Guest post
At the Georgia State Election Board (“SEB”) meeting on August 1, charges detailed lack of chain of custody for 63,000 improper ballots in the 2020 election. Nothing was done. Remember, Donald Trump supposedly lost the state by just under 12,000 votes. More than five times the election margin for the whole state called into question in just one county, and a big ho-hum from the SEB.
The same negligence is evidenced by the SEB reaction to complaints from technicians who have demonstrated known vulnerabilities in the Dominion Voting Machines. Even the obvious lists of more than 1,700 voters who voted twice in the 2020 election – mostly Democrat voters – has not been investigated, even though the list is easily found on the voter history files. This information has been known since 2020.
And the complaints discussed below, the Rossi-Hand-Count complaint and the subsequent Moncla-Rossi complaint, document anomalies or outright errors that affected 50,000 votes. And they can’t get a public airing or an independent investigation.
Here's where Georgia sits.
Nothing should be done to protect the lawyers who are twisting in the wind because their clients asked for investigations into election irregularities – some are even being investigated by the Georgia Bar for some unknown impropriety with respect to the cases they brought.
Nothing should be done to investigate the State Senate Election Subcommittee report that concluded that the 2020 election was chaotic and “untrustworthy.”
Nothing should be done to validate Dean John Eastman in his battle for his law license in California for trying to protect Georgia voters.
Nothing should be done to show that the claims of Rudy Guiliani – who used to be America’s mayor – had a basis in fact.
Nothing should be done to ensure that future elections are free of the same errors and improprieties.
And above all, nothing should be done to validate any claims of Donald Trump.
The State Election Board is determined to make sure that no investigation could make the “good old boys” in Georgia uncomfortable. Could be the “good old girls” as well – Georgia is very modern in allowing equal opportunity corruption.
That's the current state of the State Election Board in Georgia -- a board that was changed by the famous Georgia "election reform law" to take control of ensuring the integrity of Georgia's election system. Despite egregious errors that have been reported to it, no meaningful action is taken, no one is punished, no one is going to jail. (Except they may once again try to throw the journalists from True the Vote in jail for trying to uncover the drop box ballot stuffing in 2020.)
Hide the dirt. The Secretary of State must continue to be able to recite that the 2020 election was the most verified election in Georgia history -- there are lawyers to disbar, journalists to discredit, ex-Presidents to indict. And no one would want to allow Senator David Perdue to win his election law case.
It's even worse than that. The Chairman of the Board, Bill Duffey -- a retired Federal judge who should know better – treats every matter as a case to be put on the calendar for some future date while everyone forgets about it, not as the agent of the Legislature seeking to uphold the intent of the law through rule-making and detailed investigation. But a new broom sweeps clean. Even an old broom will work.
After a disastrous polytheistic beginning of the August 1 meeting, Mr. Duffey brought up an unusual case for review as the first order of business - 2021-181, the Rossi-Hand-Count complaint, an investigation that had supposedly been closed at the last meeting of the SEB. That case had been brought over two years ago Joe Rossi, a retired corporate executive from the little town of Perry, Georgia, working with independent journalist Kevin Moncla, to bring large, documented variances in the 2020 recounts to the attention of the Governor – while the Secretary of State was denying that any variances existed. The variances were large enough to call the results of the underlying election into question. The unexplained variances are still many times the margin of victory achieved by the opponents of candidates like Senator David Perdue and President Donald Trump.
Let us reiterate that point – the Rossi-Hand-Count complaint was filed more than two years ago, documenting large election irregularities that the Secretary of State knew in November 2020 (or had the data to prove), and it took more than two years to even sweep it into the dustbin of history. And Secretary Raffensperger had the temerity to double down in his accusations that Donald Trump was lying on “that phone call.”
While the Secretary of State keeps insisting that the "risk limiting audit" (RLA) "hand count" verified the results of the election, the Rossi-Hand-Count complaint proved that was a lie – and the Secretary of State had the data to show that as early as November 2020. Why would a Republican Secretary of State deny a Republican Presidential candidate a chance to investigate irregularities in an improper count of his election?
The complaint itself documented 36 errors in the absentee ballot hand count in Fulton County alone that showed that Joe Biden had been improperly assigned 4,081 votes in the 2020 election – a 2.8% error rate in that subset of the vote. Statewide, that would translate to a margin of error of 150,000 in a state where the margin of victory was less than 12,000.
Those numbers were agreed to by Governor Brian Kemp's office as factual – over 4,000 votes for Biden that did not exist. Those votes were the result of double- and triple-counting of many of the same absentee ballots.
Even the liberal Atlanta Journal-Constitution – controlled by local power brokers and limiting news that makes the state government look bad – had to admit its "rough estimate" showed that the final election results in 2020 included over 3,000 extra Biden votes from the Fulton County absentee ballots. (That was based on a quick, one-day review; Mr. Rossi developed his numbers over a period of two months from County and state records.)
But Fulton County refused to record any discrepancy and the Secretary of State covered it up. Mr. Rossi noted the real issue in a quote for the AJC article: "[The Secretary of State and Fulton County] never acknowledged the errors .... They continued to lie to the public and say that they verified everything. They had no desire, intention or effort to get to the truth."
Pretty harsh. If anyone is interested. The country pretends to be asleep. The media is comatose.
Of course, the Secretary of State was quick to say that the results would not have altered the outcome of the election. But how can they know? A 2.8% error rate in one county seems high and 4,000 extra votes for Biden in one part of the election in one county seems like it might call into question the results in a state in which Biden supposedly won by 11,779 votes – likely less the full effect of the 4,081 identified by Mr. Rossi and confirmed by the Governor's office and the 1,700 duplicate voters referenced above and certainly less than the Moncla-Rossi complaint referenced below.
And the State Election Board continues the cover-up. At its meeting in June it approved a consent decree (with one principled and notable dissent) with the County advising the County to follow the Secretary of State's existing rules. Nothing more. The Board did its utmost to sweep this under the rug at the Board meeting in June and this last Board meeting on August 1. The numbers don’t match. That was what the Rossi-Hand-Count complaint showed: The reporting was wrong. The processes were wrong. The audit was a sham. None of that was mentioned. None of the numbers were mentioned. No wrongdoing was punished. Sweep it all away.
Wasn’t the Secretary of State already supposed to follow the law in 2020? But if the broom had swept clean in June, why was the Rossi-Hand-Count complaint back on the August 1 agenda?
Because, when the petitioners inquired as to the outcome their complaint and what the consent decree said, they got … nothing. No one knew what the consent decree said. Only one of the Board members – Mr. Duffey -- had ever seen the consent decree -- it was not presented to the others, who, with one brave exception, rubber-stamped it. No review.
Suddenly, this first complaint was back on the agenda for the August 1st meeting. No one can know exactly, but Mr. Duffey dutifully brought it up again so that it was clear that the Board really had approved – or at least ratified – the consent order. Some said privately they had been informed of the nature of the investigation by the Secretary of State investigating itself. Really? Was anyone told that more than 4,000 votes that did not exist had been put in the official count for Biden?
Mr. Rossi appeared at the August 1 meeting to again make the point that the error rate was significant and to ask again why these numerous false statements coming from the Secretary of State cannot be corrected. Without more investigation, no one can know whether these significant numbers could have changed the outcome of the election in Georgia. But making false statements about the results limits the opportunity for true investigation.
His comments – like all public comments that day – were ignored.
But wait, there's more. At least more dirt to sweep under the carpet, more facts to ignore, more indictments to come. More media breathlessly reporting the true information is “fake” and vice versa.
Messrs. Moncla and Rossi filed a second complaint on July 8, 2022. That was finally given a number -- 2023-025 – after it languished in the Secretary of State and Governor's office for more than a year. After it was discussed in the public press in that month, the Governor asked the Attorney General to send a letter saying he had no jurisdiction to investigate election law violations.
In what system of government does the Executive Branch – neither the Governor nor the Attorney General – not have the right to investigate and prosecute violations of law?
The Moncla-Rossi complaint involves 17,852 “votes” that were recorded by Fulton County with no supporting ballots – how is that possible? – and another 3,125 votes that were double-counted, as well as an additional 20,713 ballots attributed to tabulators which Fulton County says “Do not exist.” That is a total of over 40,000 questionable votes in the Moncla-Rossi complaint alone – a margin of error greater than the margin between the candidates in several 2020 races.
These votes were simply “found” – without ballots – to support the wildly exaggerated numbers reported on Election Day that had not existed the previous night. It would certainly be enough to support the Georgia Senate Subcommittee’s opinion that the results were untrustworthy. It would certainly support the lawyers who asked for investigation and were denied the right based on “standing” or “laches” or some other specious reason.
And it might even undermine the Jack Smith indictment of President Trump last week and the upcoming waiting-for-Godot indictment of Trump in Fulton County – the home of corruption in Georgia.
But, as always, the good old boys (and girls) can’t have that. The State Election Board can’t have that – or it doesn’t want to get involved. When the Moncla-Rossi complaint comes before the Board, it is likely will once again sweep the final bits of evidence out of sight. It’s not even on an agenda yet, even though it was filed more than one year ago based on data from more than two years ago known to the Secretary of State immediately after the election.
Squeaky clean. Sweep the dirt away. At least, that seems to be the plan.
Excellent piece. Please keep writing about this- it needs to be pumped out there regularly
Thank you for Keeping the light shining on the dirt—The truth makes us free! I stand with you in Georgia, a 62 year resident; we won’t stop praying, uniting and speaking truth until we see True justice prevail ?? God our Righteousness Judge, His⚖️ shall prevail. I believe The LORD of Host has his warrior Angels dispatched defending us and its just a matter of time before the nefarious principalities and strongholds are pulled down in Georgia and from across our beloved USA.
We in Georgia are held hostage by a corrupt SOS, governor, attorney general along with a complicit legislature, juduciary, state election board (save one member) and press. To whom can we turn for justice? It is time for a class action lawsuit for these egregious violations of our sacred right to vote.
Nothing indeed! Unfortunately “Good ol’ Boys” rule in Ga., unabated. You would think someone would have some moral compunction? I wonder exactly where Zuckerberg’s millions of dollars went?
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