The usual suspects were back flogging their tales of election fraud--this time in sunny Brainerd, Minnesota last Thursday--and Minnesota District 12 state senator Torrey Westrom was in the audience.
At the Brainerd Dispatch, Tim Speier reports in Event outlining 2020 election fraud claims encourages local involvement:
About 300 people from across the state and country attended an event Thursday, Dec. 9, at the Brainerd Exchange event center to discuss the 2020 election in Minnesota. . . .
In attendance and applauding the claims made by the presenters were both current and former state representatives, who echoed the crowd’s sentiment. Minnesota State Sen. Torrey Westrom, a Republican who won his District 12 seat in the 2020 election, and former U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis, who lost his 2020 bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, were both in attendance.
Westrom declined an interview request. . . .
While we're curious about which "current and former state representatives" were in attendance, let's look at the speakers Senator Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, believed where worth a four-hour round trip to and from Brainerd, more or less.
Crow Wing County skeptics
There's Pastor Ben Davis of Remnant Ministry Center in Brainerd. He was part of the crowd [that] seeks 2020 election audit in Crow Wing County, as Chelsea Perkins reported for the dispatch at the end of October.
Crow Wing County voters overwhelming supported endorsed Republican federal and state candidates in the 2020 election, but these folks have their suspicions.
The event was listed on Eventbrite by the Crow Wing County Election Integrity Team.
The Midwest Swamp Watch Mirror
There were also these two:
. . . Rick Weible, the former mayor of St. Bonifacius, and attorney Susan Shogren Smith, who was given a $10,000 sanction in March after a judge found she “bamboozled” voters into signing on as plaintiffs in a lawsuit to contest Minnesota’s election results without their knowledge or permission.
Nuff said about Smith.
Speier doesn't go into Weible's role to undermining trust in Minnesota's elections, so we will. As yes, Weible is the Midwest Swamp Watch guy beloved of Glencoe Republican Glenn Gruenhagen. According to Bizapedia, Midwest Swamp Watch is:
Midwest Swamp Watch. LLC is a South Dakota Domestic llc filed On January 18, 2021. The company's filing status is listed as Good standing and its File Number is DL194899.
The Registered Agent on file for this company is Rick Weible and is located at 803 Elk Street, Elkton, SD 57026. The company's principal address is 803 Elk Street, Elkton, SD 57026 and its mailing address is 803 Elk Street, Elkton, SD 57026.
The company has 1 principal on record. The principal is Rick Weible from Elkton SD.
Just another example of the high-quality enterprises flowing into South Dakota.
Bring Me the News' Shaymus McLaughlin reported in Minnesota GOP Rep. spreads voter fraud disinformation, draws rebuke from SoS:
A Minnesota lawmaker is resurfacing months-old, unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, drawing sharp criticism from the Secretary of State.
"Did your vote count in 2020?" asks Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen at the start of a Sept. 21, 2021 video posted to YouTube, with the title "Minnesota Integrity." The six-term Republican from Glencoe, who handily won reelection that year, then goes on to suggests 39% of ballots in the state "were not connected to a registered voter" as of Nov. 29, 2020, which is after the election was certified. That figure includes 700.000 absentee ballots.
He then calls for a "forensic audit" to "find out what the actual vote count was."
A spokesperson for the Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon pointed to comments Simon provided to Minnesota Reformer (which the outlet published in an email newsletter). Simon described the fraud allegations as "unsubstantiated garbage."
So where is Gruenhagen getting these figures?
In the video, he refers to a vide from Jan. 18, 2021, posted by a group called "Midwest Swamp Watch." In the video, the presenter pulls data from two sources: the 2020 State Canvassing Board report filed Nov. 24, 2020 (available here), and registered voter history files provided via a public records request. The presenter compares the vote totals in the former to the registered voter totals in the latter to come up with a gap of 1.28 million ballots "not connected to a registered voter." The channel describes these as "missing votes," making up 38.9% of all votes cast in the state during the 2020 general election.
The secretary of state's office said this is a case of misinterpreting records, and cited a comment on the YouTube video it said explains the mistake. Essentially, the presenter incorrectly conflates two different databases — accepted absentee ballots recorded immediately in the Statewide Voter Registration System, and publicly available historic voter records — that have two distinct purposes. The latter can be updated as much as six weeks after the election.
Simon, to the Reformer, said spreading this type of fraud misinformation is "careless, foolish, irresponsible and has the real potential to mislead people, and that’s what’s so poisonous about all this.”
One of Gruenhagen's local papers picked up the story. At the Hutchinson Leader, Jeremy Jones reports in Secretary of State calls latest election claims by local state Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen 'unsubstantiated garbage':
The integrity of the 2020 election continues to make national headlines and spark debate in numerous states across America, and Minnesota is no exception.
Amid the discourse, Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, R-Glencoe, has repeated claims regarding Minnesota's 2020 election that Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon says are "unsubstantiated garbage." Those claims were recently highlighted in a Sept. 21 YouTube video in which Gruenhagen cites allegations from Midwest Swamp Watch, a limited liability company with a Brookings, South Dakota, address, with Rick Weible, Minnesota GOP operative and former St. Bonifacius mayor, listed as its agent.
“According to their research, 39% of Minnesota ballots were not connected to a registered voter as of Nov. 29, 2020, five days after the Minnesota canvassing board met and certified the election on Nov. 24," Gruenhagen says in the video. "Those 39% also included 700,000 absentee ballots that were not connected to a registered voter. ... We need a forensic audit here in the state of Minnesota to find out what the actual vote was."
In response, the Secretary of State's Office highlighted a comment left on a different Midwest Swamp Watch video earlier this year. The comment appears under the name Max Hailperin, a professor emeritus in math, computer science and statistics at Gustavus Adolphus College who has been awarded the National Association of Secretaries of State's Medallion Award for service in election-related technology and legislation.
“This analysis of absentee voting records was based on a misunderstanding. … Accepted absentee ballots are immediately recorded in the Statewide Voter Registration System as required by Minnesota Statutes section 203B.121, and those records are available contemporaneously under section 203B.12," he writes. "(The error is) to think that those records were the same as the voting history records available under section 201.091. ... Those voting history records can be posted up to six weeks after the election under section 201.171."
A spokesperson for the Secretary of State's Office said the two databases are not intended to match, and have different purposes. The voter history database is an "active snapshot in time" of who is registered to vote, and not a complete tally as Minnesota residents move, change names, die or are convicted of felonies.
"Trying to match an active snapshot in time to the accepted absentee ballot list will never result in a true 'match,'" the spokesperson said, "especially as the group in the video appears to have been looking at data during the six-week time period counties have to resolve any discrepancies."
Yep, that guy. Like a mirror, the swamp has two faces.
For Big Lie believers who can't get enough of this, Weible will be speaking at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday (today!), according to a news brief in the Sun/This Week, Republican Seniors of Minnesota meets Dec. 14:
Weible is a two-term St. Bonifacius mayor and data analyst who will discuss “the disconnect he found between reported election results and his analysis of the data,” according to a news release.
The event will begin at 9:30 a.m. with casual conversation with the meeting convening at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 14, at the Knights of Columbus/Bloomington Event Center, 1114 American Blvd. W., Bloomington. The cost is $5 for Republican Seniors members and $10 for non-members.
But there's more.
The debunked Seth Keshel
But as the Eventbrite graphic for the event clearly shows, the star attraction last Thursday was Seth Keshel. Speier reports:
The event also featured Seth Keshel, a self-described election data expert, predicting President Joe Biden’s vote counts in selected Minnesota counties. Keshel presented an explanation of his methods used to calculate expected voter numbers in the 2020 election, saying the finalized numbers “moved beyond what our data shows.” . . .
Participants were told to continue the push for election audits at the county level, highlighting the Crow Wing County Board meeting Tuesday, Dec. 14. . . .
“In six months, if a candidate comes to you asking for money, to put up signs or for any help, ask them about doing a … forensic audit,” Keshel said. “If they say no, they’re dead to you.” . . .
Lasting about two and a half hours, about two-thirds of those in attendance left after Keshel finished speaking. . . .
And who is this fellow? In early August, Associated Press reporter Ali Swanson looked into his election fraud claims in Report claiming ‘excess’ Biden votes doesn’t show fraud:
CLAIM: A state-by-state report of excess votes for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election suggests there was election fraud and affirms that former President Donald Trump actually won seven key states that were called for Biden.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. This report, which bases its claims on assumptions related to voting and registration trends, provides no proof of fraud. Political scientists who spoke to The Associated Press confirmed that conclusions of likely fraud do not follow from the data.
THE FACTS: A former army captain’s report gaining traction among some conservatives this week falsely claims Trump won several states that he lost in the 2020 election.
The report amassed thousands of views on Telegram, Facebook, Twitter and conservative websites, with some headlines claiming it affirmed Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and Minnesota.
It was also promoted by Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump himself, who said the report contained “election-changing” numbers that showed the 2020 election was fraudulent and he actually won “by a LOT.”
Trump has continued to falsely claim he won the election since his loss nine months ago. Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, earning 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. State officials from both parties, election security experts and former Republican Attorney General William Barr said the election went smoothly with no evidence of widespread fraud.
Trump’s recent claim that the report’s findings could have changed the election results also have no merit, according to political scientists who reviewed the report.
The report appears to use voting trends, population growth data and registration records to create “heat maps” showing how far the 2020 results diverged from the author’s predictions at the county, state and national levels. However, it doesn’t disclose where these numbers originated or the methods by which the analysis was performed. It claims there was likely “Strong/Rampant” fraud in several states and counties nationwide, but appears to base the claim solely on how different the results were from a prediction, not on any actual examples of fraud.
The author, Seth Keshel, identifies himself on LinkedIn as a tech company sales manager and former baseball analyst but does not identify any election experience. His report acknowledges that the state-by-state tallies of “excess votes” for Biden are “lenient” estimates that demand further research, but frequently repeats the false claim that the numbers suggest fraud.
Harvard University political scientist Gary King reviewed the report and previously reviewed similar election claims from Keshel as part of a lawsuit in Arizona. In both situations, King said, the data showed no evidence of fraud and ignored the reality that voters act in ways that don’t match up with predictive modeling.
“There is zero valuable academic information here,” King told the AP. “Voters, they’re allowed to do what they want. They surprise us. It’s incredible hubris to imagine your model is always right. That’s just crazy.”
University of Georgia political scientist and pollster Trey Hood reviewed the report and came to the same conclusion.
“This is certainly no method for uncovering voter fraud,” Hood said. “It doesn’t show anything. There are myriad reasons why someone chooses to turn out to vote or not to turn out to vote or who to vote for. I wouldn’t even call it a gross simplification. It’s just nothing.”
Contacted for response, Keshel said his analysis was an exhaustive process that took weeks to conduct. He said that given deadlines there was not time to go over the work in detail, but suggested that full forensic audits would help put the matter to rest.
Okay then. Keshel has also been a go-to fellow for Pillow Guy Mike Lindell, Salon's Zachary Petrizzo reported in Mike Lindell's new genius plan: Knock on your door and ask whether you're dead:
After numerous failed attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, now-infamous pillow mogul Mike Lindell has a new plan of sorts: He's begun meeting with Republican lawmakers in deep-red states and plans to send out door-to-door canvassers aiming to prove the election was faked.
Josh Merritt, a former member of Lindell's "red team" at his August "cyber symposium" in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, told Salon that Lindell is funding a last-ditch door-knocking effort based on rumors that there are many "phantom voters" — people who have died or moved away — on official rolls. This claim is not new, and has been thoroughly debunked.
Merritt added that Lindell is "targeting areas of question based off info from guys like Dr. Douglas Frank and Seth Keshel." Frank and Keshel are two of Lindell's close associates, who have pushed a variety of baseless claims of voter fraud on the pillow tycoon's behalf over the past year.
If there's one thing America needs right now, it's folks knocking on doors asking us if we're dead.
Where the money is: R-4 Foundation
We've been growing increasingly curious where the money for this sort of tomfoolery comes from. Speier reported:
Organizers of the “Searching For Truth” event collaborated with the R-4 Foundation, an organization founded by Bob Gross and Nina Gross, owners of MaxBotix, to “tilt society towards God by bringing His values into everything.”
Organizers, hinting at the cost of the event before Keshel went on stage and stating those who gave money could get a tax receipt, collected donations in envelopes marked with “Support R-4” as workers went around with baskets.
While we're most cheerful about tax deductible donations going to causes that feed the hungry, bring water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, tend to the sick, and visit folks in jail, the R-4 Foundation seems to be just another seven mountains dominionist joint. Messing with the mountain of government is part of their mission from God, whatever Jesus may say. R-4 Foundation's mission page outlines the work to be done on each mountain.
Will Westrom answer questions in his district?
We're curious whether Westrom will answer questions from voters and media in his district. Is he onboard with this clap-trap? O was he just there for the experience?
Photo: An event titled "Searching for Truth" features Rick Weible, left, Seth Keshel and Susan Shogren Smith Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021, at the Brainerd Exchange event center. Speakers outlined 2020 election fraud claims and encouraged local participation in government and elections. Tim Speier / Brainerd Dispatch.
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