MI Sec of State Official Caught On Video Telling Volunteers To Count “Multiple Ballots with the very Same Signature” During “Audit” Of Votes In Antrim County
Reported By Jim Hoft | Published December 18, 2020
Constitutional Attorney Matthew DePerno is an American hero. Two weeks ago, Michigan 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin A Elsenheimer agreed to allow Mr. DePerno’s client, William Bailey, and a highly skilled team of IT experts to perform a forensic examination on 16 of the Dominion voting machines in Antrim County. On Monday, Judge Elsenheimer agreed to allow the results of the forensic examination to be released to the public. The results were damning.
THE REPORT:
After the forensic examination of 16 Dominion Voting machines in Antrim, Co., MI, Allied Security Operations Group has concluded that the Dominion Voting machines were assigned a 68.05% error rate. DePerno explained that when ballots are put through the machine, a whopping 68.05% error rate means that 68.05% of the ballots are sent for bulk adjudication, which means they collect the ballots in a folder. “The ballots are sent somewhere where people in another location can change the vote,” DePerno explained. The allowable election error rate established by the Federal Election Commission guidelines is 1 in 250,000 ballots or .0008%.
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Based on the Allied Security Operations report, Constitutional Attorney Matthew DePerno states: “we conclude that The Dominion Voting System should not be used in Michigan. We further conclude that the results of Antrim County should not have been certified.”
The stunning report was widely criticized by the Democrat Party mainstream media and by the dishonest Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Following the bombshell findings by Mr. DePerno and his team of IT experts, a “risk-limited audit” was ordered by Sec. of State Benson. Constitutional Attorney Matt DePerno was invited to observe the “risk-limiting audit” of Antrim County’s vote that took place yesterday in the Kearney Twp. hall in Bellaire, MI., where 6 officials from the Secretary of State continuously walked around the room observing and correcting the counters who dared to stray from their objectives.
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According to Verified Voting: The risk-limiting audit process can be conducted on any set of paper ballots that has a record of the number of ballots cast, how they are stored, and how to retrieve any particular ballot (ballot manifest). For an RLA to meaningfully support confidence in the reported election outcome, the standard is higher, and requires the following:
- Paper ballots preferably marked by hand and supplemented with a ballot marking device for those who need to use one.
A deliberate and intentional step for a voter to check the paper ballot for accuracy before casting the ballot (voter verification). - Rigorous ballot accounting and a properly maintained chain of custody of the ballots.
- If photographic evidence proves seals on the Dominion voting machines were broken on November 27, how can a “properly maintained chain of custody of ballots” be assured. The answer is, it can’t.
Before her so-called audit was completed, Sec of State Benson explained the purpose of the “risk limited audit” to the media while ensuring the integrity of the elections in Michigan:
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“While we know the machine tabulators functioned properly in Antrim, we are conducting this audit to assure the public of what countless officials from both parties at the federal, state and local levels have already confirmed – that this was the most secure election in our nation’s history and the certified results are an accurate reflection of the will of the voters,” adding, “It is time for Michigan, and the nation to once and for all dismiss the meritless disinformation campaign that seeks to undermine the integrity of our election and move forward in support of our collective democracy.”
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Mr. DePerno, who acted as an observer to the “risk-limited audit,” doesn’t agree with Ms. Benson about the integrity of Michigan’s election and has provided us with video and photographic evidence to prove that he was again able to debunk her statement about the “most secure election in our nation’s history.”
The first video provided by Matthew DePerno shows a bin of ballots from Mancelona Township, Precinct #1. The bin was delivered to three of the 20 bi-partisan volunteers that included several Antrim Co. city clerks who agreed to assist with the “risk-limited audit.”
Inside the bin, tabulated ballots were mixed in with ballots that were never tabulated, and several blank ballots were mixed in as well. Mr. DePerno referred to the bin of ballots as “an absolute mess!” On December 16, we reported about photographs taken at Mancelona Township’s Precinct #1 on November 27, 2020, that showed both of the security seals on the Dominion Voting machine were missing.
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The second video was taken at a table where ballots were being counted in Helena Twp. The volunteers can be seen questioning why there were fewer ballots in the bin than the original number that was recorded in the previous recount? Shortly after asking the question, a male SOS official approached the table with a bag marked “spoiled ballots” and told them to count them. Attorney Matt DePerno witnessed the unidentified male SOS rep pulling the “spoiled ballot bag out of the bin and delivering it to the volunteers who were “auditing” the ballots. DePerno also witnessed the SOS official telling them to add the “spoiled ballots” to the count.
The third video was taken at a table where the ballots from Central Lake Twp. were being counted. In the video, a male counter can be seen questioning “multiple ballots with the same signature.” According to Matthew DePerno, 138 ballots had write-in-votes where the penmanship was exactly the same.
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In the video below, the SOS official can be seen demanding that the counters ignore what they believe is voter fraud and count the ballots.
“We need to do the counts because if we don’t have the counts, then we can’t move forward. And we understand that there is a concern with this precinct—but this is not a time for you to be investigating right now.”
“Did you find something else?” the male counter asks.
“No,” she replies, adding, “So, you need to move forward with the audit, so we can get the numbers, so we can see how many ballots are here.”
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The female counter asks, “So when we’re done with the audit, there’s still the opportunity to challenge the fact that we have multiple ballots with the very same signature?” she asks.
“I don’t know if ‘challenge’ is the right word,” the SOS official says.
“But we’re challenging—” the volunteer says.
The male volunteer tells the SOS, “We’ll go ahead and count the ballots moving forward, but we will separate out, and count those— there’s going to be an asterisk, saying ‘these ballots have the same signature.’”
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“And again, we know that you have a concern with this precinct,” she tells them, explaining, “That’s not your role at this very moment,” as she continues to push for them to ignore the multiple matching signatures and only count the ballots.
“What I need you to do right now is finish the audit,” she tells them again. Both of the volunteers explain that they are going to make a note of the ballots, to which the SOS official replies, “Again, that is not the process.”
The SOS official implores them to continue to count the presidential ballots.
At no point does the SOS official assure them that the issue of the multiple potentially fraudulent ballots will be addressed, but instead demands that they count them as if they were all legitimate ballots.
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In this video, the SOS official can be seen telling the volunteers who are objecting to adding the ballots in question to the vote total, “This is not an investigation right now!”
On December 16, one day after Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos testified in front of the MI Senate Oversight Committee, Mr. DePerno contacted us to say Poulos was incorrect in his statement that the ballots were securely stored. In fact, Mr. Derno provided us with photos showing seals were broken on one of the tabulators. DePerno explained, “In Central Lake, the lock that protects the side data port where you can insert a thumb drive in order to perform a software upgrade, that could change the program, was missing.” He explains, “The missing lock gives the ability of any person, including a voter to change the Dominion Voting machine program.” Mr. DePerno explained to us that once the seals are broken, and the lock is removed, the integrity of the machines has been compromised. “It definitely showed that someone had accessed the inside of the tabulator, and it no longer represents a secure voting platform,” DePerno said.
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The bin (or box) seen in the image below is where the ballots are stored. DePerno explained, “If you remove the tape, it gives you the ability to separate the tabulator from the box that contains the ballots.”
The photo below shows the stack of ballots in Central Lake that were cast for Joe Biden. The ballots that are pulled forward are all ballots that the counters pulled forward after objecting to the legitimacy of the ballots.
Mr. DePerno was stunned by the number of blank ballots that were mixed in with actual ballots, saying that he believes he observed more blank ballots in the recount than there are registered voters in Antrim County.
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DePerno told us, “The guidelines from RLA were not followed. What they did yesterday was not an audit under those guidelines. It was a hand recount of the presidential race only and failed to address many of the problems with down-ballot races. Members of the public who assisted in the hand recount were not allowed to ask any questions or question any ballots. This hand recount also failed to address any of the glaring problems from the erroneous counts conducted on November 3 and November 6. Yesterday was nothing more than political theatre designed to allow the Secretary of State to again publish the same false narrative to the Michigan voters. Yesterday, when the people conducting the count dared ask questions, they were shut down.”
Several politicians have recently been offering free goodies to voters. One of the most popular of these, oddly enough, is something that several state governments have already tackled: free college tuition.
The details vary by state, but Oregon, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, and Louisiana (among others) all use tax dollars to pay for at least some of their residents’ college tuition.
Louisiana provides a great case study for advocates of similar federal policies. Louisiana just so happens to be in the news right now because the governor is threatening to suspend his state’s version of free college tuition for everyone.
Louisiana’s Tuition Program
Louisiana’s plan is called the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or, more commonly, TOPS. This extremely popular program uses tax dollars to pay full tuition (and some fees) at any of Louisiana’s public universities. Other than residency requirements, all high school students qualify as long as they have a C average (2.5 GPA) and at least an 18 on the ACT.
So the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students doesn’t cover every student’s tuition, but it ends up covering it for a large chunk of middle-/upper-class families.
How It Started
The program started out in the late 1980s as the brainchild of oil tycoon/philanthropist Patrick Taylor. The program, which wasn’t originally named for him, started out as a tuition assistance plan only for low-income individuals.
In 1997 the state removed the income caps. At that point, all Louisiana students, regardless of financial need, were made eligible for “free” tuition at any Louisiana public college. Once in college, students had to maintain a C average to keep their TOPS awards.
As of 2010, approximately 70 percent of Louisiana’s high school graduates headed to college within one year. That’s nearly 20 percent higher than the rate in 2000.
Who’s Paying for It?
It’s easy to call the program a success because of this increase, but it’s just as easy to point out that the program doesn’t really provide free education. In one way or another, someone pays for it.
The eventual implosion of the program was easy to predict back in 1997 for the same reasons that pretty much any similar subsidy is destined to fail. Subsidies don’t really lower the cost of products and services; they only lower the up-front price that some people pay.
(In 1997, this program inspired my very first public critique of a government policy. Back then, I thought it was a terrible idea.)
No Such Thing as Free Tuition
A person receiving “free” tuition may not see it (or even care), but subsides actually raise the total cost of an education. The core problem is that they remove the paying customer—in this case the student—from the equation.
Without the subsidy, the paying customer receives the direct benefit for the service and bears the direct cost. If that person doesn’t think the cost is worth it, they don’t pay.
Louisiana’s program replaces this paying customer with groups of government officials. These officials neither receive the direct benefit nor endure the direct cost of obtaining an education. These groups do, however, benefit a great deal from obtaining more of your tax dollars.
And they rarely bear any direct cost from either increasing your taxes or delivering a substandard education product. (The incumbency rate is fairly high for politicians.)
On a practical level, Louisiana’s program converts tuition payments into a state budget item. In other words, a large chunk of each school’s “tuition” becomes nothing more than revenue sent in by the state bureaucracy.
In Louisiana, four separate higher education systems—each its own bureaucracy—fight over these “tuition” payments. Smaller schools inevitably get the smallest shares, but that’s kind of another story.
A Burden on University Resources
When the influx of students hits—more people going to school when tuition is “free” is pretty much a foregone conclusion—it strains universities’ existing resources. So the transfer of money has the natural tendency to lead to expanded facilities, faculty, and staff.
But these increases call for a permanently higher level of funding, and all of these effects tend to reinforce each other. That is, school officials have a built in reason to ask for larger transfers, and politicians have a built in excuse to raise taxes.
When the state’s coffers are not flush with cash, the schools’ budgets get cut. Thus, universities have every incentive to raise more money from students who are not a part of the Taylor Opportunity Program.
Of course, for any given level of Taylor Opportunity Program students, a higher posted rate of tuition results in a larger transfer from the state. If the program covered full fees and tuition for literally every student, then taxpayers would bear the full cost. But it doesn’t, so non-TOPS students bear some of the cost.
(Pretty much every student ends up paying higher fees directly, too, but that’s almost an aside.)
Non-subsidized markets don’t work this way—prices can actually fall in response to changes in demand and supply. Subsidized systems, on the other hand, are destined to result in higher—not lower—tuition.
Recent numbers support this explanation. The Taylor Opportunity Program has nearly doubled in cost since 2008, and most of that increase has been due to higher tuition.
What I failed to fully appreciate in 1997 was how bad of a deal the Taylor Opportunity Program would end up being for the smaller schools. Then I spent almost a decade teaching at Nicholls State University, a regional state school in Thibodaux, La.
Small Universities Are Hardest Hit
In one sense, the Louisiana program amounted to a cruel trick for these institutions. Smaller schools are the ones least able to sustain the permanently higher costs associated with the new TOPS-generated revenue stream.
When the state budget goes south—and it always does in Louisiana—smaller schools get slammed. (Louisiana State University has more than 25,000 students, so small changes in per-student fees go a long way).
No matter how much we want it to, subsidizing something simply doesn’t make it more cost-effective.
The Taylor Opportunity Program does give certain people a better deal on tuition at one point in time, but then it makes up for it somewhere else.
Ironically, the earlier waves of Taylor Opportunity Program graduates are among those about to get hit with a tax increase. That’s what politicians mean by free.
Aside from the subsidy/cost issue, there are many other reasons why this is bad public policy.
First of all—and I know this sounds crazy—everyone should not go to college. Some people simply aren’t cut out, and many just don’t need to. Yes, people with college degrees tend to earn more than those without, but it does not follow that everyone should go to college.
When the program was started, Louisiana public universities offered students a good value because they were relatively inexpensive. Now that Louisiana taxpayers have spent more than $2 billion on the program, tuition rates are out of reach for many students that don’t qualify for the program.
While the best solution for Louisiana would be to get rid of the program altogether (unlikely since politicians love the program), the best residents can hope for now is an increase in the program’s academic standards and some form of means testing. At least these changes would better direct subsidies to academically prepared students with more financial need.