Voters concerned about election fraud are increasing the pressure on public officials to take additional steps during elections this year to provide additional security, including counting ballots by hand instead of using electronic voting machines for tabulation. Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O’Connor sent all Arizona county election officials and sheriffs a letter on August 30 urging the change, and now grassroots organizations are following up with their own campaign.
The Save My Freedom movement, headed by Arizona activist Michele Swinick, is working in conjunction with ACT for America, the organization run by Brigitte Gabriel, to further the effort. During an episode of Swinick’s podcast The Everything Home Talk Show on Sunday, she discussed the joint effort with ACT for America’s National Grassroots Director Christine Reagan and O’Connor.
The campaign is launching in all eight battleground states on Thursday. Swinick, who has a background in digital marketing, told The Arizona Sun Times, “It takes less than two minutes a day to take back America with this one-click email campaign.” The campaign is on the ACT for America website, and includes options to email the 120 Arizona officials O’Connor targeted, customize the message, share it on social media, sign the petition, and call the officials. She requests that voters repeat the process every day.
Reagan said during the podcast, “If the country of France can move to a 100-percent paper ballot election, with over 49 million people registered to vote in that country, I think Arizona can figure it out county by county.”
Swinick told The Sun Times the response has been tremendous within just the first 24 hours. She is tracking the results of the campaign through “actions,” meaning how many people are opening her emails, sending emails through the campaign, and taking other affirmative action via the website. Over 279,000 actions have taken place since the campaign launched. Reagan said that so far 110 counties across the U.S. have decided this year to conduct the November election without using voting machines.
O’Connor said, “Most county staff, election departments, cannot even turn those machines on without the machine vendor and his employees being there to let that happen.” O’Connor said Maricopa County Elections Director Scott Jarrett confirmed this during sworn testimony.
O’Connor expressed his dismay at what he called “stolen elections” and warned that the deficits in the current system threaten the foundations of self-governance. “This is not a Republican or Democrat problem, this is a legal American voter problem,” he said.
The corporation commissioner explained that the state’s election procedures manual (which has not been updated since 2019 due to a dispute over approving a newer version), provides instructions to election officials on how to conduct a paper-ballot-only election without voting machines. He said the “big problem” is “laziness” on the part of election officials who won’t switch, and said people would be happy to provide “a million volunteers” to assist counting ballots.
O’Connor said he believes the grassroots effort can work, “The one thing I’ve learned a lot after watching politics for a lifetime is elected officials fold like a cheap suit under pressure. … Two months from now is two months too late.”
The press release from the grassroots campaign states that the reason for the campaign is due to information that came out within the past few months, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s June security advisory on vulnerabilities with voting machines, the documentaries 2000 Mules and Selection Code, Mike Lindell’s “Moment of Truth Summit” conference, and the primary election in El Paso County, Colorado, where Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters stated that a recount of over 4,000 paper ballots revealed a possible voting machine error rate of 50-plus percent.
The campaign is supported by election integrity activist Liz Harris, as well as Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Trump-endorsed State Representative Mark Finchem (R-Oro Valley), candidate for secretary of state, who both unsuccessfully sued to stop the use of electronic voting machines this November.
O’Connor said he is in the process of setting up an official voter fraud workshop prior to the election for local public officials and candidates that will feature testimony from 15 national experts.
– – –
Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
