Missouri county election officials face DOJ request for 2020 election results
Olivia Hayes
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Missouri is now part of a multi-state attempt by the Department of Justice to access, physically inspect, and take physical custody of election equipment used in the 2020 November election.
Jasper County Clerk Charlie Davis said he was contacted about a week and a half ago by a Department of Justice official to access Dominion equipment used in the 2020 election. He said it was a frustrating call to receive because President Donald Trump has won in Jasper County in the last three elections. He said there have also been no issues in the nearly 26 elections he has helped run.
Davis said that he no longer has the equipment, and a DOJ official only contacted him once.
A memo from the Friday meeting for the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities also noted requests the DOJ made to the McDonald County Clerk’s Office.
Denny Hoskins, the Missouri Secretary of State, said that his office referred DOJ officials to the local clerks after receiving the department’s initial request for equipment access.
Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon said that her office has not received a request yet, but there are strict laws in place with testing election equipment before it’s even purchased to prevent election error, starting at the federal level.
“The process that the federal government does, goes through is the Elections Assistance Commission, and they go through testing to certify guidelines called the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines,” Lennon said.
Lennon explained that the equipment then has to go through additional checks and balances at the state, county and local levels.
“There’s a public demonstration component of it that the Secretary of State’s Office does. Then once they have signed off on it, then it gives us at the local level the ability to purchase it and enter into contracts to buy it or lease it and then use it in our county,” Lennon said.
Lennon said that the testing continues through every election as well.
“We run test decks of ballots through the machines to make sure that they’re counting correctly. Then we do a certification process after the election where we make sure that the equipment is still working,” Lennon said. “We also do a hand audit of the ballots from 5% of our polling places or precincts just to make sure that the machines are operated correctly.”
Lennon said the point of the machines is to help avoid human error in counting the votes. Besides the occasional paper jam, Lennon said, the machines in Boone County have never had any problems with vote counts.
“It happens every election where somebody puts a ballot in and it gets stuck and then we have our election judges or we have our staff fix that to make sure that the ballots are going to move through the actual scanning functionality,” Lennon said. “It’s never had an impact on our counting, it’s never had an impact on the accuracy.”
In a statement to ABC 17 News, the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities agreed about the Missouri voting safeguards in place, but also shed light on the legality of what the DOJ is attempting through its request.
“By law, custody, maintenance, preparation, testing, and storage of this equipment are the responsibility of the Local Election Authority. While our robust pre- and post-election equipment testing is open to the public for observation, it is illegal to allow unauthorized access or tampering to election equipment. These safeguards exist to protect the security, accuracy and integrity of Missouri’s elections,” the statement reads.
Missouri election officials aren’t alone in receiving these requests. The Brennan Center for Justice reported last week that the Justice Department has demanded files from at least 21 states.
Lennon said the DOJ testing the voting equipment itself could have lasting effects on its ability to accurately represent later elections.
“Part of the advantage of the equipment that we use is that it’s not connected to the internet,” Lennon said. “All of the testing and certification that’s being done can be jeopardized. There is just no mechanism in the law to allow unfettered access or access to anybody other than the election authority.”
Lennon said if the DOJ were to request voter data from the county, it would only receive information available through a public records request.
“That’s also why you hear candidates that send out mailings, and people wonder where they get that information from. It does start with their voter registration record,” Lennon said. “That involves the voter’s name, the year of their birth, their address and then any other voter history, so not how they voted, but whether they voted.”
Lennon does not feel like Boone County will receive a request regarding its equipment.