Ohio election boards report getting requests for 2020 election documents. Why? | WVXU

Ohio Raises a Volunteer Army to Fight Election Hacking | Katrina Manson/Bloomberg

Chris Riling says he “could never join the military.” He’s 37, has cerebral palsy, and wouldn’t have managed basic training, he says. Yet he recently swore an oath to protect the country and obey his commanding officers. At any moment, Ohio’s governor can call him up for active duty reporting to the state’s National Guard. And if he missteps, he can be tried under the Ohio Code of Military Justice. That’s because Riling, a systems architect at Cisco Systems Inc., is a volunteer for a novel kind of civilian reserve—a group of mostly private-sector tech professionals tasked with combating cyberattacks in the state. Right now, in the runup to the midterms, the group’s focus is election integrity: Voting-related hacking attempts could have disastrous implications for American democracy if successful, and cash-strapped state and local governments are often ill-equipped to face down new technological threats. Already, other states are seeking to copy Ohio’s model as they race to catch up with the threat of ransomware hacks, election interference, and other punishing cyberattacks, both foreign and domestic. Created just before the pandemic, the Ohio Cyber Reserve has assembled 80 members who can be called up under the command of Major General John Harris of the National Guard. They work mostly in cybersecurity by day and moonlight as crime-fighting reservists on weekends and Tuesday evenings from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The program already has state funding to expand to 200 people and could ultimately grow to 500, organizers say. Most members take leave from work to fulfill their reserve duties and receive travel expenses for training.

Full Article: Ohio Raises a Volunteer Army to Fight Election Hacking – Bloomberg

Ohio elections officials being hit with requests for lots of records from the 2020 vote | Karen Kasler/Statehouse News Bureau

Despite no credible claims of problems with the November 2020 vote in Ohio, dozens of huge requests for voting records from that election are coming in to county elections officials, as they’re finishing up work on a second statewide primary and gearing up for this fall’s election. Delivering on those could mean more work and costs for those boards and obstacles for workers, who are already dealing with a challenging election year. Ohio Association of Elections Officials president Brian Sleeth directs the Warren County Board of Elections. In an interview for “The State of Ohio”, he said seven requests have come in for basically anything related to the 2020 vote, including copies of all ballots and the results tapes that voting machines recorded twice a day, which can be up to 70 feet long each. “There’d be significant cost and copying everything in our office, for example, all of our ballots. Providing two-sided copies would be a job in itself,” Sleeth said. “And then they’ve asked for voting machine tapes. And those are like just a little cash register tapes that you would get at your supermarket when you go grocery shopping. Those are about 60 to 70 feet long each twice a day in the morning and evening. And they’ve asked for copies of those tapes too.”

Full Article: Ohio elections officials being hit with requests for lots of records from the 2020 vote | The Statehouse News Bureau

Ohio: Scanning problems at Cuyahoga County polling locations temporarily caused voting delays on Election Day; but ‘integrity’ remained intact, officials say | Kaitlin Durbin/Cleveland Plain Dealer

Technical issues Tuesday morning temporarily caused delays in voting across Cuyahoga County. Although some voters left without casting a ballot, officials say residents were never turned away, and voters can have confidence their ballots will be counted. The scanning issues did not affect the ability to vote; it only affected how voters were checked in, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections spokesman Mike West said, and everything was resolved shortly after 8 a.m. The problem occurred with the electronic poll books, which are the online rosters of eligible voters in the district or precinct. When a voter checks in at the polls, the machines are supposed to verify the person is in the correct location and scan and record the stub number for that person’s ballot. But machines were “not automatically recording,” West said. Instead, poll workers were having to look up voters in paper poll books and enter the stub numbers manually. None of the problems prevented a person from voting, he said. He didn’t know how many ballots had been submitted in the roughly 90 minutes that the electronic scanners weren’t working, but he said by 9 a.m. more than 12,000 people had already voted.

Full Article: Scanning problems at Cuyahoga County polling locations temporarily caused voting delays on Election Day; but ‘integrity’ remained intact, officials say – cleveland.com

Ohio: ‘It’s been extremely stressful:’ Summit County scrambling amid redistricting chaos | Abbey Marshall/Akron Beacon Journal

With less than three weeks until the May 3 primary, the Summit County Board of Elections is scrambling to keep up with near-constant changes in redistricting after a fourth set of maps was rejected Thursday afternoon. The court has already rejected four sets of Republican-drawn maps, which would give long-awaited clarity to what candidates are running in which district and whom they’re serving. Early voting in Summit County is already underway with Ohioans casting ballots in other elections including U.S. Senate, congressional, gubernatorial and local races. But as the redistricting confusion continues, candidates for state House and Senate are missing from the ballot. Local election officials can offer no clarity to voters and candidates before the murky redistricting process is resolved. The uncertainty places a major burden on Summit and other county boards of elections, which will likely have to run a second primary later this summer at a cost that surpasses half a million dollars. But the effects go beyond just cost, as election officials feel the pressure of overtime hours, uncertainty and potential staffing problems.

Full Article: Summit County scrambling to keep up with redistricting confusion

Ohio: Attempted breach of Lake County election network draws FBI and state scrutiny | Amy Gardner, Emma Brown and Devlin Barrett/The Washington Post

Full Article: Attempted breach of Ohio county election network draws FBI and state scrutiny – The Washington Post

Ohio Republican says Trump may try to ‘steal’ 2024 election if he loses | Mychael Schnell/The Hill

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) on Sunday said former President Trump may try to “steal” the presidential election in 2024 if he ultimately decides to enter the race but ends up losing. Gonzalez, during a pretaped interview with co-host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said Trump has evaluated what went wrong on Jan. 6 — when Congress certified the Electoral College vote despite the former president’s requests for the ballots to be rejected — and is now installing loyal personnel at levels of the government to do “exactly what he wants them to do.” “I think any objective observer would come to this conclusion that he [Trump] has evaluated what went wrong on Jan. 6, why is it that he wasn’t able to steal the election? Who stood in his way? Every single American institution is just run by people. And you need the right people to make the right decision in the most difficult times,” Gonzalez said. “He’s going systematically through the country and trying to remove those people and install people who are going to do exactly what he wants them to do, who believe the big lie, who go along with anything he says,” he added. The Ohio Republican, who is not seeking reelection, said he believes Trump’s actions now are “pushing towards one of two outcomes. He either wins legitimately, which he may do, or if he loses again, he’ll just try to steal it, but he’ll try to steal it with his people in those positions.”

Full Article: Ohio Republican says Trump may try to ‘steal’ 2024 election if he loses | TheHill