Who Will Count Our Votes?
Three candidates want to be your Secretary of State
On Thursday evening I had the opportunity to sit down and listen to campaign pitches from the three candidates running for Secretary of State. With the incumbent Lawrence Denney retiring, the field is wide open.
First up was Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane. He made experience the centerpiece of his appeal to Republican voters, explaining that he has run elections in Ada County for several years and has been an “elections junkie” all his life. He says that he wants to take the candidates portal and lobbyist disclosure websites that he implemented here to the state level.
Mr. McGrane attempted to get ahead of the two biggest elephants in the room regarding his candidacy. As I reported last January, McGrane’s office signed off on nearly half a million dollars from the Mark Zuckerberg funded Center for Tech and Civic Life. Numerous investigative journalists such as Mollie Hemingway have revealed how the CTCL used these grants, and the strings they attached to them, to put their thumbs on the scale of the 2020 election. In Wisconsin, CTCL employees even had access to uncounted ballots.
Mr. McGrane defended his acceptance of the grant, claiming that it would have been impossible for Ada County to open the polls without it. Perhaps that is true. I was planning to ask him if he would take the money again, knowing what we know now about what Mr. Zuckerberg and the CTCL were doing, but he did not take any questions. The point is moot now, as the legislature has passed a law banning private funding of elections. However, it should be a factor in judging McGrane’s judgment as he asks for our votes.
The second elephant that Mr. McGrane addressed was the forced masking of poll watchers in the 2020 election. He had already claimed credit for keeping the polls open, rather than going to full mail-in balloting, and he said that forcing poll watchers to wear masks was about equity. He implied that having watchers unmasked would have deterred Democrats from participating in the election.
I would humbly suggest that if Democratic voters are such shrinking violets that they cannot handle the sight of an unmasked person in public, then perhaps we are better off without their votes. But Mr. McGrane is more conciliatory than I would be.
Mary Souza spoke next. She currently represents Coeur d’Alene and the 4th Legislative District in the Idaho State Senate, and has made election reform her top priority. She has been focused on the irregularities in the 2020 presidential election for the past year and a half, and was honored by both WorldNetDaily and the Heritage Foundation for her work on improving elections integrity.
Senator Souza was one of first to draw attention to the CTCL grants that Ada and other Idaho counties applied for in 2020. In the 2021 legislative session, Souza sponsored the bill to ban private money from being used to fund elections in the state of Idaho.
I was impressed with Senator Souza’s passion for clean elections, and she seemed to understand the gravity of the situation in a way that Mr. McGrane did not. She recognized the way in which Secretary of State positions have been targeted by Democratic activists, because as the saying goes, it is not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.
Senator Souza spent some time answering questions from the crowd, but at times she seemed unsure of her answers. She admitted that she is not the best speaker, but assured us that she quietly gets things done.
The final speaker was Dorothy Moon, who currently represents the 8th Legislative District in the State House. Like Senator Souza, Representative Moon has been active in crafting election reform bills in the legislature. Her current effort involved tightening up the rules regarding voter ID - currently, college students can use their school IDs to vote, for example.
Representative Moon related that she became concerned when the 2020 primary election was postponed from May to June without input from the legislature. That November, Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane ordered poll watchers to wear masks just three days before Election Day. According to Moon, 30% of assigned poll watchers declined to show up, leading to countless issues with the vote. That was the moment she decided to run for Secretary of State.
Representative Moon has an ambitious plan to reform Idaho’s elections. She wants to create uniform voting procedures for every county in the state as well as ensure 100% accountability for the vote count. She wants to maintain paper ballots and a hand count.
I was impressed with Representative Moon’s depth of knowledge regarding the office of Secretary of State as well as her confidence that she would be able to do what is necessary to fix the holes in our election systems. She had no problem answering the questions from the committee and spoke boldly about her ideas. Like Senator Souza, Moon understands how important this position is in protecting our elections from dirty Democratic tricks, but she came across as more grounded and less susceptible to the red herrings that have characterized the conservative response to the 2020 elections.
Of the three candidates, I can easily rule out Mr. McGrane. He simply does not understand what was so foolish about accepting money from Mark Zuckerberg, and his willingness to force poll watchers to wear masks so as to make Democrats feel comfortable shows clearly that he will not fight for traditional conservative values. He would surely hide behind non-partisanship as the Democrats use every dirty trick in the books to take over our election systems, and from there, our state.
That leaves the two women running for the position. While I believe that Senator Souza is serious about protecting our elections, I came away from the meeting convinced that Representative Moon is the best choice this year. She knows what she is talking about and is prepared to run the office from day one.
I hope that the two women do not split the vote and allow Mr. McGrane to coast into the position. It is a shame that they are both leaving the legislature to run in this campaign, as we will be losing at least one important voice in the fight for clean and fair elections.
The office of Secretary of State is often overlooked, but not by the Marxist left. They know how important this position is for controlling the elections that decide our government, and we should take it seriously as well. Choose wisely!