Aug. 10, 2021 - Epoch Times
17:40
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| Good evening. | |
| Over in Arizona, as the audit of the 2020 election is about to be wrapped up, lawmakers from over a dozen different states went over to Maricopa County to tour the venue and see what is happening firsthand. | |
| Many of them are now looking to launch similar audits in their home states. | |
| Meanwhile, over in Nevada, two counties passed this resolution right here and officially became what are known as constitutional counties, meaning that the local governments there will be upholding the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution against all infringements from either state or federal authorities. | |
| Now what does that actually mean in practice? | |
| Well, let's go through that together. | |
| This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. | |
| Now, let's begin today's discussion over in Arizona. | |
| As you likely already know, the large-scale audit of the 2020 election over in Maricopa County has been officially underway for over a month and a half now. | |
| As a part of that audit, the Arizona State Senate is doing a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots. | |
| They are looking for any possible IT breaches that might have occurred, and they are also examining close to 400 election tabulation machines which were used during the contest. | |
| Now, as of five days ago, the official Twitter account for the Maricopa County audit, it announced that 80% of the ballots have now been recounted. | |
| Here's specifically what that Twitter post said. | |
| Now, just for your reference, by the way, when you actually do the math, if they are 80% done with the ballots, that means that approximately 1.7 million ballots have now been recounted, which leaves about 400,000 ballots that they still need to go through. | |
| And that tweet, by the way, was from five days ago, and so by now, they might even be closer to 90% done. | |
| Now, Ken Bennett, who is the audit liaison, he further added that the audit teams are now shifting their resources to ballot evaluation work, which he said includes anything to do with the authenticity of the ballot. | |
| Are there folds in the 1.9 million ballots that came in and now by mail? | |
| Are alignment marks on the front and the backs of the ballots aligning as authentic ballots should? | |
| Is there a depression in the oval where a human handheld device would have filled in that oval as opposed to an ink-gen printer or a Xerox machine or whatever you might think? | |
| Furthermore, he also added that the ballot evaluation work will likely take up most of the rest of the month. | |
| And for your reference, they have until June 30th to complete the audit. | |
| That's when their contract with the venue, that's when it expires. | |
| Now, besides what is happening with the audit itself, there has been another interesting phenomena that's worth noting. | |
| And that is, lawmakers from other states from across the entire country have gone over to Arizona in order to see the audit for themselves and And when I say lawmakers from across the country, I mean it. | |
| Because over the last two weeks, either delegations or individual lawmakers have come from places like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, among several other states. | |
| According to Ken Bennett, he described it this way. | |
| It is just a revolving door. | |
| Now, the lawmakers who came to visit the audit, they were shown how the workers are counting the nearly 2.1 million ballots. | |
| They were shown how the workers are evaluating the physical paper for abnormalities, like, for instance, if it's a mail-in ballot, it should have a fold on it, and if it doesn't have a crease, that means that's an abnormality. | |
| They were also shown the audit procedures, like how the ballots are being examined as well as the chain of custody processes, and many of the lawmakers who visited, they said that they hoped that they could take back what they learned Furthermore, | |
| that same lawmaker added, and this was, by the way, something that directly contradicts what the Democrat Secretary of State in Arizona said, he said that this audit was being conducted very securely. | |
| Here's what he said. | |
| I'm just blown away at the attention to detail, the focus on accuracy, transparency, just making sure that the chain of custody is as it should be, that every handoff is well-controlled. | |
| Likewise, a state senator from Virginia had a chance to tour the audit facility, and here's what she said afterwards. | |
| Not only do we need to improve our election process going forward, I think we need, in Virginia, to have an audit. | |
| And so I'm hoping that I can inspire some of my Republican colleagues in the Senate to at least hear what I have to say when I go back. | |
| Likewise, Senators from Pennsylvania relate a similar sentiment. | |
| We have a lot of the same concerns and issues unresolved in Pennsylvania. | |
| When you have about 47% of the state's population questioning the reliability of the election, that's the significance of your problem. | |
| And so the only way I could see ahead of this, putting this all to rest, and let the cards fall where they may, do a scientific forensic audit, like Arizona's doing. | |
| By the way, just for your reference, Pennsylvania Republicans are now seriously discussing the possibility of a similar audit, with even the top senator in the state saying that he is in support of that idea. | |
| Furthermore, over in Pennsylvania, Senator Doug Mestriano, he's one of the senators that visited Arizona, He said that Pennsylvania might be seeing an audit start as early as July. | |
| Likewise, the chairman of Nevada's Republican Party, he says that even though the Nevada legislature is controlled by the Democrats, he says that there might be a path to conduct an audit outside of the legislature, although he didn't provide too many details on that front. | |
| However, after visiting Arizona, here's what he did say. | |
| We intend to take and look at every legal option we have of bringing an audit here to Nevada. | |
| Likewise, a representative from Alaska who visited the Arizona audit said this, And so, as you can see, not only are many lawmakers coming to visit Arizona, They are also taking what they learned from the audit back to their home states, and many of them will be pushing for audits of their own. | |
| There are also plans for lawmakers from Wisconsin, Michigan, as well as several other states to visit Arizona before the audit concludes at the end of this month. | |
| And so what looks like might be happening is that this audit out in Arizona could actually spark a wave of similar election audits happening across this country. | |
| We'll just have to wait and see whether that is what will actually happen. | |
| However, the federal government is taking a very different approach. | |
| In fact, Merrick Garland, who is the Attorney General, he announced three days ago that the Department of Justice will double the number of lawyers in their Civil Rights Division in order to help ensure voter access as well as to help scrutinize election audits. | |
| Here's specifically what Merrick Garland said as a part of his statement. | |
| We are scrutinizing new laws that seek to curb voter access and where we see violations, we will not hesitate to act. | |
| We are also scrutinizing current laws and practices in order to determine whether they discredit against black voters and other voters of color. | |
| Particularly concerning with, in this regard, are several studies showing that in some jurisdictions, non-white voters must wait in line substantially longer than white voters to cast their ballots. | |
| During that speech, he further added that the Department of Justice will apply the same scrutiny to post-election audits, like the one happening over in Arizona, in order to make sure that they protect voting records, as well as to make sure that they don't engage in what he calls voter intimidation. | |
| He then added that in the coming days, the Department of Justice is planning to publish guidance in respect to these election audits. | |
| However, when the federal government did something similar a few months ago, we here at the Epoch Times spoke with several experts on the issue, and they told us that the federal government actually lacks constitutional authority to tell the individual states how to either conduct their elections or how to conduct their election audits. | |
| And now, with this new statement that was just made by Merrick Garland, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to Karen Phan, who is the president of the Arizona State Senate, and we asked her for comments surrounding this new contentious position that the federal government has taken against Arizona's audit. | |
| And here's what she wrote back to us in an email. | |
| "The Democrats have been trying every avenue they can to stop or discredit this audit. | |
| I'm sure this will be one of the many avenues they will pursue post-audit as well. | |
| What disturbs me more than anything is the fact that according to recent polls, 40 to 50 percent of voters believe there are serious problems or serious fraud in our electoral system, and none of these entities think it's important enough for them to do an audit to answer all of our citizens' concerns or questions." And so we'll just have to wait and see what will happen in the future. | |
| Because as more and more states are looking to conduct election audits of their own, it looks like the federal government is trying to clamp down on them and exert their authority. | |
| And how this will play out will likely have reverberations not only in the upcoming midterm elections, not only in the upcoming 2024 presidential race, but likely into how our elections are run well into the future. | |
| Regardless, we'll keep you abreast of any developments out in Arizona, as well as the possibility of other audits being done across this country as well. | |
| And when we hear anything on those fronts, we'll let you know right away. | |
| And as always, if you'd like to watch the audit out in Arizona for yourself, you can do so over at azaudit.org, which is the website that was set up by the Arizona State Senate, which allows you to watch the audit in real time from nine different camera angles. | |
| The link to azaudit.org, as well as all the other aspects to the story that we've discussed, will all be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now lastly, here's what a representative from the Epoch Times said. | |
| I hope that everyone watching this video takes a quick moment to smash that like button, which forces the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the facts be known far and wide. | |
| And now, before we discuss the two counties over in Nevada which declare themselves as being constitutional counties, I want to show you something very cool. | |
| It is the trailer for our exclusive Epic TV episode that we premiered over the weekend. | |
| Take a look. | |
| The November election, which took place over in Fulton County, Georgia, is under the microscope right now. | |
| Sworn affidavits from poll workers were so compelling that they convinced a judge to unseal 147,000 absentee ballots in order to investigate them for possible fraud. | |
| However, at the very last minute, literally one day before it was scheduled to begin, county officials filed motions to dismiss and indefinitely postponed the investigation. | |
| But that was just the tip of the iceberg. | |
| Because two days later, a security alarm went off in the building where the physical ballots were being stored. | |
| Photos from that day show the door to the building was left wide open. | |
| And the guards who were supposed to be on duty happened to leave just 20 minutes beforehand, and so the building was left unattended. | |
| What exactly happened there? | |
| And amidst all this, the mother and daughter team who were present at the State Farm Arena when ballots were being counted in the middle of the night were just issued notices from the court to come in for an official deposition. | |
| Let's go through what's happening over in Fulton County together in an exclusive episode of Facts Matter found only on Epic TV. If you want to check out that exclusive episode, the link to Epic TV will be right there at the top of the description box. | |
| Hope you click on it. | |
| Hope you subscribe to Epic TV. Check out that episode. | |
| And now let's move on over to Nevada. | |
| Two counties over in Nevada made the decision to go constitutional. | |
| Now what does that exactly mean? | |
| Well, it means that they passed this resolution right here, which among several other things declares that any conduct which is contrary to the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, or the U.S. Constitution will be dealt with as criminal activity. | |
| This resolution, by the way, was passed unanimously in Elko County, and then later it was passed in Lander County as well. | |
| Both of those are rural counties over in Nevada. | |
| And so, according to this resolution, it essentially says that the local governments of these two counties, which includes their commissioners as well as their sheriffs, will stand against any unconstitutional acts by both state and federal authorities. | |
| Now, in terms of what constitutional rights they are referring to specifically, well, let's read through it together. | |
| It says, They further went on to essentially bring their county back to first principles and say that they deny any governmental structure which supersedes either the Bill of Rights or the U.S. Constitution. | |
| Here's specifically what this resolution says. | |
| We maintain that no agency established by the U.S. Congress can develop its own policies or regulations which supersede the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, nor does the executive branch have the power to make law, overturn law, or set aside law. | |
| They then go on to list 10 abuses that will no longer be tolerated in these counties. | |
| At the top of the list are orders infringing on the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and other liberties that are guaranteed under the First Amendment. | |
| And then as you go down the list, other acts that will no longer be tolerated include efforts to register firearms, gun confiscation, violations of either privacy or property rights without a warrant, detainment or arrest without following constitutional procedures, and so on. | |
| And then, at the very end of the resolution, these two county governments became the first in the nation to officially join an organization called the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. | |
| This is a national organization that's made up of sheriffs as well as other law enforcement officials who are dedicated to upholding their oaths as well as upholding the U.S. Constitution. | |
| Now, across America, there are many sheriffs as well as police officers who are members of this group. | |
| But before this resolution was passed, never before had a county government requested to join. | |
| These two counties in Nevada were, in fact, the first. | |
| Now, this group was actually created by a former sheriff named Richard Mack, and I actually had a chance to sit down and interview him late last year while I was reporting from Arizona during the time of the previous election. | |
| During that interview, he told me that he had been traveling across this country for many years now, educating both local sheriffs as well as local communities on what he says is their duty to protect the constitutionally guaranteed liberties of their constituents from being undermined by federal and state governments. | |
| And so we here at the Epoch Times reached out to get a comment from him about these two counties right here in Nevada passing this resolution, and here's what he told us. | |
| The people of these counties and their elected officials have had it up to here with unconstitutional dictates and mandates. | |
| The leadership of Elko County is an example to all of Nevada and the entire country that tyranny will no longer be acceptable. | |
| He then went on to further say These public officials are actually doing something that has been lost in political correctness for a very long time. | |
| They are courageously keeping their oaths of office to uphold, defend, and preserve the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Nevada. | |
| Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we also reached out to the county commissioner, the one who initially proposed this resolution here in this county, and he not only got back to us with a statement, but he is also calling on counties across America to take similar actions in defense of the U.S. Constitution. | |
| Here's what he told us. | |
| We need a majority of counties in all the freedom-loving states to join. | |
| He then went on to say that right now, the swamp controls our federal government and our nation is in decline. | |
| The only way to take back our country is county by county, sheriff by sheriff. | |
| My advice to other Americans is that they had better wake up and fight back or we will lose our wonderful country. | |
| We are slipping quickly from the republic of our founding into a dictatorship. | |
| Now the big question is whether this will stop here or if other counties will join in as well. | |
| According to Sheriff Richard Mack, as the news of this option spreads, and as citizens across America get involved, he told us that these two counties are likely just the beginning. | |
| And likewise, we spoke with the operations director over at the Constitutional Sheriff's Association, and he told us here at the Epoch Times that he is already in talks with elected officials from other counties as well. | |
| And so, we'll just have to wait and see if this trend catches on, and if more counties across this country become constitutional counties. | |
| Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we also reached out to Stephen Sisolak, who is the governor of Nevada. | |
| He's a Democrat. | |
| However, he did not get back to us. | |
| Regardless, if you would like to read more about these two counties in Nevada that decided to go constitutional, or if you would like to read this full two-page resolution right here, it's pretty good. | |
| I would highly recommend it. | |
| The link to it will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And lastly, as we've already discussed in several previous episodes, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, coincidentally, YouTube made the unilateral decision to demonetize our program. | |
| We can now no longer run any ads before, during, or after our episodes, and the Super Chat feature has just been disabled, and that is, by the way, aside from any kind of censorship or throttling that YouTube already employs against our channel. | |
| Regardless, we here at the Epoch Times, we decided to take action and we made something very cool. | |
| It's called EpicTV. | |
| It's our brand new no-censorship video platform where you can find all of the awesome Epoch Times video programs, like The Larry Elder Show, American Thought Leaders, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, China in Focus, Life and Times, and our show Facts Matter, and on there you will find exclusive episodes that you will not find here on YouTube, such as that episode that you already watched the trailer for about what's happening over in Fulton County, Georgia. | |
| The link to Epic TV will be right there at the top of the description box. | |
| I hope you click on it, I hope you subscribe, and I hope that you join us on this journey of, in an uncensored manner, exploring this beautiful world through honest journalism based in truth and tradition. | |
| And lastly, if you haven't already, subscribe to this YouTube channel in order to get honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed. | |
| While you still can, smash that like button so that other people can view this video as well so the YouTube algorithm shares it out to them. | |
| Check me out on Instagram at EpicTimesRoman. | |
| If you have an account there, you can check out some behind-the-scenes stuff as well as I post my research as I'm doing it on there. | |
| You can check that out. | |
| And lastly, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times. |
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