More than six months after the contentious 2020 election, some Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are asking questions about the state’s process for counting votes.
The state General Assembly legislators want a closer look at how the process works, including a review of what took place last November, according to the Gateway Pundit.
Republican state Rep. Jeff McNeely framed the inquiry as one in which legislators wanted to sift truth from fiction.
“We are just trying to see if there are any legs to the rumors we hear about ballots and machines, we want to know if there is anything that could have been changed by the machines, we gave them a deadline to get back to us,” he said.
“I believe the information in what we call the ‘hand to eye audits’ needs to be public, and we need to make sure those tallies match what the machines came up with, currently they are not public and they should be.”
McNeely, a member of the North Carolina House Freedom Caucus, said there are concerns about some counties.
“We know that Mark Zuckerberg gave five-six million dollars to counties in North Carolina, but we don’t have an accounting on that. We are working on a bill that would make it law to evenly distribute that money to our 100 counties. But as it is now, we do not know where that money went or what it went for,” McNeely said.
He added that getting elections right is a challenge for some counties.
“We always have the same counties who just can’t seem to get it together for elections. We have to make our elections bulletproof,” he said.
“I want penalties for cheating to go up to a Class H if not higher. We want to deter cheating. The problem, we can only take so big of the bite at this apple, so this is a shot across the bow and we need to clean the house.”
Republican state Rep. Keith Kidwell said when Republicans met with the state’s Board of Elections, “We put the hard question to these guys about what is going on with the machines. We asked the SBOE to give us access to the three machines, and what kinds of modems they have. We want our own technicians to examine and they are going to get back to us.”
The North Carolina House Freedom Caucus issued a statement about its exploratory activities.
“The 2020 election results were reviewed, as well as the different voting machines and their internal parts. Specifically, questions about modems and the ability for the machines to be accessed by the internet were discussed,” the statement said.
“The Freedom Caucus asked to open and inspect all versions of the voting systems.”
“The House Freedom Caucus asked that more information be provided on NCSBOE’s website, specifically regarding county internal audits, page history, and footnotes for when revisions are made,” the statement said.
The focus on voting machines came as North Carolina Republicans announced that the party would form an election integrity committee to ensure future elections are fair and accurate, according to The News-Observer.
