May 30, 2024 – Washington Co., WI – There appears to be a race for Washington County Clerk this August 2024 as Sue True is schedule to file signatures on Thursday, May 30, 2024, to run for office. According to the Wisconsin Election Commission, “Nomination papers with the required number of signatures must be filed with the appropriate filing officer no later than 5:00 p.m. on June 1.”
Below is a submitted announcement from Sue True regarding her candidacy for Washington County Clerk.
My name is Sue True and I am the Republican challenger in the partisan election for Washington County Clerk. I dedicated time (door-knocking) to support Republican candidates in the past; however, I am not currently supported by the Republican Party. This is because the Republican Party will only endorse incumbent candidates like the current County Clerk, who is seeking a third term (bringing her to 12 years) in office.
I was happy to hear the current Washington County Clerk proposed an “Election Integrity Package” that was adopted by the County Board on May 8. It’s about time this issue gets some attention.
I believe election integrity should be the highest priority of any County Clerk. After all, if we don’t have free and fair elections, how can we solve any other issues? An “Election Integrity Package” sounds like a step in the right direction.
However, I’m cautiously optimistic when it comes to the timing/motivation of her proposal. Here’s why:
- For years, I have been sounding the alarm regarding vulnerabilities in the current Washington County election process (based on firsthand experience). The current County Clerk has served two terms (8 years) in office and is familiar with these concerns.
- Nearly a year ago, I presented a formal report detailing vulnerabilities, along with recommendations to mitigate the vulnerabilities, directly to the County Clerk. (This report is entitled, The Way I See It…Observations of WI Election Integrity from a Common Citizen.)
- As recently as March 26 of this year, the current County Clerk appeared most comfortable with the status quo as she sat alongside the Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator (Meagan Wolfe) and reassured public attendees that all is well with the current process. (This event was the Keep Our Republic Community Engagement Forum on Election Integrity held at The Bend Theater in West Bend.)
- On April 8, 2024, I provided an informal report to the County Clerk – this time detailing vulnerabilities observed at West Bend Central Count during the April 2, 2024, primary elections. (I reported the issues to Protect-the-Vote on Election Day and detailed them in the report entitled, Here We Go Again.)
- On April 17, 2024, I obtained the candidacy paperwork to officially run for office and my nomination papers were reviewed by the current County Clerk.
Although I voted for the current County Clerk, I believe all levels of government can benefit from term limits. I believe even greater benefits will result from the fresh perspective of private sector individuals stepping into the roles of public servants. As a current employee of the private sector, with an engineering background, I look forward to sharing a fresh perspective while serving the public.
I will work hard to earn your vote for Washington County Clerk on August 13, 2024. I will work even harder to safeguard our most sacred right to vote in free-and-fair elections.
As of Thursday, May 30, 2024, the list of candidates for the fall 2024 election are below.
True submitted two articles she had written regarding elections in Washington County, WI.
Here We Go Again…Election Day Events that Occurred at Central Count in West Bend Should Scare Everyone!
I left Central Count in the City of West Bend, WI around 1:30am on April 3, with genuine alarm for what was happening. After 8.5 hours of observing the election processing of absentee ballots (there is no in-person voting at central count locations), there were no “results” to share for what I could only estimate to be a few thousand ballots. There was, however, a fragment of a destroyed ballot lying inside of an opened Dominion equipment case that had been rolled in by a gentleman earlier in the night.
I arrived at Central Count around 5:00pm after working the polls at a nearby municipality. I signed in as an election observer and took a seat near two of three Dominion ICE electronic tabulators that were in the conference room. It didn’t take long to realize that two of the tabulators were apparently malfunctioning: one near me and one other that was across the room. The poll workers appeared to be looking for guidance in the situation. Although the City Administrator and City Clerk were present much of the time; in my opinion, there was no leadership present.
The tabulators appeared to be “jammed” or “locked up” such that no ballots could be inserted. I attempted to absorb information on the issue(s) and noted remarks such as the machine, “will not clear the jam error” or, the screen says, “maximum steps reached”, “paper reached max range” or “an error condition has occurred”.
After observing attempts to fix the issue(s) such as: sending in some sort of “clean sheet/cleaner paper”, breaking of security seals on the tabulator for inspection of any ballots that may be stuck/ retrieve the clean sheet, I stepped out and contacted Protect-the-Vote Hotline to report that two of three tabulators were malfunctioning at this location.
I believe that the cleaner paper may have temporarily “fixed” the tabulator (nearest me) by the time I returned. It was difficult as an observer to understand what districts/wards were being loaded into what machines, and which had been interrupted. (These machines are typically set up to be dedicated to certain districts/wards.) However, two of three machines appeared to be up and running again, with ballots from whichever districts/wards being inserted. I was looking forward to reviewing the results tapes at the end of the night to see how the tabulator would record the various districts/wards.
Throughout election night, the constant beeping of “unhappy” tabulators could be heard, as poll workers attempted to smooth out the creases of absentee ballots. I noted that approximately one hour was spent remaking ballots that had not been accepted by the machines after multiple attempts. In one district, I believe over twenty ballots were remade. Some had been damaged by the opening of the envelopes, and others possibly rejected due to paper creases. It was noted that the remaking of ballots appeared to include representatives for both political parties (consistent with guidelines). I found it surprising that any remade ballots, (which require a bright green sticker to be adhered to them), did not appear to jam the machines or even get rejected.
The most eyebrow-raising moment occurred when a man arrived with a rolling luggage/equipment transport case. (Fortunately, another election observer had arrived by this time and was able to witness the events.) I noted that the “service rep” did not exhibit any obvious ID, i.e., name tag/lanyard, and I do not believe he signed any formal log sheet as is required for election observers. (Perhaps this took place prior to entering the conference room.) I believe this individual was from Command Central and may have represented the equipment manufacturer, reportedly contracted by the county. He proceeded to break security seals in order to remove the top portion of the tabulator (furthest from me), and place it on a table. He was able to identify a ballot that had been destroyed by the machine. Only a fragment of the ballot was retrieved; no voter intent could be determined.
That’s right… A voter mailed in an absentee ballot, and will never know that their ballot was literally never cast. It was “eaten” by a high tech electronic tabulator. (Oh well, at least it’s only one, right?)
Several poll workers asked the man about the sensitivity to the creases/ rejection of the ballots when there were no obvious imperfections. I believe he suggested that the crease of the ballot could produce a shadow that may cause the machine to misread it.
The original tabulator device that destroyed the ballot remained on the table for the rest of the night, with a machine tape (likely the original zero tape) still attached and the remains of a ballot lodged internally.
As the “replacement” tabulator device was placed atop the original tabulator base/bin, I voiced the following concern to the City Clerk: “How can you change the electronic tabulator without performing the required public test?”
I did not see ballots being loaded into the replacement unit. However, I believe this replacement unit remained at Central Count. After the Command Central representative left, a second tabulator malfunctioned again, and remained out of commission for the remainder of the night.
At the end of the night, two of the tabulators (nearest me) produced machine tapes, which reportedly contained the ballot distribution (i.e., election results). I believe the appropriate poll workers appeared to sign the results tapes before removing ballots from all tabulator bins (which is common).
I do not believe a machine tape of “results” was produced by the ballot-eating tabulator. I noted that it took 4-6 poll workers approximately one hour to sort the ballots from all three machines into piles of 25 per district/ward.
Meanwhile, the City Clerk appeared to be having difficulty sending results electronically to the County Clerk. I believe the County Clerk may have recommended that the two tabulators with machine tapes be rolled over near a window (with the shades opened) in order to transmit data (perhaps receiving a stronger signal?). I believe the memory card from the ballot-eating tabulator was removed from the original device and may have been loaded into one of the other tabulators as they were located near the window. (However, it was difficult to follow the actions associated with any memory card(s) from my perspective as an observer.) I noted that the City Clerk was in contact with the County Clerk via cellphone, who may have referred the City Clerk to a technical support contact. I listened as the City Clerk left voicemail referencing the referral from the County Clerk and asking for a call back. I continued to observe the City Clerk and City Administrator literally waiting for technical assistance, while the physical ballots had already been sorted into piles of 25 per district/ward. When the outside party did return the call, I noted that the City Clerk appeared to be receiving guidance through software/system issues. In the end, I believe the memory card was transported via police escort along with representative poll workers (1 Republican/1 Democrat) to the County Clerk who would continue to try to recover machine-generated data.
I attempted to absorb the activities; however, I was dumbfounded by the level of effort being applied to retrieving memory card data from a (malfunctioning) high tech electronic tabulator nearly 20 hours after polls opened. Hand counting the actual ballots many hours earlier would have resulted in the most accurate election results in the most transparent and timely manner.
Why would the City Clerk and/or County Clerk not initiate a hand count of actual ballots at any point throughout the night? When I review the amount of time wasted on remaking ballots/ breaking seals/ attempting to insert ballots after rejections/ attempting to smooth the creases of the ballots in between rejections/ waiting for outside technical support/ running cleaning papers, etc…it is senseless.
My request to review the two results tapes was rejected by the City Clerk. She informed me that she did not have time to take questions from observers; she needed to get the tapes over to the County Clerk.
In my opinion, we are right back to the vulnerabilities reported to the County Clerk last June in The Way I See It…Observations of WI Election Integrity from a Common Citizen. Secretive machine tapes and election results reportedly recovered from memory cards around 2am are not consistent with election integrity.
In my opinion, the memory cards (containing results generated by malfunctioning tabulators) were of greater importance to the City and County Clerks than the actual paper ballots…That should scare everyone.
How do we know that tabulator generated results were not erroneous on all machines? Considering the level of rejections (some leading to remaking of ballots), I have little confidence they were accurate.
Paper ballots should have been hand counted hours earlier. Instead, original paper ballots were packaged up into plastic bags reportedly in accordance with chain of custody practices. At which time…I left.
I expect the Board of Canvassers meeting will likely take place after the weekend, at which time a voluntary hand count of Central Count ballots will likely occur in order to address my call into the Protect-the-Vote Hotline. With zero transparency of original results tapes on election night and nothing more than trust in the chain of custody that ballots counted nearly a week later are the original ballots cast…The scenario sounds a lot like page six from The Way I See It…
The way to restore our Constitutional Republic is simple: Pray, Remove the Machines, Vote in Person, Hand Count Paper Ballots.
Sue True
West Bend
April 5, 2024
The Way I See It (6) (2) (1) (3) (1) (1) (2) (1) (1) (1) (1) (1) (2)
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