Why a Full Forensic Audit is Needed in North Carolina
1
Voting Systems
a. ES&S DS200 tabulator machines used in NC have a variety of options including:
- Overriding ballot rejection warning – the warning can be shut off when a ballot is incomplete
- No requirement for a security code to turned on the tabulator to voter mode
- Ballot images do not have to be saved
- The polls can be reopened to add additional ballots without clearing vote totals
- Providing “rank order voting” where votes from one candidate can be reassigned to another candidate
- a SQL database which has the ability to add, update and delete rows of data. It offers much more than the capability of counting ballots. An overview of machine voting features in NC
b. Research on voting systems from BlackBoxVoting.org has shown:
- Votes are being calculated as fractions out to two decimal places rather than whole numbers.
- Votes can be easily manipulated both within the system and externally if it was desired.
- The voting systems in NC were connected to the Internet as documented by the connection to
the election in Rowan County, NC from TN.
c. ES&S DS200 tabulators can have modems which can send and receive data over the internet. Only a few machines would need modems to influence election results.
2
Election Results
a. Representative Kidwell, chairman of the N.C. House Freedom Caucus, reported that “he and his constituents are concerned about unexplained and numerous revisions to county and precinct vote totals in 2020 elections. These include unexplained metadata updates and what appears to observers as deletions of vote batches. There was a sudden reduction in the number of votes at the county level late on election night.”
https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/republican-lawmakers-seek-to-address-voter-concerns-restore-trust/
b. An analysis of voter registrations in NC show 94 of 100 counties trending more Republican from 2016 to 2020, but only 49 counties on election night trended Republican. Republicans added 70,000+ new registrations while Democrats lost almost 200,000 voter registrations.
c. While Trump won in NC in both 2016 and 2020, the margin of victory declined by 99,000 votes in 2020.
Biden received 494,979 more votes than Clinton. Trump received 396,145 more votes in 2020 than 2016. Trump lost ground in this state that was gaining population.
NC gained in population (approx. 500,000), but gained more dramatically in registered voters (approx. 2,000,000) or 4 to 1.
https://election-integrity.info/Contrast_Report.pdf
3
Voter Registrations are not kept up to date
“According to Judicial Watch’s analysis of voter registration data, many of North Carolina’s 100 counties have large numbers of ineligible voters on their rolls. Judicial Watch also alleges that the States’ own data shows that North Carolina has nearly one million inactive voters on its rolls. Judicial Watch announced 4-9-20 that it filed a lawsuit against North Carolina and two of its counties (Mecklenburg and Guilford) for failing to clean their voter rolls.”
“Data supplied by the states and published by the US Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) in June 2019 showed that the numbers of inactive registrations in Mecklenburg County and Guilford County and throughout North Carolina were abnormally high. The data concerning North Carolina—which North Carolina itself provided to the EAC—revealed:
a. About 15.5% of Mecklenburg County’s voter registrations were inactive.
b. About 19% of Guilford County’s voter registrations were inactive.
c. In 19 North Carolina counties, 20% or more of the registrations were inactive. In three counties 25% or more were inactive.
d. Statewide, about 17% of North Carolina’s registrations were inactive, which makes North Carolina’s
inactive rate the fifth worst (highest) of the 40 states for which data was available.
e. By way of comparison, the EAC reported that the median state inactive rate was 9.6%.
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-to-force-north-carolina-to-clean-its-voter-rolls/
4
NC was targeted
a. The State Board of Elections proposed to grant emergency powers to itself during a “disease epidemic”.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/dl.ncsbe.gov/Rulemaking/Rulemaking%20Notice%2008%20NCAC%2001%20.0106.pdf
b. Lawsuit settlements changed voting rules without consulting the legislature.
https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/collusive-settlements-by-the-attorney-general-prohibited-in-senate-budget/
An agreement between the State Board of Elections and a political group allowed extending the absentee ballot deadline, allowing fixing of absentee ballots and allowing drop boxes which circumvented the General Assembly’s requirement for witness signatures. ”The settlement allows board of elections staff to call voters without witness signatures and have them sign an affidavit affirming that they cast the vote”.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/judge-approves-nc-board-of-elections-lawsuit-settlement-over-absentee-ballots/ar-BB19EA7x
c. Private Funding of Elections
“Disruption of the 2020 US general election can be traced to infusion of private funding from non-profit foundations and organizations to local counties and municipalities of swing states.” The COVID-19 flu pandemic was the justification along with the excuse that local elections lacked funding to facilitate safe elections “The injection of hundreds of millions of dollars in early summer of 2020 violated legislatively adopted regulatory plans, bypassed adequately funded state electoral programs, and resulted in an unbalanced distribution of funding among precincts.” “Swing state governors also started issuing emergency executive orders shutting down in-person voting while pouring new state resources into encouraging persons to vote in advance. Polling data revealed this coordinated assault on in-person voting generally favored Democrat Party voters who preferred to vote in advance.”
“The Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) whose previous annual revenues never exceeded $1.2 million began sending agents into states to recruit certain Democrat strongholds to prepare grants requesting monies from CTCL”.(Note NC received $5-6 million in grants). “This privatization of elections undermines the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which requires state election plans to be submitted to federal officials and approved and requires respect for equal protection by making all resources available equally to all voters.” (Executive Summary)
The following actions and activities are offered for consideration:
a. The secretaries, attorneys general, and/or legislatures of states whose county governments received CTCL funds should commission a comprehensive, third-party audit of the consistency of private/public transactions with the HAVA implementation plans of their state. This should include compliance with NIST standards, and state procurement requirements.
b. State secretaries, attorneys general and/or legislatures who have membership in the non-profit Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) should audit the information access, collection, storage, security and/or potential voter information sharing practices of ERIC with other states or third-party non-profit associations. (NC does not participate in ERIC)
c. In the fall of 2020, the Center for Election Innovation (CEIR) issued grants to state secretaries, local governments, and non-profit associations for election-related purposes. Secretaries, attorneys general, and/or legislators of states receiving CEIR grants should request and evaluate CEIR contracts for HAVA compliance and the fiscal and procurement requirements of their individual states.
d. CTCL is a non-profit organization chartered in Illinois but who has negotiated grant contracts with county and municipal governments in multiple jurisdictions across many states. The public record is silent as to whether CTCL is licensed in all the states in which it continues to conduct contractual business.
e. The claw back language in CTCL agreements with counties and municipalities who received grants represents a long-term, contingent liability and is subject to federal audit, bonding, or pension risks. County commissioners should coordinate with their respective attorneys general or legislatures to understand and mitigate potential future liabilities. (pg. 16)
https://trumpwon.biz/The-Legitimacy-and-Effect-of-Private-Funding-in-Federal-and-State-Electorial-Processes-1.pdf
5
Voter Confidence
The 2016 Harvard Study reported “…the United States scores the worst in electoral integrity among similar Western democracies. The US also ranks 52nd out of all 153 countries worldwide in the cross-national electoral integrity survey. ”
https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/eip-blog/2016/12/22/was-there-fraud-in-us-elections
Civitas polling reveals that “fewer than half of likely North Carolina voters (49%) believe next year’s elections in North Carolina will be free and fair, with a full 40% saying no, the 2022 elections won’t be free and fair. The remaining 11% were unsure.” “Only Jobs and the Economy ranked higher at 34%” than Election Integrity at 31% as a public policy issue. https://lockerroom.johnlocke.org/2021/03/18/civitas-poll-distrust-brews-as-north-carolinians-worry-the-2022-elections-wont-be-free-and-fair/
6
Full Forensic Audit
“An election Full Forensic Audit (FFA) looks at the legitimacy of three major aspects of the reported election results: 1 – the Voter, 2 – the Machine (voting System Equipment), and 3 – the ballot Process. Here are some things that an FFA would investigate, in-depth, in each category: 1. – Did only legally eligible citizens vote, and just once? 2. – Did the voting machines accurately report all ballots received, without any changes? 3. – Did third parties illegally change or delete any legitimate ballots, or add ballots? Note that NONE of those questions are fully answered by an election recount, by election canvassing, or by election certification.
So why aren’t States, Counties and Precincts doing even partial forensic audits?
Reason #1: To accurately do a forensic investigation, having election chain of custody is extremely important. Some States, Counties and Precincts may well be resisting forensic audits, as they know that their chain of custody is inadequate.
Reason #2: Based on how much disinformation the mainstream media is propagating, it is likely that some state legislators and election officials believe that they are already doing effective and meaningful election audits. (Fact: They are not.)
Reason #3: As a corollary to #2, some state legislators and election officials may believe that a “Risk-Limiting Audit” is a serious audit. It is not. A Risk-Limi6ng Audit is better than a simple Machine Recount, but it falls far short of a FFA. The name is likely purposefully chosen to mislead citizens and legislators to believe that a “Risk-Limiting Audit” provides more election integrity assurance than it actually does. A more accurate name would be “Minimal Elec-on Audit.”
Reason #4: Again, based on media misinformation, it is probable that some state legislators and election officials believe that their elections are devoid of bad actors — so why bother with a detailed audit? (Fact: There is zero scientific proof that supports that claim.)
Reason #5: Another possible pushback from election integrity opponents against an election FFA, is that it is too complicated, time-consuming, costly, etc. Further, even if all the concerns in Reason #5 were true, those downsides would pale in comparison to the enormity of what is at stake.
Note: North Carolina has a page on their election website, which lists six (6) types of postelection audits. None of them is a forensic audit! In fact doing all six would not be equivalent to an election FFA!” https://election-integrity.info/Post_Election_Audits.pdf
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