All the Dirty Details: Pt 3

ES&S threatened another election official in South Dakota

Many an article has been written about SD Canvassing by the liberal media, but only once have we been contacted for input into an article.

Stu Whitney, a writer for SD Newswatch, has been tasked with discrediting Rick Weible and our group, along with Auditor Leah Anderson, by writing extensive hit pieces about us. His articles have included non and half truths which we have emailed him about requesting corrections, with no response. People like Stu Whitney don’t care if they write the truth, or an unbiased article. Stu has a job to do, and he is taking it seriously.

One of the most recent hit pieces attacking the petitioning effort and citizen led activism to return to hand counting, included quotes at the end of the article from Hand County Auditor Doug DeBoer and Commissioner Jim Eschenbaum.

Since we were not given any chance for rebuttal and the article was not amended to correct statements made, we felt the need to respond.

From the article:

Jim Eschenbaum, a semi-retired farmer from Miller who serves as a Hand County commissioner, thinks some of the election reformists have gone too far.

Along with Hand County Auditor Doug DeBoer, Eschenbaum received permission from the secretary of state’s office to pull the ballots from the 2020 election and perform a hand-counted audit to test out the county’s machine tabulators. The process was videotaped and later posted to YouTube.

“We had two election judges from the county, one Republican and one Democrat, and we randomly chose two precincts from the 2020 general election,” Eschenbaum told News Watch. “We found that all the ballots that went through the tabulators were counted 100% correctly.”

Eschenbaum and DeBoer said they reported their audit to South Dakota Canvassing but that the group did not include the findings as part of its online reports or presentations at community gatherings across the state.

“Transparency appears to be a one-way mirror," said DeBoer, who also served as Hand County sheriff for 17 years. "I guess it didn't fit their narrative."

(Side note: those of you requesting an audit of the paper ballots in your county like McPherson Co, here’s a quote saying the SOS gave them permission. For those of us that know the law, the SOS has no authority over the county or the custodian of the records, but for those who defer their authority to the SOS - here’s your sign. This was also done inside that 22 month window that most counties are claiming they can’t get out the ballots without a court order. NOT TRUE. SDCL 12-20-31)

This sounds like quite the damning quotes from some transparent officials who were auditing their machines, right? If only that were the whole story.

We will back up a bit here and disclose Hand County was one of the counties to copy the cast vote records and audit logs in encrypted format, and gave them to one of our associates for review. One of our volunteers accidentally disclosed to her county commissioners that Hand County released the CVR’s, so why couldn’t they? The association of county officials found out and the backlash against Doug DeBoer was severe. Rather than defending his belief that the records belong to the people, he caved, turned his anger against our group, and would never do that again due to the attacks he took for his actions.

Now for the “audit”. Jim Eschenbaum told us they were going to check a precinct against the machine. But the first check of the ballots vs. the machine did not happen in public with election judges and video tape. We were told that a review of the paper ballots vs. the machine count matched in one precinct, but this was done out of public view and was not for public disclosure.

Later, we were told that an ES&S rep had come to Hand County to do “maintenance” on the machine. While chatting with this ES&S rep, Auditor Doug DeBoer mentioned that he had audited paper ballots vs. machine counts and it came out perfectly. The ES&S rep said something like “You shouldn’t have done that!” Shortly after that, Doug DeBoer received communication from ES&S threatening him with legal action for daring to audit his machine. Doug and Jim were both scared of getting sued and Jim swore us to secrecy. We kept our word, and didn’t tell anyone of their not publicly conducted audits or threats made to them by ES&S.

Doug, having served Hand County as the Sheriff for 17 years, should have known his rights and authority under the Constitution and told ES&S their threats were unwanted in his county, but, to our dismay, this was kept secret and Hand County had no problem renewing their contracts with ES&S. Shouldn’t everyone know we have a rouge vendor with total control over our elections using lawfare and intimidation to keep their customers under control?

Back in October, our group was invited to Hand County to give a presentation on our research and findings on elections in South Dakota. After our presentation, Jim Eschenbaum came up to the mic and proceeded to assure the group that there may be problems elsewhere, but there are NO problems and he is confident the machines are 100% trustworthy in Hand County. He told everyone about their “audits”. However, when we asked him to tell the crowd what happened when they told ES&S about their audits, he was less than excited to disclose how they had been threatened. This was also the first we knew this wasn’t a secret anymore. But, it’s on the record in that public meeting in Hand County that ES&S threatened the auditor.

How is it that Jim and Doug are more than willing now to throw us under the bus for not disclosing the results of their hand recounts when we were told NOT to disclose this information? And why is it that Jim and Doug left out the part about being THREATENED BY ES&S with legal action for doing something every single election jurisdiction should have been doing for the last 20 years???

ES&S’s threats must not fit their narrative. Telling half the story is less than transparent.

We’re sure this act of covering up for ES&S and trashing SD Canvassing will put them back in the good graces of the South Dakota Assoc of Co Officials (SDACO). You know, the liberal CISA/DHS affiliated group that pushes the “mis, dis and mal information” narrative, along with “the public is the biggest threat to the 2024 election cycle.”

How does a VENDOR get away with threats and harassment of elected officials? This is the same VENDOR that we’ve documented bullying the Minnehaha County Auditor and her staff, even physically laying hands on the election coordinator. Auditor Anderson stood her ground and did not become a victim to intimidation tactics made by a VENDOR. How many other officials have caved to bullying and intimidation, maybe bribes or threats made by private corporations that stand to make a huge profit off the backs of the citizens of South Dakota while simultaneously violating their constitutional rights? We dare to bet you can think of a few.

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On another note, the EAC says this about routine maintenance by a VENDOR in your election office touching your election equipment:

Go back, read that a second time. Let it sink in.

Next time ES&S comes to do routine maintenance, auditors might want to keep this on hand. Here is the full document that every election official should review thoroughly before conducting another centralized, computerized, internet connected, non-transparent, non-auditable, non-verifiable black box election.

That may be something volunteers want to ask the election officials in their county. When was the last time ES&S was here doing “maintenance”? What exactly did they do during this “maintenance”? Did any of this work require a change order? Were the changes approved by the EAC and the Board of Elections? Did this “maintenance” void the EAC certification? Do you have any documentation at all of what ES&S did to the machine? All good questions…… what will the answers be?