Friday, April 4, 2024 9:00 AM was the long awaited hearing in our cast vote record lawsuit. An entire year’s worth of work hinged on one hour in courtroom 5A, and one Judge’s decision.
We need to clarify, this was CVR lawsuit 2.0. We actually started this back in late 2021. The official FOIA requests for cast vote records and machine audit logs went out early 2022. Those were denied so we appealed to the Office of the Hearing Examiner. That hearing examiner is Catherine Williamson, and she denied our appeal with an unsubstantiated denial and did not allow us a hearing to consider any evidence.
So after that, decided to find a lawyer to appeal that decision, as we were not OK with letting a bad decision based on false information stand. Trying to find a lawyer proved difficult. A volunteer in our group at the time suggested R. Shawn Tornow. None of us had any experience with lawyers, had never sued anyone, and did not know Shawn Tornow. So, we met with him and explained the case. He wasn’t convinced of our cause, but was willing to represent us.
Up front, the contract required a retainer with a clause in the contract that no funds were refundable regardless of how much or how little time or expense accrued. That was concerning, as we had donated funds and it was not our money we were spending. The two requirements to sign the contract were: do you believe in Jesus, and do you believe in the Constitution? The answer was yes. The next statement was “don’t you screw us over, because you will be screwing over people from all over the State of South Dakota, not just us.”
We file a case in June of 2022. During the summer of 2022, we pushed at the county and state level for knowledge of the existence of CVR’s while the SOS office and auditors and their State’s Attys continued to deny they exist. The SD Freedom Caucus hosted a hearing on CVR’s at the State Capitol on September 2, 2022. Watch the full video HERE and a summary video HERE. The room was filled with people from all four corners of the State that wanted to hear the TRUTH about this issue. After proving CVR’s exist, and an admonishment from Sen. Pischke to the auditors to “play nice in the sandbox.”, everyone in the State KNEW for a fact that the CVR’s exist.
Despite learning the truth, and being proven wrong, NONE of these auditors went home and did their due diligence to investigate the necessity of viewing and auditing the digital records inside the black box tabulators they STILL insist are accurate and not connected to the internet. This is the point at which the auditors and the Secretary of State went from ignorant to culpable in committing malfeasance, gross negligence, gross incompetency, and nonfeasance. All of which are crimes and grounds for removal from office.
We had our first hearing on September 13, 2022. We have since obtained a transcript of this hearing. The Judge assigned was John Pekas. This is what he said:
“THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH DAKOTA SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO THAT INFORMATION.”
After that, R. Shawn Tornow failed to file ANYTHING in our case for NINE MONTHS. NINE MONTHS. A brief was due within 30 days. From the contract:
Does a competent lawyer forget legal procedure after approx. 30 years of practice? Does a competent lawyer stall and lie by saying “I can’t control the judge’s schedule” when questioned on a weekly basis as to when we were going to file a brief?
Things seemed to be going well until the Judge said the magic words above, and the malpractice ensued. Nine months went by and then we received an emergent phone call from Tornow saying that he was immediately “retiring” and that he could no longer practice law because he “turned in his bar card.” Well, we know many a retired lawyer who still has their bar card, but may be on inactive status. That is not the first thing you do when you “retire.”
We were left with a hearing scheduled for May 11, 2023, in which Steve Haugaard returned from vacation early and stepped in to help us because we were left without a lawyer. Our naivety of legal process and trust for Tornow left us with a case dismissed with prejudice for failure to file a brief, upon which we relied on Tornow for COMPETENT legal counsel, and none of the evidence, that we had patiently waited to present, on the record. A true an utter disappointment. But don’t take our word for it, read the court transcript HERE.
During the process of our case, two other women contracted Tornow for legal services and lost their fees with little services provided. Another woman had contracted with Tornow, and lost her fees in the midst of her contract and was left with a lawyer unable to fulfill the contract due to sudden “retirement.”
After being blindsided by a loss, and trying to answer a lot of pissed off patriots as to what the heck just happened, we met with Haugaard to discuss options.
An appeal would have left us at the Supreme Court, which could have left our case unaddressed for an undetermined amount of time, so the plan was to create an entity, refile all the FOIA letters, and start over.
Between the first and second case, tons of new evidence came out. The ES&S Transcript, the ES&S virtual meeting, the Minnehaha County Auditor Training with ES&S, SOS Johnson’s SB48, and much more which added up to over 600 pages of new evidence. Which led us to this Friday.
Another entire year of jumping through the legal hoops; Documenting evidence with the original appeal, reply, denial, brief, and reply brief, hours of work and research, compiling additional affidavits from experts like Walter Daugherity, Shawn Smith, and Clay Parikh, evidence from federal and state law, EAC, NIST, VVSG, ES&S manuals, and internal emails. The other side had NOTHING but misapplication of the law, misinformation from the vendor, and complete and utter ignorance. IF the evidence had been heard, there is NO WAY the counties would have won.
BUT, they didn’t have to worry about that. Lisa Marso (former president of the state bar) representing Minnehaha, Davison, and Pennington Co and Joseph Meader (Lincoln Co Deputy SA), along with Lincoln County Auditor Sheri Lund entered the courtroom Friday cool as cucumbers. Our original hearing was scheduled for March 25th, with Judge Pekas assigned to our case. But, with less than two weeks before the hearing, Pekas was pulled off our case and Judge Hoffman was reassigned. (Yes, that Judge Pekas that said “the people of South Dakota should have the right to that information.”) Judge Hoffman strolls in 10 minutes late, and shortly into the hearing, his demeanor became apparent. He was mocking us with his non-verbal cues. It appeared he had made his decision before the hearing, and told Haugaard that he could offer up testimony but he would be “speaking to the record” and “whistling in the wind” essentially. (He did say he had already written up his opinion) Despite the 600 pages of new facts that were not available the first time, he dismissed our case based on Res Judicata - it had already been decided in the previous case. So technically, R. Shawn Tornow’s massive failure in the prior case came back to bite us in the ass, again.
Now the really great part in all of this is we never said anything about Tornow for unity’s sake. Before we knew he had screwed us over, he was elected the Chair of the Minnehaha GOP with grassroots support. Do you think Tornow would have been elected Chair if the grassroots had known he cheated four women patriots (and all from the immediate area) out of their money and sound legal counsel?
The Minnehaha GOP has since disintegrated into a toxic mess of factions that hate each other, and an attempt by some to remove Tornow as the Chair. Our group had NOTHING to do with that. Nothing. We certainly could have, but we kept our mouths shut.
We have a massive collection of denial letters from counties all across South Dakota, from dozens and dozens of citizens of those counties that filed FOIA letters for the public election records. It wasn’t just members of our core group that filed records requests. And now that ALL of these people have been unjustly denied any possibility of a full evidentiary hearing or any chance of obtaining the 2020 and 2022 audit trail, the ugly, dirty truth is going to be told. Like it or not, R. Shawn Tornow failed us, and others, miserably.
His mis-management of the Minnehaha GOP has left it in shambles, while Minnehaha County Commissioner Joe Kippley is working behind the scenes to become the Chair. Kippley’s crew have turned in dozens and dozens of precinct committee forms, while the two factions of what was a once united grassroots effort, try to take each other out. The Minnehaha GOP is burning to the ground, and a democrat (fake republican) like Joe Kippley will walk right in.
Almost all of our legal documents are posted on our website: https://www.sdcanvassing.com/letters-articles-and-press-releases Scroll down to LEGAL DOCUMENTS.
We’ve had many an activist for transparency in election records contact us over the last year. Our research and documents are being used in cases all around the country. Rick Weible has produced a fantastic affidavit that is being used in cases in multiple states too. We are going to point out and share technical evidence that you can use to educate the officials in your county.
As we’ve said before, we aren’t quitters. We still have options that we are pursuing. But the best option right now is to get ALL the information out to you so you can go and hold your officials accountable right now.
This is just the first post in a multi-part series airing all the dirty details that everyone needs to know. Next up: A review of the denial letters from the counties and the crimes they infer. What crimes has your auditor committed and what can you do about it?
Just wow! Lawfare and an absolute broken system. Way to go Rep Mary Fitzgerald in passing your law giving the entirety of the State Bar immunity. Keep enabling the legal system to stick it to us. Idiot.
"Rick Weible has produced a fantastic affidavit that is being used in cases in multiple states too. We are going to point out and share technical evidence that you can use to educate the officials in your county." I will want all the evidence I can get my hands on to present to a judge on our primary day to get a ruling that my county election commission be forced to audit MY race, since they're already going to audit some race.