Steve Pieczenik is LYING

Thread: Last night I tweeted this:

Ever since I tweeted it, I’ve been thinking about it. I’m convinced this is a hoax. Here’s why. First, think about the ballot you voted this election. Each individual ballot is created specifically for the precinct you are in.

If you live in Tarrant County, for example, your ballot will have races local to your precinct as well as the national and statewide races. You might also have judges you have to vote for as well as propositions for local bond programs, etc.

So, potentially, every single voting precinct could have races unique to it. Certainly, at the county level that is true. Imagine trying to print all those mail-in ballots from a centralized location.

Then I thought, well, who is responsible for printing absentee and mail-in ballots? Thanks to the internet, you can look that up. Here’s what I found: County taps firm to print/mail absentee & mail-in ballots for general election – LebTown

County taps firm to print/mail absentee & mail-in ballots for general election

Now, granted, this is for one county in one state. But still, it’s indicative of what the norm would likely be. Let’s actually read this article.

“The county commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to outsource to a Harrisburg-based company the printing and mailing of absentee and mail-in ballots for the upcoming general election.”

Now, I love Trump, and I think he’s a lot smarter than many people give him credit for. But how’s he going to get the commissioners in a heavily Democratic county (much less a state) to go along with his plan to embed markers in the ballots?

And even if he was somehow able to bypass the county and go directly to the printer, how’s he going to keep this secret? It’s simply not possible. There are 3007 counties in the US.

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-counties-are-united-states?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products

You’d have to interact with 3007 different counties, many of them controlled by Democrats, and convince the printers to embed this so-called watermark and swear every printer to secrecy. The more you think about this idea, the more outlandish it becomes.

But let’s keep reading our story about Lebanon County, PA, one of those 3007 counties that have to print ballots for each election.

Correction: According to this Forbes article, provided to me by @kellis1947, there are ” about 9000 local electoral offices”. I don’t know if that means that they all print ballots or not.

““One of the things we looked at after the primary was the ability to keep this (ballot process) in-house,” Anderson told the commissioners. “One of the things we found is that we worked a lot of hours and

had to bring a lot of people in at the last minute just to accomplish the mailing and to get the absentee ballots out on time.”

So, the county normally prints and mails the ballots themselves. 3007 counties nationwide. What do you want to bet that at least some of them DID keep it in house? But some of them farmed it to out-of-state firms.

One-Third of Absentee Ballots in GOP-Strong Texas County Rejected | http://Newsmax.com https://www.newsmax.com/politics/tarrant-texas-ballots-printing/2020/10/27/id/994031/ via @newsmax

“Tarrant County administrator Heider Garcia told county commissioners Tuesday the issue involves Phoeniz, Arizona-based Runbeck Election Services, which printed some of the ballots with an illegible bar code.”

I’ll bet Runbeck Election Services printed ballots for a bunch of counties all across the US. I’d also bet they’re not the only service that does that. So, the DHS would have to coordinate not only with individual counties, but also with centralized election services businesses.

And keep it all completely secret until they spring the trap. The more I think about this “stunning revelation”, the less likely it is that it ever could have happened even if Trump initially thought it was a good idea.

I’m afraid my confirmation bias blinded me to the realities of this cockamamie story and led me to present it to my followers as fact when it’s apparently fiction. I say apparently, because I’m not smart enough to know if there was some way to do this that I’m not aware of.

And sure enough, no less than @SebGorka, who is in a position to know, debunked this story this morning.

Here’s another tweet from Seb.

I think we can safely put this story in the hoax category. You might want to drop the owner of the Youtube channel a note thanking him for spreading false information and preying on honest patriots’ hopes and dreams.

And while you’re at it, let @StevePieczenik know what you think of his scam.

As for me, I’ve reported the video to Youtube. As for the election, it’s far from over. Researchers have already found multiple examples of dead people voting in some of the critical states. That alone is proof that the election is fraudulent. More will be coming out.

Let’s focus on what’s real and what can be proven. I hope SOMEONE is looking for dead voters in all fifty states. It’s critical that we not only win the electoral college but also the popular vote. Think about it.

If the public finds out that Trump won the popular vote but had it stolen from him through voter fraud, the outrage will be palpable. And state legislatures will be emboldened to send electors loyal to Trump to complete his reelection.

Originally tweeted by Parler: @PaulSchmehl #ArrestSOMEBODY (@PaulSchmehl) on November 6, 2020.

ADDENDUM: CISA has now debunked this story. Hat tip to @icewhelos of the Quodverum forum

NEW

 Reality: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) do not design or audit ballots, which are processes managed by state and local election officials.

  Rumor: DHS or CISA printed paper ballots with security measures and is auditing results as a countermeasure against ballot counterfeiting.

Get the Facts: While DHS and CISA assist states and localities with securing election infrastructure, DHS and CISA do not design, print, or audit ballots. State and local election officials manage ballot design and printing, as well as the auditing of results.

Local election offices have security and detection measures in place that make it highly difficult to commit fraud through counterfeit ballots. While the specific measures vary, in accordance with state and local election laws and practices, ballot security measures can include signature matching, information checks, barcodes, watermarks, and precise paper weights. 

DHS and CISA operate in support of state and local election officials, and do not administer elections or handle ballots. CISA’s role in election security includes sharing information, such as cyber threat indicators, with state and local election officials, as well as providing technical cybersecurity services (e.g. vulnerability scanning) upon the request of those officials.

14 Comments

txantimedia

I don’t have to explain it. The writer of that article has to explain how the federal government took over the ballot printing process from 3007 counties nationwide when the clear evidence shows that every county is responsible for getting its own ballots printed. Some do it in house. Some farm it out, even to other states, as I showed in my article.

Benny Teague

My Ballot in Kansas was on a LCD Screen and my actual Ballot was a blank long card. When I finished making my selections, THEN it was printed on the blank paper to be put into a Counting Machine.

txantimedia

That’s a common practice now. Those ballots are not the ones in discussion. Only absentee and mail-in ballot paper could be pre-loaded with an embedded security device that would confirm their legitimacy. That would have to happen prior to ballot-printing.

The problem is, the federal government would have to control the purchasing of all paper for ballots nationwide to do this. I have been unable to find any evidence that the government was able to or actually did that. I’m still looking and will continue to do so.

Furthermore, the type of paper used is determined by the vote-counting equipment that the states and each election authority use. So, the federal government would have to not only provide all the paper, they would have to provide it to each election authority based on their unique requirements.

Mark Kemp

I was almost sold because of block chain encryption. But as I watched this guy, it didn’t sit right with me, his body language and words. Then I remembered the max 21M Bitcoins available and that each Bitcoin block chain has all the previous Bitcoins in them. The newest blockchain is the longest. It would literally be physically impossible to encode a block chain into a water mark. Now maybe only the unique code or ID is in there but then it wouldn’t be any better than any other unique code assigned to a voter in a database.

txantimedia

I’ve been doing more research on this. There IS such a thing as security paper, and there’s (AFAICT) only one company in the world that manufactures it. The paper can have visible or invisible threads (revealed by ultraviolet light) embedded into it. What I haven’t been able to determine is whether the paper is mandated by all 50 states to be used for all paper ballots. IF that were the case, then it might be possible to separate legal from illegal ballots, but only if the bad guys didn’t already print enough “legal” ballots to fill out with the votes they want to use. Embedding a blockchain into a piece of paper is, as you say, not even physically possible.

Gaby

Hi! I am new to this page so please bear with me. This is how I understand it: each state prints their own ballots for their various counties, etc. It’s the PAPER that has the encrypted watermark on it, and the PAPER came from the same source. So if I were the paper supplier, and you own the printing business contracted to print those ballots for your local county, I supply the PAPER to you. And you can print whatever you need to print. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s the paper that has the encrypted watermark. To further clarify, again, I may be speaking out of ignorance — but it sounds to me that this special paper is used to print MAIL-IN Ballots only because Trump knew that arena had the highest probability of fraud. So, if you voted in person, chances are you didn’t come cross this watermarked paper. If this plan played out the way it’s expected – it would be easy to verify which is the legit (mail-in) ballot and which are the fake ones.

txantimedia

You’re close to right. The states don’t print ballots. Each election board does. Many of them farm it out to professional printers. Those printers have to meet rigid certification requirements in order to qualify as a ballot printer. They all get their paper from one provider, but the exact product (paper) depends upon the voting system they are using. There are at least three different types. Those papers have security embedded into them to confirm they are legitimate ballots (just like money.) BUT, the federal government has no role in that process and no power to compel the paper manufacturer to embed anything in their paper. Furthermore, the manufacturer would be legally obligated to inform the customer of the watermark, if there were one.

You are correct that the paper is used for mail-in ballots, but it’s also used for absentee ballots.

The reality is that there is no special watermark that makes every ballot traceable. Both the CISA and Seb Gorka (who ought to know) have refuted the story.

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