Tag: elections

When a ‘conspiracy theory’ turns out to be…not a theory

WHEN A ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY’ TURNS OUT TO BE…NOT A THEORY. On Monday, the New York Times published a story about Konnech, a small election software company that has just 27 employees, 21 based in Michigan and six in Australia. The paper reported that Konnech has been the target of “election deniers” who have made it the focus of “a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential election.”

“Using threadbare evidence, or none at all,” the New York Times’s Stuart A. Thompson reported, the “election deniers” said Konnech “had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States.”

In the last two years, the New York Times added, “conspiracy theorists have subjected election officials and private companies that play a major role in elections to a barrage of outlandish voter fraud claims.” But now, “the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups.”

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Konnech officials assured the New York Times that “none of the accusations were true.” Thompson reported that employees “feared for their safety” from right-wing violence and that “Konnech’s founder and chief executive, Eugene Yu, an American citizen who immigrated from China in 1986, went into hiding with his family after receiving threatening messages.”

Any reasonable reader would come away with the conclusion that Konnech, an innocent company that makes products to deal with “basic election logistics, such as scheduling poll workers,” has been the target of crazy, and possibly dangerous, conspiracy theories. To press the point, the New York Times used the phrase “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracy theorists” nine times in the article, once in the headline — “How a Tiny Elections Company Became a Conspiracy Theory Target” — seven times in the body of the story, and once in a photo caption. Got it?

Fast forward one day. Twenty-four hours. The New York Times published another story about Konnech, this one headlined, “Election Software Executive Arrested on Suspicion of Theft.” Thompson reported that Yu had been “arrested by Los Angeles County officials in connection with an investigation into the possible theft of personal information about poll workers.”

From the New York Times: “The company has been accused by groups challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election with storing information about poll workers on servers in China. The company has repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in recent statements to The New York Times.” And then: The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office “said its investigators had found data stored in China.” And this is from the New York Times on the core of the matter:

Konnech came under scrutiny this year by several election deniers, including a founder of True the Vote, a nonprofit that says it is devoted to uncovering election fraud. True the Vote said its team had downloaded personal information on 1.8 million American poll workers from a server owned by Konnech and hosted in China. It said it obtained the data by using the server’s default password, which it said was ‘password.’ … The group provided no evidence that it had downloaded the data, saying that it had given the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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Election Software CEO Arrested Over Data Theft, Storing Data on Servers in China

The head of Konnech Corporation, a Michigan-based software company, was arrested on Oct. 4 for allegedly stealing and storing personal data of Los Angeles County election workers on servers in China.

Konnech’s CEO Eugene Yu, 51, was arrested on charges of stealing “the personal identifying information” of LA County election workers, according to the LA County District Attorney’s Office.

Investigators also seized computer hard drives and other digital data relevant to the case. The office said that it would seek Yu’s extradition to Los Angeles.

According to the office, Konnech won a five-year, $2.9 million contract with LA County in 2020 for an election worker management system—named PollChief software—that was used by the county in the last California election.

The software was designed to assist with poll worker assignments, communications, and payroll, LA County District Attorney George Gascon said in a statement.

Under the contract, Konnech was supposed to securely maintain the data and only provide access to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. But investigators found that it stored the data on servers in China.

“In this case, the alleged conduct had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results,” Gascon said. “But security in all aspects of any election is essential so that we all have full faith in the integrity of the election process.”

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DC Council advances bill to let noncitizens vote

Washington, D.C.’s city council on Tuesday voted to advance a bill that would allow noncitizen residents to vote in local elections.  

“Our immigrant neighbors of all statuses participate, contribute and care about our community in our city. They, like all DC residents, deserve a right to have a say in their government,” said D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen, introducing the bill during the Tuesday legislative meeting. 

“They raise families here, contribute to their community. They run businesses that people depend on, and they pay taxes that we decide how to spend. Yet they have no ability to elect local leaders who make decisions about their bodies, their businesses and their tax dollars,” Allen said. 

The bill would allow all noncitizen residents in the city who otherwise meet voting requirements to vote in local elections, including mayoral, school board and attorney general races — regardless of visa or documentation status.

The councilmembers voted 12-1 in favor of the bill on first reading, greenlighting the bill to go ahead for a final vote before it is sent to Mayor Muriel Bowser (D).

The bill comes as D.C. grapples with an influx of migrants transported into the city as Republican governors in three Southern border states protest the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) alone has bused more than 10,000 migrants north to Democratic-led Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago.

Abbott directly sent two buses to Vice President Harris’s Naval Observatory residence in D.C. as part of what he calls a protest of “sanctuary cities” and federal immigration policy. The action has drawn fire from many Democrats who say the governor is using the migrants as political pawns.  

Councilmember Mary Cheh was the sole vote against the noncitizen voting bill.

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If Facebook, Twitter, And Google Hide Information For The World’s Rulers, Elections Are A Scam

In a September interview that went viral on social media Sunday, a United Nations operative admitted the U.S. government-funded organization “partnered with Google” to rig the results returned on the world’s dominant search engine for the phrase “climate change.”

This follows multiple casual disclosures that, yes, politics control the information on monopoly tech platforms. In fact, government officials all the way up to the White House routinely use Big Tech to control what citizens are allowed to say to each other online, as an ongoing lawsuit from several U.S. attorneys general recently divulged.

The Biden White House is fighting further disclosures about high-level federal officials’ involvement in this government-pressured censorship regime, including Anthony Fauci and the White House press secretary. The companies involved include Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, the court documents say.

Earlier this year, a clip of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg — who threw hundreds of millions of dollars obtained from his communications monopoly company into helping Democrat activists embed inside government election offices in 2020 — also went viral. It showed him telling podcaster Joe Rogan that the FBI also controls the information Facebook allows people to share. The FBI’s meddling affected the 2020 presidential election outcome.

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Here’s a Full List of Congressional Republicans Funded by Gates

Many people within the United States are hoping for a Republican takeover of Congress in 2022. Most Republicans feel that the party is in a much better position after ousting RINOs like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

Cheney, for instance, was the #3 Republican in the House of Representatives. She served in the position of Conference Chair. She was replaced in 2021 by New York Republican Representative Elise Stefanik.

Stefanik had the backing of many within the ‘MAGA’ movement. She was even endorsed by Donald Trump. He hosted a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for her back in January. He was quoted as saying that Stefanik would ‘one day be President.’

Upon investigation of published federal campaign finance data, Launch Liberty has discovered that Stefanik has taken a lot of money from Billionaire William Henry Gates III, better known as Bill Gates.

In fact, Gates has been funding Stefanik for a number of years. As Stefanik ascended through the Republican Party, Bill Gates began to donate to her re-election campaigns. Now she has a real chance at possibly becoming Speaker of the House.

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GOP senators block bill requiring dark money groups to disclose donors

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a Democrat-led measure to require so-called dark money groups disclose the identities of donors who contribute more than $10,000 during an election cycle.

The vote in the 100-member chamber was 49-49 with every present Republican voting against the bill and every present Democrat voting for it.

The bill is not new, however. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) first introduced the legislation in 2010 and it has been reintroduced every Congress since.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Insider that he is concerned the donors would be harassed.

“I don’t want to see them doxxed, and hassled, and harried, and harmed, and that’s what this bill is about,” he said.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) cited a 1958 Supreme Court decision that determined that the state of Alabama, which at the time was largely controlled by segregationist Democrats, could not force the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to disclose its members.

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House Democrats Move to Allow Non-Citizens to Vote in US Elections

Congressional Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee passed an amendment to an elections bill today calling for non-citizens to vote in US elections.

House Judiciary Committee Democrats voted to strike language from an amendment to H.R. 8770 making it clear that non-citizens are ineligible to vote in American elections.

According to the text of the Democrats’ “amendment to the amendment,” the language to be struck from the legislation reads “nothing in this section may be construed to permit any noncitizens to vote in a Federal election, or to encourage or require a State or political subdivision to permit any noncitizen to vote in a State or local election.”

Under H.R. 8770, which is making its way through the House of Representatives right now,  Democrats aim to “expand the voluntary opportunities for translations in elections.”

In other words, they want to make it easier for non-English speakers and, evidently, non-citizens, to vote in American elections.

In a breaking news tweet announcing the Democrats’ move, the House Judiciary GOP wrote that “there’s no hiding it. Democrats WANT non-citizens voting in our elections.”

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