Iowa Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate seemed somewhat exasperated by the question. No, he said. Voter tabulators are not connected to the internet, which would make them vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.
He laid out the facts:
- Iowans vote on paper ballots in all elections and those ballots are preserved to ensure accurate results
- Vote tabulators are not connected to the internet or to each other
- Every vote tabulator is stored securely when not in use and undergoes a logic accuracy test in which the public is invited to attend and watch
- Sample ballots are tested on the machine to ensure the tabulators are working correctly and recording votes properly
- Postelection audits are conducted in all 99 Iowa counties to ensure the hand-count and tabulator totals match
- In the 2020 elections, the postelection audits matched tabulator results in all 99 counties
Pate, a Republican, and the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office have been trying to tamp down voting misinformation and disinformation, while members of his own party are pushing conspiracy theories including those running for office in Linn and Johnson counties.
Pate’s office has been producing statements, videos and other information, including a dedicated “myth vs. fact” website, that pushes back on lies and distorted facts about elections in Iowa.
“We work very hard to give people the facts,” Pate said. “(Iowa) has been ranked among the top three states in the country for election administration. But, at the end of the day, we have given them both the integrity and the components they need to be confident that (Iowa’s election security) is on the up and up.”
He added: “If people lose confidence in our election system and our results, we have lost. We have lost our republic. And, if we lose our republic, you just gave the Russians — you just gave the Chinese — a victory without firing a single bullet.”
Local candidates embrace conspiracies
Pate’s comments came while standing next to a table of campaign literature for Republican candidates running for office in Linn County.
Among them is Republican newcomer Anne Fairchild, who is running against Democratic community organizer Sami Scheetz for the Iowa House District 78 seat, which largely encompasses southeast Cedar Rapids.
Fairchild was nominated to run for the seat in a special convention of Republicans in July. Her platform includes a push to ban the use of voting machines and ballot tabulators, and eliminating same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting.
Fairchild, in an interview in early October with The Gazette, falsely claimed vote tabulators in the state are connected to the internet, making them vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.
She asserted hand-counted results are more secure and should be implemented — another myth Pate’s office has rebutted.
“Hand-counting 1.7 million ballots for the results of one election would take several weeks and would be much more prone to human error and potential fraud than vote tabulators that are certified, tested and audited before and after the election to ensure accuracy,” the Iowa Secretary of State’s office posted on Twitter.
Regardless, Fairchild insisted that the voting process in the Unites States is flawed, and that she does not believe the country “has had a free or fair election for decades, to be really honest.”
Fairchild is not alone in making the claim.
She was among at least four Republican state legislative candidates on hand for a July 27 “Election Integrity Summit” in Independence with Douglas Frank, according to video posted by the liberal political news site Iowa Starting Line.
Others candidates on hand, according to the video, included Brad Sherman, Edward Bernie Hayes and state Rep. Sandy Salmon, R-Janesville.
The summit was organized by a group called Iowa Canvassing, which on its website bills itself as a “grassroots group of volunteers keeping Iowa voter rolls clean for fair and trusted elections.”
Frank, a former math teacher from Ohio who travels the country speaking to groups, claims to have discovered algorithms used to rig the 2020 election and that voting rolls had been hacked.
Pate fights ‘myths’ as his party’s candidates push election conspiracies
Iowa’s Republican Secretary of State’s Office has been trying to tamp down voting misinformation, while members of his own party are pushing conspiracy theories, including those running for office in Linn and Johnson counties.
www.thegazette.com