FEATURE
Courtesy The Gateway Pundent via Rumble
The Invisible Audit 12 WWW.BENDSOURCE.COM / SEPTEMBER 23, 2021 / BEND’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
A small but dedicated chatroom is coordinating a grassroots “audit” of Oregon’s elections, with help from local Republican officials By Jack Harvel
Deschutes County Republican Precinct Committeeperson and former Chair Mark Knowles and current Chair Phil Henderson speak with the Gateway Pundit after touring the Maricopa County audit, which has been criticized for engaging in conspiracy while failing to meet the standards of a traditional audit.
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n June 22 Deschutes County Republican Party Chair Phil Henderson and Precinct Committeeperson Mark Knowles spoke to the Gateway Pundit, a far-right news website, after touring the Maricopa County, Arizona, audit. The Arizona audit has been criticized for indulging conspiracy theories, like searching for traces of bamboo in ballots to determine if they were imported from Asia, while failing to meet the state’s standards for recounts and audits. The Deschutes County Republican Party’s website hints at its electoral skepticism of the 2020 election. On its official website’s homepage, just below a letter from Henderson, is a collection of videos from Mike Lindell’s Cyber Symposium, a 48-hour broadcast hosted by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell purporting widescale election fraud. When broadcast on One America News Network, Lindell’s documentary, “Absolute Proof,” was prefaced with an ironic disclaimer. “OAN does not adopt or endorse any statements or opinions in this program regarding the following entities or people: US Dominion Inc. (and any related entities); Smartmatic USA Corp.; Brian Kemp; Brad Raffensperger, or Gabriel Sterling,” a statement read before the documentary aired. “Further, the statements and claims expressed in this program are presented at this time as opinions and are not intended to be taken or interpreted by the viewer as established fact.” Maricopa County officials, Arizona Democrats and election experts criticized Cyber Ninjas, the third-party
auditors hired by Arizona Senate Republicans, for lack of transparency, failure to meet deadlines, lack of election experience and mishandling of election equipment – decertifying over $2 million worth of Maricopa County election equipment. The audit dragged past its deadline and is four months overdue, but results are expected to be released on Friday, Sept. 24. The state already audited the election several times before Arizona Republicans went to court to take custody of ballots and voting machines. Local GOP members Henderson and Knowles spoke to the Gateway Pundit just as the paper examinations were wrapping up. “It was just really an impressive amount of detail and forethought that went into this planning, and we got a briefing beforehand about all the steps of the system, so I was just really impressed,” Henderson told the Gateway Pundit. “We’re the first mail-in voter, as a state, so we have a lot of experience with that. We wonder about the susceptibilities there and we’re also a motor voter registration state, which causes lots of people to be registered, whether they want to be or not, so to speak. So there’s some things we wanted to see how they do it.” Henderson added they will take home lessons learned from the Arizona audit. “I’m the chair of the local Deschutes Republican committee. We have an election integrity subcommittee that is going to be looking at the processes in our county and then trying to share this with other
state officials and work through some of these questions that have been raised, just watching this,” he said. It’s unclear what the election integrity subcommittee Henderson referenced does. Both Henderson and Knowles didn’t respond to a request for comment, but it is likely connected to the Oregon First Audit Chat. The Oregon First Audit Chat, an online forum, formed on June 8, and in just a few months its following swelled to over 5,000, with about 400 active members online during the day. They partnered with Seth Keshel, a former Army captain and baseball analyst who has amassed a following on Telegram focusing on alleged election fraud, and aiding regional channels. Keshel has over 150,000 followers on Telegram and there’s an audit channel for all 50 states. Deb Lee, the Deschutes Republic Party Vice Chair, started the Oregon First Audit Chat, according to many of its members. “I couldn’t remember who is running our channel. Deb Lee? started it I thought,” a chat member, Diane P., wrote.
Oregon First Audit Chat The chat has a central room for general updates about the “audit,” and three rooms for specific tasks group members partake in. The Freedom of Information Act room requests documents, the document group analyzes the FOIAs and the communication group gets in touch with legislators, county commissioners and other officials. Keshel claimed 20 of Oregon’s 36 counties had “obvious fraud,” eight were suspicious and eight were clean. Keshel said he estimated over 8 million “excess” Biden votes in the United States, 162,000 in Oregon and said the state’s four initial targets are Linn, Jackson, Umatilla and Yamhill counties. All four counties voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, but Keshel claims they certified thousands of fraudulent votes. These claims aren’t based on demonstrated fraud, rather they are Keshel’s own trend analysis of population growth, voter behavior and party registration. His predictions contain few of the hallmarks of a traditional analysis: he doesn’t share data sources, methodology or margin of error. On Sept. 11 the Linn County Clerk, Steve Druckenmiller, began receiving hundreds of emails chastising him for allegedly certifying fraudulent election results during the 2020 election. Some of the emails were polite and inquisitive, but most were angry. Druckenmiller said people shared doubts about the electoral
