Much of the news out of Monticello these days relates to Leaks from Minnesota nuclear power plant raise safety fears across US, as the Guardian reported.
On Tuesday night, though, the Big Lie returns to the town by the Mississippi River, in the person of Midwest Swamp Watch's Rick Weible, a self-proclaimed "tax refugee" whose wife Gretchen Weible, was campaign manager for South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson, who snatched the Republican endorsement and the statewide office from a sitting Republican incumbent.
Weibel is one of two stars in Deena Winter's March 7, 2022, overview in the Minnesota Reformer, The big lie goes on tour in Minnesota:
A former small-town Minnesota mayor and a retired Army captain from Texas have been traveling the state claiming the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans, including GOP U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis.
Trump supporters and members of the “America First” movement, armed with the sophisticated-seeming but ultimately debunked statistical analysis, have bombarded local and state election officials with questions, demands for “audits” and even threats about unfounded election conspiracy claims. The secretary of state’s office gets a steady stream of messages on email and social media saying things like “You’re going to jail tomorrow,” or “U.S. marshals are knocking.”
The cowboy and the self-described nerd drew hundreds of people to what they call “Behind the Election Corruption Curtain” events in Brainerd in December, and Monticello last month. . . .
He leaves the “figuring out” to people like Rick Weible, who took the Monticello stage after Keshel, quickly noting that he wears glasses.
“Yeah, I’m that guy,” he said. “I’m a geek. I’m a nerd.”
The former mayor of St. Bonifacius, Minn., Weible has been posting YouTube videos for about a year — he calls it Midwest SwampWatch — laying out election fraud claims in Minnesota.
Weible claims 39% of ballots cast in Minnesota in 2020 can’t be “connected” to registered voters — including 700,000 absentee ballots. In Dakota County, for example, 666 ballots aren’t “connected” to voters, he said.
He’s trying to track the total number of voters with a list of registered voters and their voting histories — which campaigns and political groups use to target voters.
Hailperin said Weible is simply unaware of how the voter file works.
The list of registered voters doesn’t include people who ask to be omitted, or people who have died or moved since the election. It’s not possible for private citizens to match ballots with voters, Hailperin said, especially when counties have six weeks after the election to update the voter histories, and they can get extensions.
Hailperin allowed that it’s reasonable for Weible to ask why some counties were so slow to post voter histories, perhaps because they didn’t have the staff or resources. He added, however, that the voter history file has never been a complete list, nor does it instantly come into existence the day the election is over.
Weible disagreed, saying the two databases should match up.
Hailpersin also said he reached out to Weible and has spoken to him at length, telling him he misunderstands the system. Weible is still doing presentations on what Hailperin calls the “dog and pony show circuit.”
“Weible knows a fair bit, but he also is missing lots of pieces and he is more than happy to blow through what might be stop signs,” Hailperin said. “I think the real thing is just that he’s a very committed believer that our government ought to be in different hands.”
Pushing elected officials, including sheriffs, for action
Weible said he’s done more than 20 such presentations since January 2021. He said they’ve gone from being “data-driven” to “action-oriented,” because the Republican Party’s official apparatus won’t take action.
An estimated 400 people attended the Brainerd event, and surely contributed to a groundswell of conservatives who urged Crow Wing County officials for months to look into unspecified fraud. The county board voted Jan. 4 to call for a “full forensic audit” of the 2020 election — even though Trump won the county by 30 points.
In October, Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, R-Glencoe, repeated some of Weibel’s claims in a YouTube video, according to theHutchinson Leader.
And a Republican candidate for secretary of state, Kim Crockett, handed out literature at the Brainerd event, and called Weible a “voter data hero” on Facebook.
Simon, who is running for reelection, called Crockett’s behavior “bizarre.”
“It doesn’t inspire confidence that she’s associating herself with fringe conspiracy groups,” Simon said.
Simon said this “cloud of disinformation” is a huge problem, and people are spreading it for political and financial reasons.
“It’s wishful thinking and made-up fantasies,” Simon said. “And it’s very easy to grasp at all the reasons why you lost an election other than the fact that more people voted for the entity that you didn’t like.”
Weible makes other claims, at one point showing a photo of what he said were people with bags of ballots in Dakota County for a post-election review, suggesting they weren’t properly secured.
Simon said the ballots are kept “under lock and key” but they do have to be transported from one place to another. Hailperin said the photo may look bad, it was already offered as evidence in one of many election fraud claims filed by attorney Susan Shogren Smith. The suit went nowhere, and Shogren Smith was socked with a $10,000 sanction in March after a judge said she bamboozled voters into signing on as plaintiffs without their knowledge in a lawsuit contesting election results.
Asked about his background in elections, Weible cited his 10 years as mayor, during which he sat on ballot boards and canvassing boards and helped candidates review, challenge and defend elections. He said he also does forensic data analysis for companies. His business helps small businesses and nonprofits with everything from Quickbooks to advertising, designing software and collecting money.
He said he became a “tax refugee” four years ago and moved across the border to Brookings, S.D. Although the Monticello presentation was sponsored by a “generous donor” and a hat was passed for money, Weible said in the end the presentations cost him money. He said donations are used for web hosting fees, software licensing and voter list fees.
He wants to see Minnesota ban the use of vote drop boxes and mail-in ballots and the practice of “vouching” for other voters. He favors limiting absentee voting to 14 days. He said if he can get the Legislature and secretary of state to take action, “My job is done.”
Which signals what might be the ultimate goal: Not overturning the 2020 election, or even persuading a majority of people it was fixed, but pushing Republicans to enact tighter regulations on voting.
And, it’s no coincidence, Democrats say, that these regulations would likely suppress Democratic turnout. . . .
Bluestem was under the impression that refugees couldn't return to the homelands they fled or were forced from, but perhaps we're old-fashioned.
The earlier meeting in Monticello was covered by the editor of the Patriot News, the local paper in Becker, MN, in an October 28, 2021 article: Does Minnesota have election integrity?. Editor Bill Morgan appears to have done no fact checking on any of Weible's claims. Part of those:
Last Saturday, about a dozen or so concerned citizens from Central Minnesota joined a group of ladies who organized an informational analysis of the 2020 local election. The event was held at a local establishment in Becker.
The integrity of the 2020 election continues to make national headlines and spark debate in numerous states across America, and Minnesota is no exception.
Rick Weible, former Minnesota GOP operative and for St. Bonifacius mayor, was the featured speaker who taught the guests how to participate and prevent voter fraud from happening in future elections.
“I don’t have an official ‘title’ other than curious,” said Weible. “Curious in, ‘what happened in Minnesota?’”
Weible has his own consulting company right here in Minnesota in which he works on computers for small and mid-size companies.
“That has led me into basically two different areas in computer technologies but also analyzing databases and numbers and stuff like that.” he says. I also help people with accounting audits, forensic audits, hard drive recoveries, all that stuff.”
Weible says he looks at data and looks at different connections that help owners re-imagine their business.
Saturday’s event was entitled, “Question the Election Results?” and featured Weible describing the Minnesota election timeline issues, the problems with absentee voting, missing data and ballots and how “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.” ...
And the audience?
Those in attendance at Saturday’s event included Rep. Shane Mekeland, Big Lake Mayor Paul Knier, Big Lake Council Member Paul Seefeld, local citizen Wanda Woolhouse and a couple from Cambridge in Isanti County who stayed around to talk to Weible following the event about a Positive Psychology program called “The Orange Frog/Happiness Advantage Initiative,” which the county commissioners are attempting to pass. . . .
“We have found monsters lurking, we have studied and analyzed these creatures who have manipulated the elections, manipulated the laws — how they say they really care but they don’t,” says Weible.
The claims in the presentation are largely addressed by basic spade work by Winter in the Minnesota Reformer article.
Weibel returned to the newspaper's coverage area at least twice in 2022. The paper covered his late May presentation to the Big Lake city council in BL City hears voting integrity concerns, and a mid-July Sherburne County Board Meeting in Debate over election security continues. One concern, reported in the latter article's second papagraph:
About 100 people crowded the board room, many to either speak at the open forum or listen to testimony about what could go wrong with the Dominion voting system used in the county.
Jeepers. Heaven alone knows where those gathered got the idea there were issues with Dominion Voting Systems.
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- MN Reformer: Republican Party of Minnesota endorses election denier to oversee elections
- Westrom wouldn't talk to local reporter about why he attended sketchy election fraud event
Images: Top: the announcement for Tuesday's presentation in Monticello, via social media. Bottom: Weibel gave a presentation on the 2020 election and the data problems he has analyzed and reported on to the State of Minnesota. (Patriot Photo by Bill Morgan)
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