Thanks, Jack. I had to read the article from wyomingnews.com for the specifics of the overreach and aggressive behavior. Everyone needs to know about what they will do.
We can be pretty, pretty sure that they will try these techniques all over the country. They thought Wyoming was a safe place to try out their scheme. Ha! As Governor Gordon puts it, “I feel very strongly about federal government coming in and taking our guns,” he said. “I don’t like that. And I don’t like federal government coming in and taking our votes either.”
Here are the examples of the aggression tactics, including the lame excuse of the notice going to a wrong email address. Lee is the name of the clerk. Read and prepare!
“Two individuals, identifying themselves as DOJ election monitors, informed our poll worker that they were here to monitor Wyoming’s Primary Elections,” Lee said in a statement released Wednesday evening. “They did not offer their credentials until I requested they do so.”
Their presence also caught the longtime clerk off-guard. “Shortly after learning of their presence, I spoke with a DOJ official in Washington who informed me that the decision to deploy monitors to Wyoming was made on short notice, and an email had been sent to me, but it may have gone to the wrong address,” Lee wrote.
The monitors arrived at a busy time and asked questions, according to Lee, that appeared “outside the scope of federal voting rights laws. They included questions about the nature, length, and timing of poll worker training. Monitors requested training guides, asked how our new election equipment was acquired, and wanted to examine our tabulators.”
When she learned that the monitors also planned to interview voters “to assess compliance with federal civil rights and voting rights law,” she denied that request. “We do not allow interviews to be conducted in polling places,” Lee said.
“This was a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections,” her statement concluded.
To see a Republican Governor, pushing back like that…and making the “taking away our weapons” comparison…is INCREDIBLY eye opening. At least it was for me.
What I take away from THAT comment…specifically…is a Governor…who has finally felt the BONE jarring….punch in the gut..that comes from realizing what Trump is willing to do…to stay OUT of prison.
Thanks Jack ! Very interesting , the only thing I know about Wyoming is there are a lot of hideous crimes and prisons , glad they take care with voting
History has a nasty habit of announcing trouble in the most boring language imaginable. “Procedure.” “Jurisdiction.” “Irregularities.” “Administrative concerns.” Nobody hears those words and thinks democracy is being tested. They should.
That is what makes Wyoming interesting.
Nobody is claiming the election was stolen. Nobody is claiming the ballots disappeared into a ditch. Governor Mark Gordon said the election was run beautifully. His complaint was about federal officials allegedly exceeding their authority and arriving without proper notice.
That sounds boring.
It isn’t.
Because democratic institutions do not usually collapse with a marching band and a warning siren. They are weakened through small fights over authority, boundaries and procedure—until everyone discovers that the old rules were apparently optional.
And Wyoming offers a particularly revealing preview.
Two federal attorneys arrive in one county. The Republican governor asks his Republican attorney general to investigate. A Republican county clerk objects. Washington and Cheyenne suddenly find themselves arguing over who gets to do what inside a polling place.
No stolen election. No conspiracy. Just a fight over the machinery.
And machinery is exactly what we should be watching.
The people administering elections are not the cable-news characters who will spend November screaming “fraud” or “suppression” into cameras. They are county clerks, election workers and local officials who have to know where the ballots are, what the law says and whether the damn process actually worked.
They don’t get to manufacture a storyline after the fact. They have to run the election.
That makes your warning about November particularly important. When roughly 1,000 federal monitors enter the field, every procedural dispute becomes political ammunition. One side will call it federal overreach. The other will call it protection against voter suppression. Social media will turn a misunderstanding into a constitutional crisis before anyone has finished reading the statute.
The facts will arrive last.
That is the danger.
Wyoming isn’t telling us that November will be stolen. It is telling us something more uncomfortable: the battle over elections may begin long before anyone counts the votes.
Watch the clerks.
When Washington starts screaming, they may be the people who can still tell us what actually happened.
Our supervisor of elections has kept our elections safe from everything I can see. And there is no mention of party affiliation. That's the way it should be...Glad the clerks are holding the line.
Thanks, Jack. I had to read the article from wyomingnews.com for the specifics of the overreach and aggressive behavior. Everyone needs to know about what they will do.
We can be pretty, pretty sure that they will try these techniques all over the country. They thought Wyoming was a safe place to try out their scheme. Ha! As Governor Gordon puts it, “I feel very strongly about federal government coming in and taking our guns,” he said. “I don’t like that. And I don’t like federal government coming in and taking our votes either.”
Here are the examples of the aggression tactics, including the lame excuse of the notice going to a wrong email address. Lee is the name of the clerk. Read and prepare!
“Two individuals, identifying themselves as DOJ election monitors, informed our poll worker that they were here to monitor Wyoming’s Primary Elections,” Lee said in a statement released Wednesday evening. “They did not offer their credentials until I requested they do so.”
Their presence also caught the longtime clerk off-guard. “Shortly after learning of their presence, I spoke with a DOJ official in Washington who informed me that the decision to deploy monitors to Wyoming was made on short notice, and an email had been sent to me, but it may have gone to the wrong address,” Lee wrote.
The monitors arrived at a busy time and asked questions, according to Lee, that appeared “outside the scope of federal voting rights laws. They included questions about the nature, length, and timing of poll worker training. Monitors requested training guides, asked how our new election equipment was acquired, and wanted to examine our tabulators.”
When she learned that the monitors also planned to interview voters “to assess compliance with federal civil rights and voting rights law,” she denied that request. “We do not allow interviews to be conducted in polling places,” Lee said.
“This was a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections,” her statement concluded.
https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/gov-gordon-concerned-by-aggressive-doj-election-observers-during-wyoming-s-primary/article_84eecdb6-b16d-45f4-9bec-7f9286412a3e.html
MB…pretty damn compelling, eh?!
To see a Republican Governor, pushing back like that…and making the “taking away our weapons” comparison…is INCREDIBLY eye opening. At least it was for me.
What I take away from THAT comment…specifically…is a Governor…who has finally felt the BONE jarring….punch in the gut..that comes from realizing what Trump is willing to do…to stay OUT of prison.
-Jack
Oh, nonononono!!
Restacked and sharing. This would’ve never flown in any polling place I ever worked in.
Thanks Jack ! Very interesting , the only thing I know about Wyoming is there are a lot of hideous crimes and prisons , glad they take care with voting
Jack,
History has a nasty habit of announcing trouble in the most boring language imaginable. “Procedure.” “Jurisdiction.” “Irregularities.” “Administrative concerns.” Nobody hears those words and thinks democracy is being tested. They should.
That is what makes Wyoming interesting.
Nobody is claiming the election was stolen. Nobody is claiming the ballots disappeared into a ditch. Governor Mark Gordon said the election was run beautifully. His complaint was about federal officials allegedly exceeding their authority and arriving without proper notice.
That sounds boring.
It isn’t.
Because democratic institutions do not usually collapse with a marching band and a warning siren. They are weakened through small fights over authority, boundaries and procedure—until everyone discovers that the old rules were apparently optional.
And Wyoming offers a particularly revealing preview.
Two federal attorneys arrive in one county. The Republican governor asks his Republican attorney general to investigate. A Republican county clerk objects. Washington and Cheyenne suddenly find themselves arguing over who gets to do what inside a polling place.
No stolen election. No conspiracy. Just a fight over the machinery.
And machinery is exactly what we should be watching.
The people administering elections are not the cable-news characters who will spend November screaming “fraud” or “suppression” into cameras. They are county clerks, election workers and local officials who have to know where the ballots are, what the law says and whether the damn process actually worked.
They don’t get to manufacture a storyline after the fact. They have to run the election.
That makes your warning about November particularly important. When roughly 1,000 federal monitors enter the field, every procedural dispute becomes political ammunition. One side will call it federal overreach. The other will call it protection against voter suppression. Social media will turn a misunderstanding into a constitutional crisis before anyone has finished reading the statute.
The facts will arrive last.
That is the danger.
Wyoming isn’t telling us that November will be stolen. It is telling us something more uncomfortable: the battle over elections may begin long before anyone counts the votes.
Watch the clerks.
When Washington starts screaming, they may be the people who can still tell us what actually happened.
#HOLDFAST
Interesting observation Jack. Thanks for sharing
Teri…it’s going to be interesting. Particularly the pushback from REPUBLICAN clerks.
-Jack
Our supervisor of elections has kept our elections safe from everything I can see. And there is no mention of party affiliation. That's the way it should be...Glad the clerks are holding the line.
Damn right, Teri! That’s EXACTLY how it should be.
-Jack