Every Vote Should Count, But Do They? - TribPapers
Analysis

Every Vote Should Count, But Do They?

Voter security. Graphic Submitted.

Asheville – One of our most sacred rights is the right to vote in a fair and honest election. We just had our primary election, leading up to the midterms. Voting is a privilege extended to citizens in good standing of these United States. Both sides of the aisle say that every vote should count, but do they? How secure is our election system, really? 

“2000 Mules,” a new documentary created by Dinesh D’Souza, exposes widespread, coordinated voter fraud in the 2020 election, on a scale sufficient to change the overall outcome. It should be noted that it did not involve the voting machines that have proven a challenge in past elections.

If you can breathe you’ve likely heard the claims of election fraud. Voting machines that change votes or that can be hacked. Since the 2020 election, these claims have been categorically labeled conspiracy theory or hoaxes, perpetrated by exclusively by Republicans. However it only takes looking back at the 2016 election to see top Democrats making the same conspirial claims. 

Some examples include, “I continue to think that our voting machines are too vulnerable,” Rep. Adam Schiff of California said. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota stated, “these problems threaten the integrity of our elections and demonstrate the importance of election systems that are strong, durable, and not vulnerable to attack.” Then Senator Kamala Harris testified, “I actually held a demonstration for my colleagues here at the Capitol where we brought in folks who — before our eyes — hacked election machines, those that are being used in many states.” 

A letter written on Congressional stationary dated December 6, 2019, was sent by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Ron Wyden, and Representative Mark Pocan, to the three election technology vendors responsible for developing, manufacturing and maintaining the vast majority of voting machines and software in the United States, “We are particularly concerned that secretive and “trouble-plagued companies have long skimped on security in favor of convenience,” leaving our voting systems across the country ‘prone to security problems.’”

In 2018 the state of Maryland was informed by the FBI that the software vendor, ByteGrid LLC, handled their statewide voter registration, candidacy, the election-management system, the online ballot-delivery system and the website for unofficial election-night results for almost 5 years. ByteGrid LLC was financed by AltPoint Capital Partners, whose fund manager was a Russian with its largest investor a Russian oligarch named Vladimir Potanin.

When accusations were made about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Attorney General William Barr stated that this was the “most secure election in American history,” and yet nearly 70 million voters still feel disenfranchised and don’t trust the outcome, perhaps for good reason. 

The documentary, “2000 Mules,” written and directed by Dinesh D’Souza appears to expose widespread ballot stuffing. True the Vote, an election integrity organization, used geo-tracking (cell phone) data, and surveillance video acquired from state governments through an open records requests, in the battleground states. They focused on Fulton County, Georgia, Maricopa County, Arizona, the Detroit area of Michigan, the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin, and the greater Philadelphia area in Pennsylvania.” The results showed “mules,” people paid as couriers, visiting drop boxes in the middle of the night to, presumably, take photos of the ballot boxes proving they were there. Making multiple trips to a minimum of 10 drop boxes over several weeks was the mule’s paying gig. The transport used showed out-of-state tags with the couriers wearing latex gloves. D’Souza pointed out, “the traffickers began wearing gloves just days after a ballot harvesting case in Arizona secured indictments based on fingerprint evidence. 

D’Souza went on to say, “Many of these mules are coming from non-profit centers, which are 501(c)(3) organizations, mean they are prohibited from election activities. These are people that have a tax exemption from the IRS conditioned upon them not getting directly involved in electioneering… You’re seeing a coordinated ring of corruption and the evidence for it is decisive.”

One thing D’Souza clarified is that these ballots were all official election ballots, meaning they were harvested and wouldn’t show up in an investigation for fake ballots. He said he was swayed by the thoroughness of the data, saying it was “enough to tip the election,” “systematic, comprehensive, and well-presented enough” to convince a “reasonable person.” 

There was substantial evidence from all of the states that True the Vote investigated. Georgia election officials last week issued subpoenas to True the Vote, as well as subpoenas to obtain the identities of individuals and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who may have engaged ballot trafficking; illegal in the state of Georgia.

Already though, spinmeisters are trying to discredit the film. Rumble, an online video platform that supports 1st amendment rights, unlike other big tech companies, said it had to defend itself against an “unprecedented” level of cyberattacks, while preparing Dinesh D’Souza’s new documentary launch. This documentary tells a very compelling story that needs to be investigated to the full extent of the law if we ever hope to regain trust in our electoral system, because every vote should count.