John P. Child has a robust view concerning the 2020 presidential election: “I believe it was stolen, fair and square.”
He’s not the kind to stage a coup, he says. But he not trusts local officials to run elections.
So, like a growing variety of Americans who support former President Donald Trump, he’s taken training classes placed on by conservative groups on find out how to be a poll watcher within the 2022 midterm elections. This time, he’ll have the option to see for himself.
It comes as a part of a nationwide movement led by MAGA influencers who’ve circulated false details about election fraud, with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon probably the most outstanding.
On a recent episode of his “War Room” podcast, Bannon said: “Biden is illegitimate, and we’re gonna prove it. … It’s never going to occur again.”
Bannon hosts many guests who’re working to construct a military of conservative poll staff, reminiscent of Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who tried to assist overturn the 2020 election. “Everywhere in the country, we’re deploying people to be poll watchers to look at all the things that is happening,” Mitchell said.
A few of these MAGA influencers tour the country. David Clements tells crowds that that voting machines are extremely vulnerable. He concludes his presentation with a stirring appeal that the audience members do greater than eat content. “You could have to get within the ring,” he said in Michigan. “You may’t fight this on social media.”
That is having an actual effect. CNN met Child, a realtor, outside a training held by Delaware County Conservatives in suburban Philadelphia. The organizer had expected only a pair people, but a few dozen showed up, and he or she needed to hunt for more chairs.
Child showed CNN the training documents, which undergo many technical and procedural details of how votes are counted after polls close — and query whether each is an avenue for cheating. They forged a cloud of suspicion over the vote with none proof.
“My head was spinning at the tip of it,” he said of the presentation, explaining that he went to the seminar a second time to grasp the difficulty higher.
“I might vote, you already know, each time and … hit the buttons and go home,” he said. “And the seminar principally showed us what happens after your vote. And that is that was an eye fixed opener.”
“The one thing I remember vividly is the paper within the touch-writer,” he said of what he had learned concerning the special materials required that weren’t regular copy paper.
“So should you see that there is Hammermill being brought out, you are alleged to say, hey, stop, stop the proceedings.”
Child raised just a few debunked claims of election fraud. When CNN showed him proof the claims were false, he accepted it – he was even friendly about it. But he couldn’t shake the sensation that something had gone improper. He thought elections should return to paper ballots and a single day of voting.
Paper trail: “People come to us at county council meetings and say, ‘We’d like to make use of paper ballots!’ And I’m like, ‘We do use paper ballots. Do you understand we use paper ballots?” Delaware County Council member Christine Reuther told CNN. “The votes are forged on a paper ballot, after which they’re scanned, and the outcomes of that vote are tabulated on the scanner. But you’re not likely voting on the scanner, you are voting on the paper ballot, and that paper ballot is maintained as a record of the voter’s vote.”
At a county council meeting, it was clear officials were frustrated by the several residents who used the general public comment period to make false claims about election fraud. That frustration is sensible: Delaware County has now fought 15 lawsuits against 2020 election deniers. It won all of them. However the county told CNN it had cost $250,000. Reuther said she was fearful about how way more money and time this movement would drain with the midterms and the 2024 election.
Pennsylvania could have among the most closely watched races nationally, with a US Senate seat and the governorship hanging within the balance. Delaware County was once a Republican stronghold, but has steadily develop into more Democratic over the past decade. Within the last election, all the county council went Democratic for the primary time.
“Those things are fairy tales,” Carl Belis, who has been a poll employee in several elections, told CNN of public comments claiming the voting machines were vulnerable to fraud.
Belis wasn’t fearful about working on this election in Delaware County. If someone tried to disrupt the voting, the police can be called. “Across the nation? Yeah, I believe there will be some problems, definitely. Which is why I say to people, ‘Be prepared now. Do not be silly like on January 6.’”
Child says he just wants the principles followed. And if Democrats win, he’ll carry on together with his life. “What, am I going to start out a revolt? No,” he said. “Have to just accept it. What else are you gonna do?”
Read the complete story here and watch the interview below: