09/19/2022 Clark County, WA
In today’s episode of The Biggest Lie, we once again visit Auditor Greg Kimsey’s public statement on Facebook that, in a single paragraph, sums up his entire political platform. In this statement, we can see the mechanics of dishonesty in full view, as likely passed down through talking points and memos from the State level. We’ll always provide you a copy of his statement in its entirety, so nothing in this series can be taken out of context.
Let’s begin.
Sentence number 9.
Kimsey says,
“For example, in Washington voted ballots, an image of those voted ballots are not public documents. Another example is that physical access to the elections system hardware by anyone other than an elections office employee, may result in that equipment losing its certification.”
Let’s unpack this statement word by word. First, Kimsey claims that the image of the ballot is not a public document. Of course, every single document in an election is a public document, because elections belong to the public. The officials who run elections are hired or elected by the public, and anything and everything they do is under the complete oversight of the public. They are responsible to the public so their work product ultimately belongs to the public.
But Auditor Kimsey, and more importantly his handlers at the Secretary of State’s Office, believes you are not entitled to see an image of that ballot, because according to Kimsey, by law, he doesn’t have to disclose it to you. He claims that the digital image of the ballot is not subject to public disclosure laws because it is an identifiable voting record.
Of course, the law DOES restrict any personally identifiable ballot information from public disclosure. That part is true. But what is untrue is that the digital image of the ballot is personally identifiable at all. It’s not. Once you open the ballot and remove it from its envelope, there is no personally identifiable data stored on the ballot. Period. So a copy or digital image of the ballot would also NOT be personally identifiable.
Why is this important? Because in a full forensic audit, we would compare the digital images of the ballots to the machine produced CVRs or Cast Vote Records, and then again to the handcount results to confirm the data. The digital image of the ballot is a crucial and necessary part of the forensic election audit. Without a copy of the digital image, you would also have no point of reference to determine post election ballot tampering.
But it’s the second part of Kimsey’s statement that is most troubling. Here, he claims that physical access to the elections system hardware by anyone other than an elections office employee, may result in that equipment losing its certification. This statement is really unbelievable, coming from the mouth of the same Auditor who literally sent the same machine hard drives by FedEx for supposed software updates to a vendor in Texas. In direct violation of Federal records retention laws and chain of custody requirements.
The truth is, Washington State Administrative Code clearly states that the county auditor shall NOT provide physical, electronic, or internal access to third parties seeking to copy and/or conduct an examination of state certified voting systems…
And then there’s those pesky federal record retention laws 52 USC 20701 You know, the ones that govern Retention and preservation of records and papers by officers of elections; deposits with custodians; and penalties for violations.
This law clearly states the penalty of one year in prison and $1000 fine for failing to retain election records for 22 months after a Presidential election. Kimsey shipped ours out of state to a 3rd party vendor- who immediately erased them- less than 6 months after the 2020 election.
What Auditor Kimsey WON’T tell you, is that when he shipped off the election machine hard drives to Texas via FedEX, he committed a Federal Crime. When he allowed the hard drives to be completely erased only 6 months after the election, he committed a Federal Crime. Now, he attempts to revise reality and call his crimes a “safety measure”. All while destroying the exact evidence so many of his constituents seek to uncover.
It’s almost as if he thought there was really no way he could ever lose his elected position as Clark County Auditor. Ever. No matter what laws he broke.
Go figure.
So when you hear Kimsey say,
“in Washington voted ballots, an image of those voted ballots are not public documents.”
Or
“Another example is that physical access to the elections system hardware by anyone other than an elections office employee, may result in that equipment losing its certification.”
.
Now you know how completely misleading those statements really are..
Join me at simpson4auditor.com and join our fight to restore election integrity to all citizens of Clark County. Together, let’s make sure every legal vote gets counted!
