Clark County resident Rob Anderson shares his reaction to the Clark County Council’s approval of a $4.7 million remodel of the election department facilities
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and do not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com
Rob Anderson
Reform Clark County
Last June, several citizens brought needed attention to several election-related problems which resulted in stalling Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey’s request for a $4.7 million remodel of the election department facilities. During the June 7 meeting, Chair Karen Bowerman moved to table Kimsey’s request so that the “public concerns could be looked into.” Yet, this week, when the subject came back up on the agenda, with very little notice, all but one of the county councilors pretended that everything was okay and forgot to do what they promised, which was to look into the concerns.
Was it because almost two months after the June 7 meeting, Kimsey sent out an email to councilors refuting the public’s concerns with answers that were untruthful and dismissive, which the Council accepted as gospel truth? Most likely, but it is also that most councilors don’t have the courage to offer solutions to vital issues that 25-year bureaucrats like Kimsey want to desperately stay away from.
The councilors, except Councilor Michelle Belkot, were eerily silent and asked few questions, if any, regarding citizens’ concerns which was the whole point of the second appearance on the agenda. These documented election problems come from folks who have devoted hundreds of hours to election observing, are trained as Certified Election Observers, and have done extensive research, so none of them are shooting from the hip with wild accusations.
Some of the concerns that were brought forth and eventually ignored are:
- Clark County needs a forensic audit, but Kimsey refuses
- Wanting full video surveillance of ballot processing areas
- Voter registration rolls are not kept clean as required
- Full image retention, backup and proper chain of custody requirements
- Establish a citizen-based election committee
- Reform Certified Election Observer rules to have less muzzling effect
- Illegal votes, like dead voters, are still occurring in Clark County
- Recounts of 2022 showed an error rate of 1 in 741 ballots, unacceptably beyond the 1 in 500,000 allowed by Federal law
- Several other issues…
Yet, even with mounting evidence from concerned citizens, four out of the five councilors yawned and shrugged off their duty to listen and act on behalf of the people and sided with the government bureaucrats and officials, by serving out more American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) taxpayer debt money as slop into the trough of big government.
Councilor Medvigy mentioned the woes of voter disengagement, lack of voting, and signatures verification while ignoring that many voters are moving away or disengaging in part due to the integrity concerns that have led to one-party rule in Washington state. This is like actively defunding the police and complaining about the rise of crime rates afterward. Complaining about citizens not voting and looking the other way with issues contributing to the disengagement will only make the problem worse and is political hypocrisy.
But it got worse. Just a short time after the election vote a conversation emerged about a contract about used railroad ties which generated more enthusiasm and discussion from Councilors Yung and Marshall. Clearly, used railroad ties are far more valuable to them than making sure your vote is counted and our elections are being run with integrity and transparency … used railroad ties, people.
At the end of the day, it was Belkot who was the lone voice to bring up questions of costs and voted no for the boondoggle of an expansion. Citizens offered a commonsense amendment to the proposal that would address election problems by adding money for a forensic audit, full video surveillance, and full image retention backup, but Medvigy led the charge to kill any talk of amending because he was concerned about the, wait for it … extra costs. I kid you not, that was the best he could muster.
It’s time for big change at the Clark County Council, and we have to get people willing to actually represent the needs of the people rather than the endless expansion of government taxation and business-as-usual corruption.
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