Kentucky’s governor’s race is raising eyebrows on the right, as reports of gas leaks and improbable election totals have sparked flashbacks to the 2020 election.
On Tuesday, reports of a gas leak at a polling place that extended vote counting hours had many armchair observers wondering if this was a repeat of the infamous incident at State Farm Arena in 2020, when a water leak was reported in the early hours of the election. Day.
But Democratic loyalists quickly countered that there was no basis to believe the gas leak had anything to do with Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear’s declared victory in the deep red state.
Officials are refuting claims online that a gas leak at a polling place in Kentucky’s largest county was election tampering that helped Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear win re-election.
The claims garnered thousands of shares on social media Tuesday after reports of a gas leak at Louisville’s Highland Baptist Church caused polls to be shut down for about 30 minutes while Louisville Gas & Electric investigated the problem . The delay caused a judge to extend voting at the church until 6:30 PM instead of 6:00 PM EST.
Social media users questioned whether the gas leak was real and suggested that extended voting hours in a Democratic county gave Beshear the votes he needed to win.
The delay was prompted by a legitimate report of a gas release from a stove at the church, said Chris Whelan, a spokesman for Louisville Gas & Electric. Gas was detected, but not at dangerous levels, he said. The stove went out and dissipated.
Let’s take it for granted that HuffPo’s vehement protests against election shenanigans are spot on. An anomaly of voting results in the state race is much more provocative.
The issue was raised by expert X “fun” in a thread posted below.
ELECTION: There are many pundits explaining why the GOP didn’t win the Kentucky governorship, but none of them make much sense to me. How did the GOP AG get 125,000 more votes than the GOP Gov candidate? Why did 57,000 fewer people vote for Governor than AG? pic.twitter.com/3xxIVgQ9Xv
— @amuse (@amuse) November 8, 2023
“There are many pundits explaining why the GOP didn’t win the Kentucky governorship, but none of them make much sense to me. How did the GOP AG get 125,000 more votes than the GOP Gov candidate? Why did they 57,000 fewer people vote for governor than AG?
The Associated Press reported Wednesday morning that Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear has 693,370 votes
However, Republican attorney general nominee Russell Coleman defeated Democrat Pamela Stevenson. His final vote total? 752,303 votes.
That would be 57,000 more votes than Andy Beshear got.
So all those voters who ran for Russell Coleman turned up their noses when it came to Daniel Cameron?
It’s possible, but it seems implausible.
The dynamics of the 2023 election in Kentucky should be taken a little apart to assess how implausible it is.
Abortion as an issue is seen as very important. The state had passed a highly restrictive abortion law in 2022 that mobilized Democratic voters. Daniel Cameron, a Trump-backed candidate, presented himself as an unapologetic evangelical who had condemned abortion without moral ambiguity (although he qualified his position somewhat late in his campaign).
Russell Coleman is more of an establishment Republican. He served as the US Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky. He was also a senior adviser and legal advisor to Senator Mitch McConnell and is a former FBI special agent.
That’s fascinating, especially given the extensive complaints election integrity advocates on the left have made about Kentucky politics and McConnell’s cozying up to voting machine companies.
In 2019, Newsweek reports, McConnell received a “large amount of donations” from four of the nation’s top voting machine lobbyists.
McConnell would go on to crush three election security bills.
“I’m not surprised that Mitch McConnell is getting these campaign contributions,” Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice told Sludge at the time. “He seems single-handedly opposed to anything that happens in Congress around election security, and that includes things that vendors may want, like money for states to replace outdated equipment.”
One of the bills, the Securing America’s Federal Elections or SAFE Act, would have authorized more funding for the Election Assistance Commission and includes language that would prohibit voting machines from being connected to the Internet and produced in foreign countries.
The Wall Street Journal, in an article that nuanced the positives and negatives of the legislation, laid out what the SAFE Act would have done.
“At the heart of the SAFE Act is a pool of federal money, $600 million in the first year, to help states improve their voting systems. The bill would standardize and tighten election rules. All votes for a federal charge would have to be cast by ballots. Then a portion of that audit trail would have to be manually checked for each election. Voting machines, probably devices that help mark paper ballots, they couldn’t be manufactured outside the US or connect to the Internet.”
At first glance, these seem like sensible reforms for the general electorate.
Interestingly, Newsweek noted that “McConnell’s actions appeared even more out of balance with his party as the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee released a report later Thursday claiming that the Russians have targeted voting systems in all 50 states in 2016.”
Whether the American people should be more concerned about the Russians or partisan domestic activists acting as bad actors is up for debate.
On Tuesday, we witnessed problems with the Ballot Marking Device (BMD) in Northampton County, in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where the machines were shut down due to reports of voting errors, including “votes were they invested.” The county then went on the ballot.
In Harris County, there were also reports of problems with “hybrid” voting machines.
Kentucky’s active voting machines, according to the State Board of Elections, are: ES&S DS200 Scanner; ES&S ExpressVote BMD terminal; Hart Intercivic Escan; Hart Intercivic Slate; Hart Intercivic Verity Scan; Hart Intercivic Verity Touchwriter; and Hart Intercivic Verity Duo. Below is a brief description:
The ES&S DS200 is “a vote scanner and vote tabulator that combines the flexibility and efficiency of digital imaging technology to support paper voting.” The ES&S ExpressVote BMD terminal is a “paper-based ExpressVote universal voting system that uses touchscreen technology that produces a paper record for tabulation.” The Hart Intercivic Escan is a “ballot scanning device. It is used to support polling places with voters who manually mark paper ballots (usually distributed at the polling place registration station) and then they hand-feed the paper ballots into the scanner, in order to cast the vote.”
The Hart Intercivic Eslate is “a direct recording electronic voting device. The eSlate is typically used in voting centers that have implemented a fully electronic voting experience as an alternative to hand-marked paper ballots.” The Hart Intercivic Verity scan is “a device for scanning and tabulating ballots. It is most often used to support polling places with voters who mark paper ballots by hand.” The Hart InterCivic Verity Touch Writer is “a ballot marking device that combines touchscreen voting with a commercial printer ( COTS) attached commercial”.
Hart InterCivic’s Verity Duo is “a ballot marking device that combines touchscreen voting with an integrated thermal printer and is typically used in jurisdictions that offer Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) for all voters” .
According to the non-profit organization Common Cause, “the most effective solutions to improve the integrity of our elections are often simple and common sense. They include”:
Get rid of old and outdated voting machines, upgrade the technology we use, and move toward using paper ballots in every state.
Require risk-limited post-election ballot audits to confirm that reported election results are accurate. Secure paper backups of our voter registration databases and electronic returns. Eliminate the use of online voting. Ballots cast by e-mail or through an Internet portal are vulnerable to hacking.
So is there reason to suspect any malfeasance in the Kentucky election? This is up for debate.
The Daily Kos took a deep dive into Kentucky’s 2021 election results and found a number of anomalies. The report was based in part on reporting by Alison Greene in the DC Report.
“I can also confirm the anomalous nature of the results, as Ms. Greene pointed out: In a county with six Dem voters for every one GOP voter, we wouldn’t expect Trump to get at least three times as many votes as Biden, nor would. expect McConnell to get twice as many votes as McGrath. In fact, in this Dem-majority county, the only Dem candidate who polled better than his Republican challenger was the SC justice candidate.”
In short, in 2020 there was an unexpectedly high number of Republican voters who went to vote in heavily Democratic counties. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything with voting machines, in particular, because turnout anomalies were recorded at both ES&S and Hart Intercivic. machines
But given the attorney general candidate’s background, as well as donations from voting machine lobbyists to Sen. Mitch McConnell, the results of the 2023 off-election are intriguing and certainly a basis for further investigation.
NOW READ:
Voting machines shut down in Swing State county after reports of ‘vote flipping’
Español de Venezuela 
English 