title: there may be another planet in our solar system
text: levers of power flushing the vote down the memory hole electronic election fraud exposed david knight  infowarscom  october   comments 
  establishment politicians and press are outraged that trump would question the integrity of their system 
  they say it undermines public trust in political institutions 
  yet to see who is truly undermining public trust we need look no further than the people running the elections who are shutting down election audit procedures who stonewall and eject certified election monitors and who make any recording of malfunctioning voting machines a felony 
  one such person is texas director of elections keith ingram 
  this story is specific to texas but the same tactics are used nationwide by both parties to exploit vulnerabilities inherent in electronic voting 
  i went to the texas secretary of state offices to ask mr ingram about specific procedural changes he has made in his  year tenure and the changes he attempted to make in august that would have gone into effect this november 
  with camera  mic in hand we told the reception desk that we were with the press and would like to talk to the director about the election 
  we were told to wait in the lobby and mr ingram would be down 
  you can see for yourself what happened when he saw the mic flag showing we were with infowars 
  the man running the election bureaucracy runs from questions 
  so much for transparency and candor 
  this unelected bureaucrat is tasked with ensuring that counties adhere to election law 
  what follows are the specific actions taken by his office that waive requirements and undermine election integrity in texas 
  but before we get to specifics about his actions  his connection to the rose law firm in arkansas there are some general questions that should concern voters nationwide 
   why would standards required by our elected lawmakers for election integrity be bent to the capabilities of vendors rather than require vendors to perform to the standard 
   why would election procedures be waived and honesty and transparency sacrificed for the convenience of election workers  officials 
  burning the paper trail 
  in august  ingram texas director of elections attempted to make last minute rule changes for the upcoming november  election that would eliminate crucial paper backup records for electronic voting his office issued new rules that would 
  eliminate printing of paper audit logs that poll watchers are entitled to monitor at main tabulation computers 
  eliminate printing of early voting results tapes 
  eliminate printing of ballot images for recounts 
  fortunately activists and some elected representatives got the proposed rule changes postponed with a formal public hearing scheduled after the november election 
  state senator don huffines said the states chief election officers must reconsider and redraft their proposed election rules to pursue more realtime paper records and backups not fewerthe comfort  convenience of election administrators should not take priority over voters confidence and election integrity 
  but even though these procedures have been postponed ingrams previous rule changes are still a cause for concern in the november election and have caused repercussions in two election cases currently being litigated here are some of the problems 
   waiver of laws requiring a partial manual recount audit 
  ingram waived the requirement to conduct a manual count in  of the election precincts or  election precincts whichever is greater this was waived in all  counties the day after the march  primary the timing is significant because during the primary there were  move votes than voters in hill county in the republican primary the margin of victory was  in texas house district  that contains hill county in calling for a criminal investigation ingram noted that it appears  or  voters voted more than once in the election and one voter voted as many as four times yet he waived the partial manual recount audit requirement statewide and he has waived other audit and monitoring procedures 
   waiver of laws requiring printing of paper backup results tapes 
  ingrams waivers issued in   and  appear to be in direct contradiction of state election laws      and the judges handbook these rules require   three original tally lists shall be maintained at the polling place to record the number of votes received for the candidates  on completion of the vote count the presiding judge shall prepare the returns of the election for the precinct with total number of voters total number of votes with the presiding judge signing each of the  copies to certify 
  ingram also issued waivers for requirements that a zero tape be printed from the machines at the beginning of election day and a tally tape printed at the close of election his letter states that the process of printing of the zero tape and tally tape at each countywide precinct location could take hours in both the morning and the evening of election day 
  so expediency for election workers takes precedent over requirements enacted by the legislature for integrity of elections and if a favored vendor cant perform to the law the law is waived 
  if proper procedures had been followed to ensure that the machine was at a zero state instead of waived by ingram the hill county issue of  more voters than votes would not have happened the vendor in hill county ess eventually identified the source of the extra votes saying an audit of the log report from the central paper ballot scanner showed that the hard drive had not been properly cleared of all ballots cast before scanning early voting or election day ballotsthere are established election protocols which should be followed to prevent this type of reporting error 
  but the director of elections is waiving those established election protocols ingrams waver of legal requirements  his improvised solution of printing a zero tape at the county warehouse prior to election day opens the door for error and fraud 
   ignoring laws requiring printing of legally sufficient ballot images for recounts 
  the secretary of state election division claims that cast vote records are equivalent to ballot images as you can see the cast vote records are very different from ballots and are not uniquely numbered 
  the texas constitution article   suffrage section  says in all elections by the people the vote shall be by ballot and the legislature shall provide for the numbering of tickets and make such other regulations as may be necessary to detect and punish fraud and preserve the purity of the ballot box 
  yet the machines by vendors hart intercivic and ess certified by ingram do not provide uniquely numbered ballots per state recount laws and dont provide other components of a legal texas ballot 
   ignoring laws that allow poll watchers to monitor all election activities such as the printing of paper audit logs for computerized result tabultion 
  texas election code sec  says a watcher is entitled to observe any activity conducted at the location at which the watcher is serving 
  affidavits from two official poll watchers for a candidate in dallas county with official poll watcher signed forms detail how they were repeatedly obstructed from monitoring multiple election activities at the dallas county central counting station such as ballot scanning vote transfer ballot transfer computer activities ballot tabulation and viewing the elections computer line printer they state that they were repeatedly treated disrespectfully obstructed and blatantly ignored by the election officials and voting machine vendor before being thrown out after the officials spoke with the texas secretary of state elections office 
  hostility to election monitors like ingrams refusal to answer our questions destroy the publics confidence in the honesty of the process  and rightfully so 
  ingrams connections to arkansas kutak rock rose law firm  hillary clinton 
  according to a public information request of ingrams secretary of state personnel file ingram left private practice and moved to little rock arkansas taking a job with the law firm kutak rock ll at kutak rock he worked under the managing partner gordon miller wilbourn who had been a partner with hillary clinton vince foster and webster hubbell at the rose law firm in arkansas in the s the wilbourn family is a large donor to the clinton foundation and the hillary clinton campaign 
  ingram left kutak rock to return to texas when he was hired by gov rick perrys appointment office in  to oversee statewide political appointments for various courts boards  commissions 
  ingramss career moves are interesting in just  months his journey from private practice in texas through arkansas clintoncronies and back to texas government resulted in pay cuts with each move and his salary being cut in half in  ingram was promoted to director of the election division in the texas secretary of states office where his salary was still  less than private practice 
  ingrams determination to remove paper trails and auditing procedures for electronic voting is even more troubling when we look at his connections to big clinton donors 
  establishment of both parties dont appear to want election integrity 
  in one lawsuit contesting election results for austin city council the county could not produce any ballot images as required by law to conduct a recount computer logs had multiple corruptioninvalid errors during discovery it was learned that the computer counted more votes than registered voters in  of the  precincts forming the district one precinct had  voter turnout another was just  registered voters shy of  in spite of only  and  countywide turnout in the general and runoff elections 
  the county democrat party has financed legal opposition to the lawsuit and a republican judge claimed there was no evidence for election irregularities 
  there are some positive developments however the republican judge has now been voted off the bench of the solidly republican county and state legislators have taken up the question of election integrity that has so far been ignored by governor abbotts office 
  state senator bob hall said due to an increasing number of complaints it is time for the texas elections division office to take immediate and decisive action to rescind all waivers issued by that officeand instruct all texas counties using electronic voting systems to consistently adhere to all election laws 
  voters regardless of political affiliation should reject policies and personnel that compromise honest transparent elections for example chambers county in texas recently announced electronic voting would be suspended until the glitches affecting voting machines could be corrected its time to remove keith ingram as texas director of elections and replace easily hacked electronic voting machines with paper ballots