All the Dirty Details: Pt 2

Criminal Admissions and the cover up

Those of you across the state who have had your requests for public election records denied know how this goes. Some of you know exactly what all the responses mean, some of you know some, and some of you have never seen a denial letter. Every county has been FOIA’d so we have a letter from your county if you want to see it. Send us an email request with your county noted.

Shortly into the quest for public records such as the CVR’s and machine audit logs, every single county started sending back virtually verbatim denial letters. The only thing that varied was exorbitant amount of fees they wanted to charge. Immediately prior to that, in June of 2022, there was an annual meeting of the State Bar Association and the topic was election law. Very peculiar topic for an entire state full of lawyers who don’t deal with election law. Not a coincidence. The following denial letters were sent by the State’s Attorney or the Auditor with the statement that the denial had been reviewed by the SA. For instance:

The excuses for the denials were obvious admissions of guilt to many a violation of state statute, and some Federal crimes against the elective franchise. Yes, your County admitted to committing crimes out of sheer ignorance. Check this out:

This one is from Jason Gant, Charles Mix County Auditor:

No video footage of the absentee ballot drop box was retained. That’s unfortunate. In 2020, thirty eight counties used drop boxes, and 29 of those used video surveillance. NONE of them preserved the video. Here is the applicable Federal and State Law on election record retention:

52 USC §20701. Retention and preservation of records and papers by officers of elections; deposit with custodian; penalty for violation

Every officer of election shall retain and preserve, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of any general, special, or primary election of which candidates for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, or Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are voted for, all records and papers which come into his possession relating to any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting in such election, ……………. Any officer of election or custodian who willfully fails to comply with this section shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

12-20-31. Destruction of ballots and pollbooks--Period for which held--Pending recount or contest.

The officer in charge of an election may destroy voted ballots, pollbooks and all other election material relating to a federal election twenty-two months after the election at which the ballots were voted. …….. If a ballot is used for a federal election and a state or local election, the ballots and all other election material shall be maintained for twenty-two months. All federal election material may be removed from the ballot box if it is maintained in such a manner as to guarantee the safety and integrity of such material.

The above denial for the absentee ballot envelopes from the 2022 elections was required by law to be kept for 22 months. Sheri Lund admits here to violating the above statutes in this denial on Lincoln County letterhead. She is not the only one who didn’t keep the absentee ballot envelopes. Remember Arizona and signature verification?

Here’s another fun one from Lawrence County, reviewed by the SA, claiming ES&S CONSIDERS audit logs proprietary and confidential. That’s sound legal analysis don’t you think? Asking the vendor for legal advice? We have multiple copies of audit logs from several counties and they do NOT contain any trade secret information, but rather concerning statistical results that do not match up to the reported vote totals. What these audit logs do show is any anomalous events that an auditor should be looking for.

Here, Jason Gant again puts his ignorance of the automation of his beloved computerized electronic ballot scanning devices on display by saying this:

Remember Gants admission “We don’t do anything with whatever those are'“? This answer is consistent across every county in South Dakota. However, THIS IS NOT TRUE. This is a blatant lie at this point, as we are well beyond the point of claiming ignorance. Any auditor or SA claiming this as a fact needs to resign immediately, as this is a national security issue and all terms of the contract with ES&S have been voided.

Cast vote records have been a standard function of electronic tabulators since 2005, when the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) issued the Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG) which required a cast vote record as a digital audit trail. Voting machines cannot be EAC Certified without this function. And those machines cannot be used in South Dakota without being EAC Certified. The State of South Dakota adopted the VVSG into law in 2005 with SDCL 12-17B-2, therefore making the certification requirements MANDATORY, not optional!

So this ridiculous claim that the records don’t exist means your county is using equipment that does not meet the EAC Certification requirements, should be decertified and discontinued immediately, and all the prior elections that were counted on these illegal machines should have never been certified. Do they really want to admit to that?

The standards for this digital audit trail were defined by the National Institutes for Science and Technology (NIST) which says this:

Executive Summary

This document presents an interoperable, common data format specification for cast vote records (CVR), which are produced by vote-capture devices such as ballot scanners. A CVR is an electronic record of a voter’s selections, with usually one CVR created per sheet (page) of a ballot. Election results are produced by tabulating the collection of CVRs, and audits can be done by comparisons of the paper ballots or paper records of voter selections against the CVRs.

The purpose of this specification is to provide an interoperable, non-proprietary data exchange format in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) for CVRs so as to promote greater transparency to voting records produced by vote-capture devices….

There are many complex operations performed by voting devices when voters submit their paper ballots to be scanned. These operations are mostly invisible to voters but are necessary to determine whether contest selections have been marked adequately and whether voter intent is reflected by what is marked on the ballot. This specification includes the necessary detail to capture these operations so that CVRs can be better audited and adjudicated as necessary to include write-in candidates or other issues.

This specification is geared towards the following audiences:

• Election officials

• Voting equipment manufacturers

• Election analysts and auditors

• Election-affiliated organizations

• The public

Can it much clearer than that? The U.S. Government Agency that sets the very definition of the cast vote records says that it is to be created in a NON-PROPRIETARY format and is intended for the PUBLIC in order to produce TRANSPARENCY when counting the votes OUTSIDE OF THE PUBLIC EYE?

The denial for the Precinct Total Reports came from Lincoln County Auditor, Sheri Lund. She hides behind SDCL 1-27-1.5(24) which is in regards to internal agency records - which are used for policy making.

This is almost laughable. We received precinct total reports from Minnehaha, Pennington, Yankton, Brookings, Fall River, Lawrence Counties and more. Here is the law that actually applies to this public records request:

12-17B-13. Procedure for tabulating votes--Results as unofficial returns--Certification by board.

The procedure for tabulating the votes by the automatic tabulating equipment shall be under the direction of the person in charge of the election, and shall conform to the specifications and requirements of the automatic tabulating equipment. The results printed by the automatic tabulating equipment shall constitute the immediate unofficial returns. These returns shall be open to the public. The final returns printed by the automatic tabulating equipment shall be presented to the canvassing board for review and certification as the official returns.

Many counties, such as McPherson County denied by Auditor Lindley Howard and SA Austin Hoffman, have also denied access to the ES&S contracts and purchase agreements claiming “Information pertaining to the protection of public or private property and any person on or within public or private property including: Cyber security plans, computer or communications network schema, passwords, or user identification names;”

All the contracts we have obtained from Minnehaha, Pennington, Lincoln, and more are only business contracts with no cyber security, network schema, user names or passwords. Neither do the purchase agreements. The purchase agreements list the equipment purchased for $XXXX.00. What is secret about that? IF ES&S put user names and passwords in their contracts, that would be bad business practice don’t you think? They only do that in their user manuals - which have been published on the internet.

Here is the state law that applies to public access to purchase agreements and contracts paid for with YOUR MONEY:

1-27-1.3. Liberal construction of public access to public records law--Certain criminal investigation and contract negotiation records exempt.

The provisions of §§ 1-27-1 to 1-27-1.15, inclusive, and 1-27-4 shall be liberally construed whenever any state, county, or political subdivision fiscal records, audit, warrant, voucher, invoice, purchase order, requisition, payroll, check, receipt, or other record of receipt, cash, or expenditure involving public funds is involved in order that the citizens of this state shall have the full right to know of and have full access to information on the public finances of the government and the public bodies and entities created to serve them. Use of funds as needed for criminal investigatory/confidential informant purposes is not subject to this section, but any budgetary information summarizing total sums used for such purposes is public. Records which, if disclosed, would impair present or pending contract awards or collective bargaining negotiations are exempt from disclosure.

1-27-1. Public records open to inspection and copying.

Except as otherwise expressly provided by statute, all citizens of this state, and all other persons interested in the examination of the public records, as defined in § 1-27-1.1, are hereby fully empowered and authorized to examine such public record, and make memoranda and abstracts therefrom during the hours the respective offices are open for the ordinary transaction of business and, unless federal copyright law otherwise provides, obtain copies of public records in accordance with this chapter.

Each government entity or elected or appointed government official shall, during normal business hours, make available to the public for inspection and copying in the manner set forth in this chapter all public records held by that entity or official.

1-27-1.1. Public records defined.

Unless any other statute, ordinance, or rule expressly provides that particular information or records may not be made public, public records include all records and documents, regardless of physical form, of or belonging to this state, any county, municipality, political subdivision, or tax-supported district in this state, or any agency, branch, department, board, bureau, commission, council, subunit, or committee of any of the foregoing. Data which is a public record in its original form remains a public record when maintained in any other form. For the purposes of §§ 1-27-1 to 1-27-1.15, inclusive, a tax-supported district includes any business improvement district created pursuant to chapter 9-55.

There is a massive coverup going on in this state. Your county officials are involved. All of them are violating the law and are trampling on your Constitutional rights to a fair election. All of these institutions have been captured. The only way these criminals stay in power is because we let them. Are you being governed by CONSENT? Do you consent to the law being used as a weapon against you? Do you consent to lies and gaslighting? Do you consent to taxation without representation? Do you consent to gross negligence, malfeasance and nonfeasance committed by your officials whose salaries are paid with your money? Do you consent to contracts being signed with massive private, for-profit corporations with no transparency and no access to the records with no input from the public? Do you consent to your votes being “counted” in secret?

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

In Congress, July 4, 1776

THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION

of the

THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.--That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States.

History repeats itself. You are HERE:

“that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.”