Below is a report created by the Montgomery County Republican Party Election Integrity Committee which was delivered to the Montgomery County Republican Party County Executive Committee by Committee Chair Robert Coats.
“I originally intended closing out the local Montgomery County, Texas portion of my report of this committee as Chairman with an executive summary in detail on the processes, procedure, people involved and technology involved and its overall efficacy in Montgomery County, Texas. I will not close out any final reporting on these matters until certain political questions have been addressed by myself and allowing for others to speak out against this initial report. I am allowing that because too many people have been giving out wholly inaccurate information regarding Montgomery County Election Central and their equipment and procedures, the people who work there, the limits they have placed on them by state statute and the technology we currently use in our elections in this county by the State of Texas. I will then address truth, half truths and false witnessing on Election procedure and technological equipment and why it’s important that you have them integrated, not separate slates of small ideas that work haphazardly in the process.
I may have our County Elections administrator here to remind everyone that any question you have, she and her staff can resolve in a cogent thoughtful manner if you do your own due diligence, and actually really listen.
On phone calls and with one large group of various citizens and elected party officials, and more recently with myself and John Wertz as follow up to questions that arose in the aftermath of a four hour walkthrough of procedures, processes. safeguards, and technology currently being used by the county–we found no demonstrable proof that any of these processes has any truly exploitable lapses. We may have some recommendations on shoring up some state laws with regards to filming and monitoring county election central, but I will recommend also that this cost across Texas is potentially astronomical in terms of data storage requirements and should be confined to a more realistic window than is currently being discussed in the State Legislature.
Were there demonstrable cases of voter fraud across the State of Texas? The answer is of course there were. But for our purposes today, are any of these cases in Montgomery County, Texas at the present time or is their any systemic or foreign or domestic interference in our local voting system in Montgomery County, Texas? The answer is there are no cases or confidence issues with regards to the procedures and technology employed by Montgomery County Election Central.
Some people have stated election matters with incomplete information. If you don’t ask informed questions, are not an Election Judge and/or at the very least, do not have a walkthrough of the actual procedures–you miss the complete picture. If you come with preconceived notions without all the things I just mentioned, you are going to be engaging in false witnessing of epic and biblical proportions due to either grandstanding bias or imbued with a cavalier willful lazy ignorance. No one else in this room I know of was entrusted to go to voters and collect affidavits regarding voter fraud perpetrated against them as I did in the State of Nevada. No one else I know of in this room saw foreign nationals engaging in get out the vote efforts as I saw in the State of Georgia. However, It should be no one’s purview or role to assume that our elections officials in Montgomery County act in any manner with malicious designs on manipulating voters or elections here in this county in any manner.
With regard to the current Hart Voting System in this county, nothing I say should be construed as a personal endorsement of our current system against any other system. But every question I asked or Mr. Wertz asked as follow up from concerned citizens, and even the wildest scenarios I can imagine were addressed in our 2 hour follow up interview as to be made completely addressed and neutralized by county election officials and the gentle lady who administers our system, The Honorable Suzie Harvey. She operates on exactly the correct textbook example of following the state law. I am quoting now,” We don’t go above or below the state standard on specific election laws. We follow the law.” There is a log of comings and goings in the current system, as soon as you enter or leave the tabulation room. There are two way computer sign in systems that require two individuals with two unique passwords to sign in. I made the analogy that it reminded of the dual nuclear launch codes in ICBMs and everyone in the room saw this as an apt comparison. The Hart System has unique features that I may not be able to discuss that are perhaps proprietary that prevent overvotes–voting more than once in Texas, that even can account for all types of ballots–including mail in ballots. With this current system in place, you can only vote once in our County.
Areas of potential concern that are directed by State Law:
-We do not limit nor track the amount of ballots or limit paper stock purchasing in the State of Texas.
-We need to have a narrow window video monitoring of elections in Texas that is not cost prohibitive and follows the standard of 22 months of storage which is the current requirement.
-We (Montgomery County) are cannibalizing used equipment from other counties in the State.
-What will happen to our 35-40 % of the margin of victory in important statewide elections if we have the nightmare scenario of equipment failure on a grand scale in perhaps a few years?
That keeps me up the most when going through this process as deliberately as we have on this committee. We need to have a new voter system in this county that has enhanced backup and verification that can also be initiated before massive cost inflation hits. We need to begin the process of examining the purchase of a new voting equipment to a system that is getting increasingly antiquated. We need to go beyond what precinct chairs, area chairs and county chairs are supposed to do at a minimum.
I will work with the County Commissioners to give our county the best voting system we can find at the most cost effective price. It is a necessary expense in order to preserve the Republican Majority in this state to prevent potential voter fraud in other parts of the country.
If you have any question with regards to anything I have said, I will respond directly to you at a later time, with facts and my own integrity intact. All of us were disheartened beyond measure at the last election, but I will never claim or misrepresent material facts. I also know that there were myriad examples of voter fraud across the country. In normal Presidential Elections, there are anywhere from 3-3,5 percent of mail in ballots rejected in an average Presidential cycle. it went down during this election cycle to a little over 0.5 percent. The Carter-Baker Commission warned over the inherent fraud that can occur with this scheme and there are temptations inherent in mail-in balloting to commit fraud. Most of Europe, and many so-called third world countries do not allow this practice ever. They allow absentee ballots received and asked for well in advance of national elections. This committee will still listen to others on these issues.
I have a simple resolution that due to judicial delay, state audits and a need of more data compilers of potential voter cases to be brought before this committee as to be a repository of information.
This committee resolves to extend this committee through the remainder of issues unresolved by the 2020 election. We, the CEC resolve to make Montgomery County, Texas the first county in the State of Texas and perhaps the United States of America to have a permanent Election Integrity Committee- to be forever vigilant, honest, and determined to not only find, but prevent potential voting fraud scenarios across our county, state and the country that we love and hold dear to insure free and fair elections across the country while suppressing no one the legal ability to vote in our Republic, where states hold and administer national elections through their powers reserved under the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”
Texas Citizen Journal 