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Hiring temporary election workers “shouldn’t be allowed,” Phill Kline said.
7 min. read
Municipalities across the country trying to meet the demands of collecting and tabulating election ballots with their set workforce have resorted to hiring temporary workers, which has contributed to election irregularities and security concerns.
Such issues surfaced last month in Arizona's Maricopa County and have been seen in other county or city governments including Detroit, Florida's Orange County and Georgia's Fulton County over the prior two election cycles.
And as the November presidential election approaches, some municipalities will hire hundreds – even thousands – of temporary election workers.
Maricopa County 2024:
A Maricopa County temporary election worker was arrested last month for allegedly stealing from the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center.
Walter Ringfield, Jr., 27, was booked on charges of theft and criminal damage for allegedly stealing a security fob and keys from the center. The fob is used to gain access to ballot tabulators, as workers hold it to the machines and then enter a password, according to Votebeat.
MCTEC released a statement to ABC15 on the alleged theft, saying, "[W]hen completing a daily inventory, Maricopa County elections workers identified that an item was taken from the Ballot Tabulation Center on Thursday evening, and staff took immediate action to investigate the matter and contacted the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
"The stolen item has been recovered, but to ensure the integrity of Maricopa County Elections, election workers are reprogramming and re-conducting logic and accuracy testing of all equipment."
The reprogramming cost the county around $20,000.
Court records and media reports show Ringfield has previously registered as a Democrat voter and received ballots in recent Democratic primaries.
He also had been charged with stealing cash last year – more than $1,000 cash from Fry's Food And Drug, according to court documents, the Arizona Republic reported.
Rather than the state pursuing a conviction, prosecution was suspended after Ringfield entered a felony diversion program.
Ringfield also allegedly stole from a security desk at the Arizona state Senate building a day before his alleged theft at MCTEC, Fox News reported.
Last week, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said Ringfield allegedly entered a restricted area of the Arizona Senate Building and "removed numerous items from a security staff member’s desk."
The state agency said that the items included "challenge coins and other desk accessories." Detectives recovered the items from Ringfield’s residence while executing a search warrant.
Ringfield is facing additional charges of burglary, theft, and trespassing.
Maricopa County didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Abe Hamadeh, an Arizona GOP congressional candidate, told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show on Wednesday: “Can you imagine a temporary worker having access to those machines, and what did Maricopa County do? Within a few hours of his arrest, they proclaimed that there no political motivation. How could they know this?”
Orange County 2022:
In a sworn affidavit filed with the Florida Secretary of State's office last year, poll worker Robin Wheeler alleged that the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office violated state law by hiring poll workers from outside the county and state.
They are also supposed to be registered Orange County voters.
Wheeler alleged in her affidavit that some were hired from outside of either the county or Florida because the precinct service clerk – who chooses precinct clerks, poll deputies, and e-pollbook inspectors – "lack[ed] training and had no poll workers to fill positions."
Wheeler further alleged that "untrained and unvetted temporary workers" were used to fill the roles of poll deputies at many polling places due to a shortage in staff, despite the position requiring additional background checks, according to the Orange County SOE website.
Another issue that Wheeler flagged in her affidavit is that election "training materials were not updated during the time between the 2020 general and the 2022 primary elections," which resulted in the early voting supervisor having "to rush and use temporary workers to perform the updates and there was [sic] mistakes and contradictions in the training materials."
The office of the Supervisor of Elections declined to comment at the time the affidavit was reported.
The Florida secretary of state’s office and Department of Law Enforcement didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. It appears the allegations have not led to any law enforcement investigations or charges.
Fulton County 2020:
Carter Jones, an investigator contracted by the Georgia secretary of state’s office to monitor election counting in Fulton County in 2020, found problems with temporary staffers recruited by the county to manage numerous aspects of its election.
"Some temp staff are down to help and over-eager to do so," Jones wrote at one point in his report. "[N]eed them to help less bc they're making extra problems."
In multiple cases, Jones reported on what appeared to be tension between county employees and temporary staffers, specifically those employed by Happy Faces, an Atlanta-area personnel group.
He noted that one county employee "had issues with them not following her direction b/c they said that they were taking order from the Happy Faces rep (who was not fully trained on correct procedure) and not her," Jones wrote, claiming that the confusion had resulted in workers doing things "eagerly but incorrectly."
At one point Jones alluded to what appeared to be a potential security issue brought about by Happy Faces workers.
"Learned that waiting until lunch was a powerplay by Ralph because he didn't trust the Happy Faces people," he wrote. "He had a big problem with them fixing the issue w/ Abbey's box away from the cameras this morning."
Jones's notes – and his executive summary of his findings on Fulton's election process – appear to conclude the county has created an unstable infrastructure situation to carry out the labor of election work.
"Fulton has leaned very heavily upon an army of temporary workers to fulfill the litany of tasks that must be completed from logistics to processing ballots to scanning final results," Jones wrote in his report. "It would perhaps be best to offset this number of workers with stakeholders from the local community who would like to get involved in the electoral process.
"By conducting multiple interviews with temporary staff, it was made clear that some have no keen interest in participating in this immensely-important process, which is perhaps to blame for some of the sloppy clerical errors and logistical shortcomings that have plagued the complicated electoral process."
Happy Faces CEO Michael Hairston told Just the News at the time that Happy Face's "performance was good" in the months leading up to the election, to the point that the elections Director Richard Barron "asked us to manage the other agencies, and sort of keep tabs on who's where, who's reporting, who's not reporting."
The Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Following the 2020 election, the Georgia secretary of state’s office used an election integrity law enacted in 2021 to request that the State Election Board examine the county's election administration and determine whether the board should take it over. After a report recommended the state board not replace the county's election board, the state board voted in favor of the report's suggestion, the Georgia Recorder reported.
However, after an independent investigation found that the county likely scanned thousands of ballots twice in a recount of the 2020 election, the state board voted to require Fulton County to implement an independent election monitor in the 2024 election.
The allegations have not led to any law enforcement charges.
Detroit 2020:
In September 2020, the Detroit City Council approved a $1 million contract for lawyer and entrepreneur William A. Phillips' staffing firm P.I.E. Management, LLC to hire up to 2,000 workers to work the polls and staff the ballot counting machines.
"They will provide up to 2,000 employees (Detroit Residents) the ability to operate election equipment on Election Day as poll workers under the MiDeal Cooperative Agreement with the State," the council boasted about P.I.E.
However, numerous allegations of irregularities occurred in Detroit during the 2020 presidential election.
Poll observers claimed they were kept from observing ballots as allowed by law or witnessed unusual behavior that included piercing the secrecy of some ballots and unexplained additions and rejections of votes. And one longtime city worker, Jessy Jacob, swore out an affidavit saying she witnessed widespread tampering ordered by her supervisors that impacted thousands of ballots.
"On November 4, 2020, I was instructed to improperly pre-date the absentee ballots receive date that were not in the QVF as if they had been received on or before November 3, 2020," she stated in her affidavit. "I was told to alter the information in the QVF to falsely show that the absentee ballots had been received in time to be valid. I estimate that this was done to thousands of ballots.
P.I.E. Management, LLC, was incorporated in Detroit in 2002 by Phillips, a longtime Democratic operative who attended the same Cass Technical High School as Kwame Kilpatrick, the disgraced mayor who received a 28-year sentence on federal corruption-related charges.
The allegations have not led to any law enforcement investigations or charges.
Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project, told Just the News on Wednesday that hiring temporary election workers “shouldn’t be allowed.”
Instead, “in the name of transparency, election workers should be bipartisan, and election officials should be required to accept” workers that the political parties nominate, he said.
There is “a lot of conflict of interest in election workers,” especially considering the “financial ties of companies with these workers to candidates,” Kline also said.
From - https://twitter.com/xxclusionary/status/1640598560876920832
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Right Side of History™️ @xxclusionary https://twitter.com/xxclusionary/status/1640598560876920832
A Thread: 1 - 11
1/ Covenant Presbyterian Church and its church-run school, targeted in today's tragic shooting, are at the center of a complex child sexual abuse scandal from 2002-2012. 2:15 AM · Mar 28, 2023
2/ A 2012 lawsuit alleges that defendants associated with Covenant, including Bachmann, Eades, Avery, and Robinson, were involved in concealing unlawful child sexual abuse by John Perry. The plaintiffs were unaware of the abuse until 2012.
https://cases.justia.com/tennessee/court-of-appeals/2014-m2013-02273-coa-r3-cv.pdf?ts=1403648321
3/ By 2015, two lawsuits alleged child sexual misconduct by Perry. During divorce proceedings, Perry's ex-wife claimed his "inappropriate marital conduct" led to their separation, also as reported by the Arkansas Times.
4/John Perry was a prominent pastor who had co-authored several books with then Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee. The church allegedly used Perry's home as a "safe house" (on the back of his “good reputation”) for children they believed were mistreated by their parents.
5/This arrangement allowed the church to remove children from their homes and place them under Perry's care, raising serious concerns about the safety and protection of these vulnerable children in the hands of a confessed child molester.
6/In June 2009, a family sought help from Attorney Larry Crain after being silenced for raising concerns about children's safety in Perry's "safe house." Crain later filed a $3M lawsuit against the person who reported the abuse while representing Perry.
janespeaksup.com Secret Settlements in Child Sexual Abuse Cases: Cover-Up in Williamson County – Part 3 This is part 3 of Cover-Up in Williamson County, which follow Part 1 and Part 2.
7/ Additionally, the Davises sued Covenant Presbyterian Church and parishioner Dale Lewelling, accusing the church of covering up for confessed child molester John Perry and putting children in Perry's so-called "safe house."
8/ The family claims they were harassed, assaulted, and threatened for raising concerns about the church's concealment of child sexual abuse.
courthousenews.com Church Accused of Covering for Molester NASHVILLE (CN) – A Presbyterian church covered up for a “confessed child molester,” and “in cult-like fashion” put children in the molester’s so-called “safe house,” a family claims in court. A…
9/Despite the scandal, local media in Nashville has not covered the stories involving John Perry, who admitted to sexually molesting his daughter in court.
janespeaksup.com Secret Settlements in Child Sexual Abuse Cases: Cover-Up in Williamson County – Part 3
10/Presbyterian Church Association was reportedly going to bring charges against Pastor Jim Bachmann of Covenant, another church member who was implicated in enabling the abuse. Yet, no one has been charged in connection with the child sexual abuse allegations and cover-up.
11/ This leads to the question, when females only commit 2% of all mass shootings and have only committed 4 of the 147 school shootings before this event, could this have been a carefully plotted vengeance mission?
12/ Did Audrey Hale decide to partake in a tragic act of vigilante justice to try and bring attention to sexual crimes for which no one had ever been forced to pay for?
13/ The ages match up. Audrey, born around 1994, would have been an elementary – middle schooler sometime between 2002-2012 when the alleged abuse happened. Covenant Presbyterian taught kids from K-6th grade. Could Audrey have been a victim too?
abcnews.go.com Who was Nashville shooter Audrey Hale? The shooter who attacked the Covenant School in Nashville was identified as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who law enforcement said may have once attended the school.
14/ Below is a link to a document belonging to a database outlining the sequence of events of Covenant's sex crimes and cover-ups. It was compiled and created by a man attempting to expose Covenant for nearly a decade.
What are they trying to hide? https://keepandshare.com/doc15/23229/3o-dec-21-rise-of-a-titan-stuart-latimer-john-perry-covenant-child-sex-abuse-cover-up
15/ As a disclaimer: This is in no way excusing the actions of Hale; in no way did anything that happened to her justify her actions, and that is not what this post is trying to excuse.
This post is attempting to dig into the facts surrounding a murky sequence of events.
16/ Another potential piece in the puzzle, Hale messaged her middle school basketball teammate on social media informing her she was going to die by suicide and:
“One day this will make more sense," Hale wrote. "I've left behind more than https://newschannel5.com/news/she-checked-her-instagram-she-didnt-expect-a-message-from-the-covenant-school-shooter
17/ Something that could disprove this theory is if covenant was actually secondary target and the undisclosed school was the primary target. This is unless the undisclosed school in someway had a connection to the abuse scandal.
18/ http://Janespeaksup.com for that regional area eludes to multiple christian schools in that area, in that time period, having allegations of cover ups of sexual abuse. But this is a less likely scenario IMO and wouldn't even be testable until the manifesto is public anyways.…
19/ As to why she would target kids when an adult would be the abuser: who knows. Anyone who would senselessly murder children and teachers isn't logical. Crazy people don't think rationally. Plus, since she was a TIF, she likely was on Testosterone and other psych meds.
20/ Testosterone increases aggression and impulsivity, and who knows what comorbid conditions and/or antipsychotics, SSRIS, or uppers, she was on. Crazy people don't think rationally.
21/But this theory being true is neither favorable to the right or the left of the political spectrum obviously. The right wants it to be a hate crime (what I thought it was at first), the left wants it to be a fear induced downward spiral due to the alleged "trans genocide."
22/I made this thread because when I looked Hale's and Covenant's background due to curiosity since female school shooters are so rare, I found the abuse lawsuits within minutes. I thought it was strange that there were no news articles covering the potential connection.
23/ But in sum, only time and the manifesto will tell.
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goes with manifesto being blocked "do to copyright infringement" !!!
Nothing like actual work being done instead of politicians talking their asses off and then doing nothing.
- ICE Extradicts Mexican Nationals To US For International Sex Trafficking Ring -
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency have made an announcement in the extradition of four ultra-powerful Mexican Nationals who they say are the ringleaders in an international sex trafficking ring.
The investigation began with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New York, who uncovered a global syndicate that both exploited women and children in both the United States and Mexico.
According to ICE, sealed indictments were returned against the ringleaders alleging they're the conspirators operating a worldwide sex trafficking organization that's operated since at least the year 2000 in the United States of America.
Efrain Granados-Corona, aka “Chavito,” aka “Cepillo,” Emilio Rojas-Romero, Alan Romero-Granados, aka “El Flaco,” and Pedro Rojas-Romero, are charged together with Raul Romero-Granados, aka “Chicarcas,” aka “El Negro,” Isaac Lomeli-Rivera,” aka “Giro,” Julio Sainz-Flores, aka “Rogelio,” and Juan Romero-Granados, aka “Chegoya,” aka “El Guero,” with sex trafficking offenses in a 23-count Superseding Indictment (the “Indictment”) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Efrain Granados-Corona and Emilio Rojas-Romero were extradited to the United States from Mexico on April 26th. Alan Romero-Granados and Pedro Rojas-Romero were extradited to the United States from Mexico on Tuesday.
The members of the sex trafficking ring would lure minor women into their clutches with false promises of fortune and fame, only to enslave them and hold them captive to suffer from physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the evil men before being forced into commercial sex operations for profit.
ICE describes the sex trafficking ring as being a “family business,” in which the men would work cooperatively to capture the women and eventually enslave them into their cesspool of pedophilia and prostitution in both the US and Mexico.
As alleged in the indictment, Efrain Granados-Corona, Raul Romero-Granados, Isaac Lomeli-Rivera, Julio Sainz-Flores, Juan Romero-Granados, Alan Romero-Granados, Pedro Rojas-Romero, and Emilio Rojas-Romero, the defendants, are members of an international sex trafficking organization (the “STO”).
Many of the members of the STO are related by blood, marriage, and community. For example, Efrain Granados-Corona is the uncle of Raul Romero-Granados, Isaac Lomeli-Rivera, Juan Romero-Granados, and Alan Romero-Granados; Pedro Rojas-Romero and Emilio Rojas-ROMERO are brothers; Juan Romero-Granados and Alan Romero-Granados are also brothers, and Isaac Lomeli-Rivera is Raul Romero-Granados’s brother-in-law.
“These four individuals were transported more than two thousand miles from Mexico to be held accountable for the callous criminal actions alleged in this case,” said Angel M. Melendez, special agent in charge for HSI New York. “Those extradited, along with others, operated a family business centered on making money from exploiting females they forced into sex slavery. Now, these traffickers will face justice where they made their income, right here in New York. Human Trafficking remains a priority for HSI whose primary focus is to rescue victims and release them from the grip of their captors.”
“Sex trafficking is a heinous crime that violates both the rule of law and the most basic standards of human dignity. These defendants allegedly deprived women and girls of their freedom and forced them into prostitution against their will. The scope of devastation these defendants allegedly inflicted on countless victims is beyond comprehension. But now they face significant criminal charges in an American court and will have to answer for their allegedly reprehensible actions. Our office is dedicated to combatting this demoralizing crime and helping survivors reclaim their lives,” said US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey S. Berman.
ICE stated the following in a press release:
In most cases, a trafficker entices a victim – frequently a minor – in Mexico. The trafficker then uses multiple means to isolate the victim from her family. In some cases, the trafficker uses romantic promises to induce the victim to leave her family and live with him. In other cases, the trafficker rapes the victim, making it difficult for her to return to her family due to the associated stigma of the rape.
Once a victim is separated from her family, the Trafficker frequently monitors her communications, keeps her locked in an apartment, leaves her without food, and engages in physical or sexual violence against the Victim. Traffickers often tell victims that the Traffickers owe a significant debt and that the victim must work in prostitution to assist in repaying the debt.
Traffickers typically begin forcing the victims to work in prostitution in Mexico, frequently in a neighborhood of Mexico City known as “La Merced.” Victims are often required to see at least 20 to 40 customers per day. Traffickers monitor the number of clients a victim sees by surveilling the victim, communicating with brothel workers, and by counting the number of condoms provided to a victim. Traffickers typically require the victims to turn over all of the prostitution proceeds to the traffickers.
After a victim has worked in prostitution in Mexico for some time, traffickers typically arrange for the victim to be smuggled into the United States. Members of the STO assist one another in making smuggling arrangements. In many cases, multiple traffickers and multiple victims are smuggled into the United States together. In other cases, one trafficker may remain in Mexico while arranging for a victim to be smuggled together with another trafficker and other victims.
Once in the United States, the members of the STO generally maintain their victims at one of several shared apartments in New York City. Victims living in the same apartment are frequently forbidden to communicate with one another. Once in the United States, traffickers continue to use physical and sexual violence, threats of the same, lies, and coercion to force the victims to work in prostitution.
In most cases, the trafficker or another member of the STO provides a Victim with contact information with which to find work. The Victims typically work weeklong shifts either in a brothel or in a “delivery service.” In a delivery service, the Victim is delivered to a customer’s home by a “driver.” These brothels and delivery services are located both within New York and in surrounding states, including, but not limited to, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware.
Generally, each customer pays $30-35 for 15 minutes of sex. Of that, half of the money typically goes to the driver (in the case of a delivery service) or to the brothel. The other $15 goes to the Victim, who is then typically forced to give all of the proceeds to the trafficker. When a trafficker is unavailable, a Victim may also give the proceeds to another member of the STO.
This is beyond disturbing. These animals would kidnap these women, beat, rape, and torture them so as to make them perceive themselves as “belonging” to the sex trafficking ring and being “damaged goods,” afraid to leave due to shame.
Then, they'd force them into prostitution for a maximum of $35 a man, oftentimes having sex with multiple men every day. To make matters worse, half of that money would immediately go to the driver, and the other half would then go to their trafficker, or “pimp,” essentially meaning they're slaves to the abuse.
It's a horrific industry and it's a global problem.
Thankfully, the brilliant men and women at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency gave apprehended these vile monsters responsible for this particular organization.
It brings into question just how many missing children end up in these types of organizations, and how many are killed once they're no longer of use to the sex trafficking ring.
ICE states that Violent and Organized Crime Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The HSI New York’s Trafficking in Persons Unit (TIPU) is comprised of senior criminal investigators, intelligence officers, and victim assistance specialists who aid in the rescue of trafficking victims and prosecution of traffickers and trafficking organizations.
TIPU investigators focus on the exploitation of victims by force, fraud or coercion regardless of the person’s manor or entry into the United States. All TIPU investigations are victim-centered, seeking to rescue and protect the victims of trafficking.
Bravo, ICE, and credit to the men and women of the judicial system as well as the additional law enforcement agencies involved in this takedown.
Additional Sources or Relevant Information:
ice.gov/news/releases/4-mexican-nationals-extradited-us-international-sex-trafficking-offenses