Contentious Board of Elections Meeting

and the biased reporting - by Gary Meyer

The Board of Elections Meeting - May 29, 2024

Although the KELO media did truthfully report on the words spoken by the members of the SD Canvassing Group and Midwest Swamp Watch, was there a hidden agenda at play by titling their article “Election meeting descends into “anti-Monae” session”?  That title alone sets the tone of these crazy conspiracy people finding issue with the Secretary of State.  Their article totally missed the story of why this group of people were even there.

Monae, or more likely someone in her office, set up this Board of Elections meeting to address the five petitions Rick had filed on election violations.  How can the Board of Elections call for a special meeting regarding violations brought forward by Rick and yet no one from her office made Rick aware of the meeting? Why did the Kelo reporter not ask Monae about that?

The meeting was advertised as a public meeting with an agenda.  Folks from all across the state drove several hours to attend.  The meeting was called to order and immediately went into executive session. It was stated the reason for executive session was “potential pending litigation”, not pending litigation. There’s a difference.  That executive session lasted 45 minutes.  For one thing, it is illegal to go into executive session for a regular agenda item, but then they come out of that meeting with what appeared to be a preplanned decision already reached.  Did that seem odd to anyone else?  Kelo, did you not pick up on that either or would that put bias against an elected official?

When Monae and her posse emerged from their executive session, the motion was immediately made to throw out all 5 of the violations on the agenda.  That’s it?  The more than two dozen people that had driven for hours to come and offer input and hear discussion on these violations, the people that had been made to wait for 45 minutes while the Board of Examiners discussed the violations secretively in Executive session, now get told their whole reason for coming, has been dismissed.  Kelo, didn’t that cause question in your head?

As the attorney representing Monae read through his preprepared rebuttal to the 5 violations, he only makes mention of 3.  The BOE completely disregarded two damning petitions. When Rick had his opportunity for public comment, he pointed that out that he had submitted 5 violations.  One more thing Kelo could have inquired on, but didn’t.

Kelo, aren’t you supposed to report on what you hear and maybe ask questions? 

Why did the Board of Elections have an official meeting in the first place?  Six members of that board were dialed in via a zoom call. Was this meeting simply a formality with a preplanned outcome already reached?  To me, listening in via a phone connection, it gave me the impression this was a staged event but Kelo didn’t pick up on that either.

So again, I make note that many, if not all the people in attendance, drove a considerable distance to get to that meeting.  What a slap in the face to these people that had to sit through 45 minutes of nothing while an executive session took place in another location, the violations they came to discuss get dismissed, and then to be told you have a whole 20 minutes for public comment.   

So Kelo, did you really have to label this story as a Monae bashing event when it appeared to be more like a concerned citizen bashing.   Kelo did you not hear the passion in the voices as people spoke? From Rick Weible’s expert testimony of serious security violations, and Clay Parikh’s admission that these machines should never be certified and violate HAVA. From Auditor Anderson that can’t get backup or even returned phone calls from the office that is supposed to offer guidance and support.  From Jessica Pollema reminding Monae of the many hours people in that audience spent campaigning for her.  From the heartfelt personal testimony from Nichole Braithwait that moved most all the people to tears except the Board of Elections.  Linda Montgomery, also retired military, finished up the public comment time reminding people of the oath they take to the constitution but she could hardly be heard because Monae was trying everything in her power to get that meeting shut down. 

 I’m still left with the question was this really a Monae bashing as Kelo so eloquently titled the article or was it just one more display of our lying media covering for our corrupt government?  When are the stories of the people going to be heard and presented in a truthful manner.  To anyone listening to that meeting, there was so much opportunity to write a great article asking people for the “rest” of the story.  Why are there never follow-up stories or continuation articles or interviews with these folks to find out why they are fighting so hard for election integrity. 

Bob Mercer from Kelo has had numerous encounters with many of these same people but never once has he been interested enough in their side of the story to do an honest report on it?  So even though many thought this latest article had positive points to it because Bob Mercer didn’t twist the people’s words, I was left feeling it didn’t truly depict what happened at that meeting.  For those that didn’t get to listen or attend the meeting, it is one more article where the people fighting for election integrity are made to sound like the crazy ones, when instead the reader should have been able to clearly see how the government does not and will not listen to the concerns of the people.  It is any wonder the people aren’t waking up to our corrupt government, it’s because our lying media doesn’t write honest journalism.

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We recorded the entire meeting and posted it on Rumble. The video has been shared thousands of times, and really exposes just how corrupt Monae Johnson and her office is, and how incompetent and lazy the Board of Elections is. BOE must be disbanded and defunded as their complete lack of knowledge, expertise, and unwillingness to use their authority to address glaring security issues is more than obvious.

The BOE are a bunch of unqualified, unelected bureaucrats that have repeatedly demonstrated a reckless disregard for South Dakota citizens and the security of our elections.

IT’S TIME TO ABOLISH THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS

You can watch the explosive video of the meeting here:

Keloland article here: