Today’s Links
Articles:
Votebeat – Election activists are seeking the “cast vote record” from 2020. Here’s what it is and why they want it.
Washington Post – Trump backers flood election offices with requests as 2022 vote nears
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
Election-denier activists are trying to obtain the “Cast Vote Record” report from vote tabulating machines around the country in a nationwide effort to prove the existence of wide-spread voter fraud.
The nonprofit democracy news service VoteBeat reported last week that nearly identical requests are being made around the country, pushed by high profile election deniers like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Lindell and other conspiracy theorists are apparently providing “cut and paste” request language for supporters to request the information from their local election officials. If the data is provided, the group intends to centrally analyze it, despite no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
The Cast Vote Record is a data file which vote tabulating machines like that of Dominion Voting Systems record. While its format varies by type of machine, it records the raw data of the circles filled in, and sometimes records an image of the ballot. But there is no information about the voter or the voter’s identity, and it captures only machine-counted ballots, not those counted by hand.
Votebeat reports that some election offices have received dozens of these requests, including 90 requests in Maricopa County, Arizona alone, each one consuming staff time to process. Rules vary by state, with some states allowing unofficial access to the files, and some not allowing any public access, resulting in lawsuits demanding that access.
To learn more find a link to the VoteBeat story at our website, AmericanDemocracy Minute.org.
Granny D said, “Democracy is not something we HAVE, it’s something we DO!” For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl