Patrick Byrne, the founder of the America Project, has often highlighted the importance of the paper used in the Maricopa County Election. The America Project and Byrne helped fund the Maricopa audit. Byrne has stated that 100 percent of the ballots were "fake."
On Friday, the Cyber Ninja report mentioned paper stock, paperweight, and kinematic artifacts being investigated by Jovan Hutton Pulitzer. More complete information about the paper used for the Maricopa County election could help provide a critical missing piece to reconstruct what happened in the 2020 election.
The paper stock used in elections is significant because it can affect how a vote is adjudicated and tabulated. Paper can also tell the story of whether counterfeit ballots were used. The weight, thickness, security features of paper are all critical features of a secure ballot. Bleed-through can result on ballots with thinner paper stock. Ballot paper should be uniform, and its specifications should be prescribed. Ostensibly, ballots that do not meet the defined specifications should not be counted.
VoteSecur paper is the paper of choice for elections because it has the thickness, coating, and security features necessary to help ensure that one's vote is properly adjudicated. The security paper is part of Rolland, Inc's family of CheckSecur papers. The trademark for the paper was registered in August of 2018 and is listed under the name "VoteSecur." Byrne mentions the security paper by name.
Byrne's video conversation with Joe Flynn, Hutton Pulitzer, Steve Montenegro, and Seth Keshel on Friday discusses the ballots, among other audit-related topics.
Byrne, Hutton, and Joe Flynn also "debunk" in a second video what they say are lies in the media about Friday's report. One of the biggest takeaways is that the audit did not prove Biden won, contrary to much of that which has been reported.
"They certified garbage," says Byrne because "ballots were counted in the final certification that were fraudulent in a myriad of ways."
In the "debunked" video, Byrne also reveals that a setting was allegedly turned off in the Dominion software that would have detected non VoteSecur paper. He says that it would have been a Dominion employee who changed the setting, given Maricopa County employees were not allowed admin access to the election management system.
The County claimed in a July Tweet that it used "80lb VoteSecur stock for all mail-in and in-person voting ballots."
Runbeck Election Services
During the audit, Cyber Ninjas contacted the Runbeck Election Services CEO. Runbeck was responsible for printing the mail-in ballots for the election. Although the CEO initially agreed to speak with Cyber Ninjas, he requested written questions, which Logan supplied. Later the Cyber Ninjas team was told that "Maricopa County instructed [Runbeck] that vendors, even private companies, should not speak with the auditors."
"Ballots impacted, N/A" means they weren't even allowed to ask the question and, therefore, could not verify the specific paper used one way or another. Logan's team says Maricopa County interfered with the audit process at almost every critical step of the process.
Runbeck/Maricopa Interference/Vol. 3
UncoverDC also contacted Runbeck to ask what paper was used in the Maricopa election for its SharpieGate article in July and was met with similar roadblocks—not all questions were answered. However, the PR person did answer UncoverDC, stating the ballots were "printed with VoteSecur paper."
Runbeck/UncoverDC emails.
Runbeck Answer/July 2021
Ten Different Papers Found
Ten different papers were found according to Vol. 3 under sub-heading 5.7.6. Several of the papers did not follow the legally prescribed 80lb stock weight but were, in fact, much lighter stock:
"10 different papers have been found. Several of these paper stocks include paper with the weight from 20 lbs to 30 lbs when generally the accepted best practice for voting is to utilize ballot stock of 80 lbs or higher. The large number of papers used during this election and the lack of official reporting about what paper stocks were utilized made it difficult to identify any potential counterfeit ballots."
Rolland Inc.: Features of Security Paper for Ballots
Rolland Inc. is a French-Canadian company known to supply many U.S. County elections with their security paper. The features of the Rolland trademark security paper are shown below.
Rolland Inc. Security Paper
Invisible Fibers/Detected with Ultraviolet Light
The use of a device, probably one like the device pictured below—called a "Ghost Reactor," was also mentioned by Byrne as a way to detect security features embedded in the fibers of paper stock. The Ghost Reactor is Rolland Inc's proprietary technology. The device can detect an "invisible taggant" embedded in their paper.
Ghost Reactor/Rolland Paper
Kinematic Artifact Detection
Inventor Jovan Hutton Pulitzer has discussed the importance of the paper for the ballots at length. His expertise is the forensic analysis of artifacts left on ballots after handling and marking: folds, markings, paper fibers, bleed-through are all examples of things he inspects at a granular level.
Bleed-through and calibration issues were discussed at length in the July hearing. Vol. 3 shows evidence of bleed-through. However, it was noted in Vol. 3 that they "could not find any images where bleed-through was close enough to a ballot oval to cause mis-tabulation."
Bleed-through can kick a ballot into adjudication because the pen markings on one side can affect a vote on the backside of a ballot. The decision to use Sharpies on election day in the Maricopa election was an unprecedented event. All previous elections used pens to avoid bleed-through when filling out the ovals.
Paper Issues/Vol. 3/Cyber Ninjas
Many out-of-calibration printers (5.7.10, Vol. 3) were also found by Cyber Ninjas, although, according to their findings, the poor calibration did not seem to "cause ballots to be tabulated incorrectly."
Printers Out of Calibration/Vol. 3
The kinematic artifact examination of the paper ballots has yet to be completed or reported in full—several points in Vol. 3 state a more complete report on the paper used. UncoverDC confirmed on Monday that Pulitzer's work with the paper is forthcoming and will be available at a later date. Another report will include the data from the routers and Splunk logs, hardware keys, and admin passwords per the Sept. 20 agreement between the Senate and Maricopa County.
Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem is actively working to replace the current ballots with fraud-resistant, secure, watermarked, serialized ballots in his Ballot Integrity Project because he knows a secure ballot could go a long way to protect voters.
