Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Similar suits pop up in counties statewide
DAVENPORT – A lawsuit filed in Lincoln County Superior Court Monday, Oct. 4 by the Washington Election Integrity Coalition United (WEICU) and Jerry Schulz of Reardan accuses the Lincoln County Auditor’s office and former auditor Shelly Johnston of election violations during the 2020 general election.
WEICU has filed similar lawsuits around the state in recent weeks, including in Snohomish, Whatcom and Clark Counties, with more expected of press time. The group has maintained thus far unproven claims of election fraud statewide that they say helped Joe Biden and Jay Inslee be elected to their respective positions.
While the lawsuit lays out no clear proof of election fraud in Lincoln County, the plaintiffs (WEICU and Schulz) are demanding a jury trial and seek judgement for “damages for violations of their civil rights” while accusing Johnston of allowing or facilitating vote flipping, additions and/or deletions, ballot box stuffing through lax signature verification, party preference tracking and “personally certifying electronically generated tabulation results for an election subject to not only a substantial loss of access to signature verification data, but also a ransomware attack.”
While Johnston is the subject of the repeated accusations, county prosecutor Adam Walser said the language of the lawsuit reads in very general terms that are likely repeated in lawsuits around counties statewide. One of the few items specific to Lincoln County is repeated references to the Nov. 11, 2020 ransomware attack on the county that WEICU claims should’ve led to a personal certification of electronically generated tabulation results by the county auditor.
The filing claims that 6,0000 votes were flipped, 400,000 votes were added and “thousands” of votes were removed in one or more races statewide during the election process. The lawsuit offers no substantial evidence to this claim, instead repeatedly using language that states “plaintiffs are informed and believe and thereon allege…”
The ransomware attack took place a week after the general election in a county that voted vastly Republican in the federal and gubernatorial races.
The Auditor’s Office told The Times there was no misconduct or fraudulent activity carried out by Johnston or any elections staff during Nov. 2020, and all election proceedings were carried out correctly.
The lawsuit also says the auditor’s office won’t respond to a public records request, that, in part, demands an unsealing of all ballots for a full forensic audit.
In response, Walser said the county greatly values election security, but also the privacy of the individual voter to not have their ballot released on public record. He said that right to privacy has been supported in state court rulings. Therefore, he said, the county’s current position is to not release any ballots in a public records request unless ordered to by a judge.
The county, with the defendants named as the auditor’s office and current auditor Chandra Schumacher, has 20 days to respond to the lawsuit. The plaintiff signatures come from Schulz and WEICU director Tamborine Borrelli of Thurston County.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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