‘Election integrity’ ballot watchers in Fresno are the real threat to democracy

Talk about the fox wanting to guard the hen house.

Members of a group known as the Election Integrity Project have been monitoring Fresno County election workers during this recall season, ostensibly to ensure that all the ballot processing is on the up and up.

Such monitoring has been part of a statewide campaign involving thousands of observers. Records from four counties — Fresno, San Luis Obispo, Orange and San Diego — show almost all the observers come from the Election Integrity Project.

But while members of the GOP-aligned project have been on good behavior here, the group has been an intimidating force elsewhere in the state. Observers have been so aggressive in Orange County, itself a conservative bastion, that the registrar there has gotten fed up. “This needs to be called out ... It’s just gotten absurd,” Neal Kelley told the Los Angeles Times.

And Election Integrity Project’s president told a group of Costa Mesa Republicans in July that California is part of a socialist conspiracy with rigged elections. “It’s always the same thing. It’s an algorithm. That’s been proven,” Linda Paine said in a presentation that was recorded, according to The Times.

In point of fact, no such thing has been proven. Guess that speaks to the “integrity” of Paine’s group. She must be upset that Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by a 2 to 1 margin.

How recall handled

Fresno County Clerk James Kus has nothing to hide. In fact, he welcomes observers. They “have been here throughout our whole process, which is dandy because our process is open for everyone to watch.”

A half dozen or so observers show up each day at the elections warehouse to see how the workers process ballots for counting. The workers are checking voter signatures against the official rolls — a standard procedure that has been followed for years.

In 95% of the cases, the observers “have been lovely visitors,” Kus said. There have been several instances of observers getting “too energetic in questioning” ballot reviews or procedures, he said. But there have not been instances locally of observers trying to intimidate the elections staff.

As of Monday morning, about 190,000 ballots had been returned from the 501,955 registered voters in Fresno County, Kus said. That is about a 37.8% turnout. About 130,000 ballots came through the mail, according to elections staff.

Kus has predicted a turnout as high as 55% by the time polls close and all of the vote-mail-ballots are tallied. He said it would take a very high last minute push to get up to 60%.

Elder sows doubts

Casting doubt on the outcome of Tuesday’s recall election is the next step in the conservative playbook. How else does one explain why Republican frontrunner Larry Elder announced on Sept. 8 — nearly a week before the Sept. 14 election — that he had established a “voter integrity board” to challenge whatever election incidents seemingly pop up.

A new poll taken by UC Berkeley Friday showed the recall being handily defeated by voters. But Elder already cannot bring himself to admit he might lose on the merits of a political campaign pitting his agenda against that of Gov. Gavin Newsom. No, “there might very well be shenanigans,” he told reporters.

The only “shenanigans” are those coming from conservatives who have been bad mouthing the American election process since Donald Trump lost the presidency.

Ms. Paine, what has been proven time and again is how American elections — certainly those in California — are the most secure in the world. Are they error-free? Of course not. No human enterprise is without mistakes.

But elections here are the envy of the nations that struggle to simply put ballots together, much less hold free and fair contests.

The Times quoted a San Diego woman who volunteered to be a Election Integrity Project observer on what she had learned from her experience.

“I’ve been absolutely astounded ... I think if people realized how much effort goes into making sure it is a good ballot, that is very impressive to me.”

Duplicitous efforts like the Election Integrity Project must not be allowed to wreck America’s democratic heritage. That is what is at stake here.

This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 5:00 AM.