(Chuck Muth) – Hearken back, dear readers, to March 4, 2021.
That was the day Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald showed up on the doorsteps of the Nevada Secretary of State and dropped off four boxes of what, as reported by Sam Metz of the Associated Press, McDonald “described as 120,000 ‘election integrity violation reports’ that allege widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election.”
“I'm tired of elected officials saying, ‘There was no voter fraud; no one's giving us examples of voter fraud,'” McDonald said at a public rally in front of the state capitol that day. “Well, you want it: I'm going to deliver it to you.”
But he didn’t.
He delivered “suspicions,” not evidence. Indeed, such allegations had previously been dismissed by courts, and a subsequent investigation of the 120,000 by the Secretary of State similarly yielded no PROOF of voting fraud being committed.
“Our investigation revealed that these allegations and others are based largely upon an incomplete assessment of voter registration records,” Deputy Secretary of State Mark Wlaschin wrote after completing a review of McDonald’s “examples.”
No wonder McDonald, to this day, has refused to show his 120,000 pieces of “evidence” to the public.
The key here is what Mr. Wlaschin described as “an incomplete assessment of voter registration records.”
Indeed, what McDonald did was lazy and irresponsible. He took suspicions, anomalies and red flags in voter records and characterized them as “voter fraud” without doing the hard work of confirming his allegations first.
That’s the difference between what the Nevada GOP did and what we’re doing at the Pigpen Project to clean up the voter rolls. Doing it right is difficult, complicated, and time-consuming – which is why the party chose to take shortcuts instead.
Let me give you a perfect example, recently uncovered by our research team. But, in order to protect voter privacy, I’m changing the name, address, and date of birth of the voter.
Adriana Lopez was born on May 15, 1976, and lives at 456 Oak Street in Las Vegas, Nevada. She’s a registered Democrat who only voted in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential general elections.
Adriana Lopez was born on May 15, 1976, and lives at 123 Maple Avenue in Reno, Nevada. She’s a registered Democrat who only voted in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential general elections.
That’s one heckuva a “coincidence” and definitely a red flag. Exact same name. Exact same date of birth. Exact same party affiliation. Exact same voting pattern. Clearly the exact same person and clearly an example of voting fraud, right?
Wrong.
The Pigpen Project research team dug deeper – something McDonald and the Nevada GOP clearly never did.
And by researching the property tax records of both addresses, we discovered that Mrs. Lopez in Las Vegas is married to and owns the home where she’s registered with Jorge Lopez, while Mrs. Lopez in Reno is married to and owns the home where she’s registered with Carlos Lopez (yes, I’ve changed the husbands’ names, too).
Actually, I guess it’s still possible she’s the same woman – if she’s a bigamist (married to two different people). But that’d be a one in a million shot we weren’t about to waste time to pursue.
So you can’t just ASSUME that an anomaly in voter registration records is PROOF of voting fraud – which is exactly what Mr. McDonald and the Nevada GOP did. They didn’t do their homework. They cut corners. They were, at best, irresponsible.
However, we DID find another anomaly in the example above that we’re following up on…
Records show Mrs. Lopez in Las Vegas registered to vote in Clark County in October 2008, while Mrs. Lopez in Reno registered to vote in Washoe County in August 2020. So why, then, do records show the Reno Lopez voting in 2012 and 2016 if she didn’t register to vote until 2020?
Again, you can’t jump to any conclusions.
There could be any number of reasons for this – including a simple data entry error in her registration record. So we’re going to further investigate this situation with the Washoe Registrar of Voters after the holidays.
This is why you shouldn’t shoot first and ask questions later. This is why you shouldn’t run around yelling “voter fraud” and “stolen election” without verifying and documenting your allegations.
If you do, you’re gonna earn your reputation as a conspiracy kook while simultaneously perpetuating the notion that a voter’s vote isn’t going to count, which will result in many voters just staying home rather than casting a ballot.
Like more than 175,000 Republicans last year in an election where Republicans lost a U.S. Senate race by fewer than 8,000 votes.
The goal of the Pigpen Project is to help election officials clean the voter rolls of individuals who are ineligible to vote but have been missed by the process established by law in which election material is returned by the post office.
But if, in the course of our work, we find something suspicious that indicates the POSSIBILITY of voting fraud – like the example above – we’re investigating. What we won’t do, however, is mimic the GOP’s boy-who-cried-wolf routine by alleging fraud without verifying and documenting it first.
For more information on the Pigpen Project and how to get involved, go to: https://pigpenproject.com.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“MERRY CHRISTMAS!” – Chuck Muth
Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com. You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.