A war has been going on between well-funded establishment election candidates, and local Republican grassroots candidates I have championed as shown on my FiscalRangers.com Primary voting guide for Lake County, FL, HERE.
You can see the final vote counts per candidate on the Supt. of Elections Website HERE.
The ChatGTP 4.0 & DALL-E AI-created cartoon depicts the nasty, establishment candidates at the top of the hill throwing nasty hit mailers at the Grass Roots Candidates. I spent 30 minutes trying to fix the spelling but kept getting other mistakes, but you get the idea.
However, the well-funded ( estimated over $2-million ) Establishment candidates won most races in the August 20, 2024 primaries by being supported by $2-million+ funding dark money Political Action Committee hit piece mailers and text messages. I will be tracking down where the money came from, but you have to ask why establishment candidates Keith Truenow, Nan Cobb and others approved the hit pieces and what did they promise in return for huge spending by PACs?
Additionally, as a retired information systems auditor, I do not trust the numbers reported by Alan Hays, Supt. of Elections. He always comes up with a shiny object answer to questions, and the gap between his totals and those of opposition, grassroots candidate Tom Vail was much bigger than I think possible. As one person who walked to many houses campaigning said, "I never had anyone say they really wanted Alan Hays...".
I attended the voting machine "tests" with the Canvassing Board before the August 20 primaries at the Supt. of Elections Office, and in my opinion it is right out of the 1950s. It is designed just to make people think they see proof of accuracy. But as a retired information systems auditor and Certified Fraud Examiner, I didn't think much of the process. The Judge and County Commissioners on the Board never get out of their seats to inspect the machines, and focus on defined busy work like comparing totals between tapes. They didn't even watch the final scan of test ballots in a separate room when I attended.
When I asked "how do YOU know the machines don't have embedded circuitry or hidden code to alter vote counts", staff said they rely on a new software (oh, great another outside developed software) to do a FULL test of the test vote count. But they didn't let anyone in to observe the scans or ask questions. The canvassing board also cut off observer questions during the initial tests, and refused to allow photos or cameras. Gee, what transparency? No bank would rely on such tests to verify bank balances of customers or cash counts.
In a coincidence, I am watching the second part of Lord of the Rings, where the small "grassroots" Hobbits are being chased in the forest by huge, black robed killers on black horses. The similarity to the dark money attackers pictured above is eery.
Vance
