Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Ladies and gentlemen in this corner from the University of Colorado.
Thirty years in Lorraine, fighting for truth, justice and the
American Way.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Dannchapleas, all right, guys, this is not Dan Caplas. This
is Heidi Ganol filling in for Dan. It's great to
be here this afternoon.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It's like Thursday. I hope, I hope you understand if
I forget what day it is, what time it is,
what meal I've eaten.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I mean, it's that crazy break period between Christmas and
New Year's. But wow, what a great holiday it was.
And the weather's been fantastic. It's kind of weird. I'm
actually headed down to Florida next week for a little break, and.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I think it's going to be freezing down there.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's supposed to be this big ice storm that hits
all of America. I guess I don't know, at least
the eastern now. But anyway, so happy to fill in
for Dan, So grateful to be here. There is so
much going on in the news, but I wanted to
start with something kind of sad for Colorado. It was
a rough, rough weekend when it comes to football in Colorado.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Jesse, did you watch any of the games.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Unfortunately, Yes, I was actually working the Buff game, so
it was brutal. CSU didn't do fair much better, but yeah,
the Colorado teams all the way around.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It was a struggle not to mention the Broncos. What
the heck was that?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
That was a cherry on top of a bad football
weekend for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I know we're all recovering. Yeah, the Buffs, saw man.
I love my Buffs. I've done a diehard Buff fan
since I was there in eighty six, and it's been
quite a journey. But you know, I've got to give
it to Dion. He's done an incredible job with the program.
I'm really gonna miss seeing Travis and Chador play together.
You never know where they're going to end up, but
probably not on the same teams, but it's going to
(01:56):
be so exciting to see them take off into the
NFL and see what they do. God, wouldn't it be
fun if one of them ended up a Bronco. I
don't think that'll happen, but that would that would be
really cool.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You bet?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So where what's like your big college team? Jesse? I'm buffs.
Oh you are Buffs?
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Good?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Good, good, well for us.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Phew that that's a relief, and that's why I love
hanging out with Dan.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
He's a huge buff too, so he.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Yes, he is in primes. Got those boys pointed in
the right direction for sure, So you got to remember that.
I mean, they won one game last year, so.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
That is insane, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
And people were pretty pessimistic coming into this year too,
and I think they did a great job. The kids
stayed really teed up even when they weren't winning or
even when they were facing a rough game. So you know,
I'm really proud of the program, proud of what he did.
The last thing I did as a regent in at
the University of Colorado, which was in January of twenty three,
when I finished out my turn, was approved that contract
(02:52):
for Dion, So I think that.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Was a great way to go out, Yes, you bet, but.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Onto other crazy things going on in world. I don't
know how many of you are on Twitter what's now
called X, but I perused X today just to see
what the latest greatest stories were, and I tried not
to be on too much over the break. In fact,
I took a couple days off and when I came
back the world had gone mad about HB one visas,
and everyone was mad at Elon and then Vivek wade
(03:20):
in and he was talking about how kids shouldn't do sleepovers,
and it was just.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
A lot of turmoil.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
But what I liked about this was we were having
feisty debate about a really important issue and how it
plays into the promises that were made during the campaign.
And I think it ended up okay. I think we're
at a place where we can agree kind of what
happens next. We need to reform the visa program. We
need to stay firm in dealing with immigration, especially criminals
(03:49):
who need to be booted out of the country, especially
here in Colorado. And we need to make sure that
we fund and build that border wall and stop people
from coming in illegally, especially bad actors. So you know,
I think at the end of the day, we all
ended up in a good place. But I would love
to hear your feedback. I want this next couple hours
to be really engaging. I would love for you to
(04:10):
call in the call in numbers three oh three, seven, one,
three eight, two five five, or you can text Dan.
Text the word Dan to five seven, seven three nine
and that'll pop up on my screen and I can
talk to you that way. But I think I think
we're in a good place there. I do want to
chat a little bit about vivec and his comments about
(04:31):
fewer sleepovers.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Now, I grew up.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
In the eighties, graduated high school eighty four, and it
was just a thing that you had sleepovers, you hung
out with your friends.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
You would be gone most of the weekend.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
You know, even as a younger kid kind of you know,
as they kid around, we were traveling around the neighborhoods
drinking out of water hoses. I mean, that's kind of funny.
But I grew up a monument which is right down
the road. It was a small town back then, And
I'm not sure I agree with Vivek's take. He said,
quote a culture that celebrates the prom queen over the
(05:05):
math Olympia champ or the jock over the valedictorian will
not produce the best engineers. He went on to recommend
a different upbringing for America's kids. More movies like Whiplash,
fewer reruns of Friends, more math tutoring, fewer sleepovers, and
I just I feel like I had an incredible upbringing.
We had a lot of freedom to roam the neighborhoods
(05:27):
and do things to kind of exert our will, but
also be held accountable if we were behaving badly. So
I'm not sure that I agree that that's what America
needs now. Do our kids need a little bit more guidance,
a little bit more clarity about what's happening in their lives, Yeah,
I would say so. I think one of the things
that we're seeing with kids is they're really lost right now.
(05:49):
There's a lot of mental health issues. They're turning to
drugs in some cases. I don't feel like they have
a good purpose. I don't feel like they have a
really clear purpose about what they want to do in life.
I think purpose can do a lot of things to
turn kids around. A few years ago, I think it
was twenty fifteen, I did a TED talk called the
Art of the Comeback and the Comeback Gosh, I've been
(06:12):
through so much more now than I could do Art
of the Comeback two point zero. But I reference a
talk I had with my pediatrician, who is the great
doctor Bucknam. If any of you live in Lewisville or
up in Northwest Metro area, I'm sure you know of
doctor bucknam Or you've read the book Baby Wise's we
call him the Godfather and our family, he's an incredible
Guy's wife, Gail's equally is incredible and he's raised four
(06:35):
just wonderful children who've been very successful. And my oldest
daughter was struggling, and I went to him and said,
what can we do to help my daughter deal with
what she's going through in high school? And he said,
the best thing you can do for kids is turn
them outward, make them realize they're part of something bigger
than themselves, get them volunteering, get them seeing the world
(06:57):
for what it is.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And the world is very complicated.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
It has a lot of issues, and it usually makes
their issues seem a lot smaller. So that's what my
TED talk was about. And really what occurred to me
was kids need a sense of purpose, and once they
have a sense of purpose, they can really kind of
push aside some of their struggles and make a difference
in the world and make a difference for themselves. So
that's where I think Vivek's a little.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Off on that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think, yes, our education system needs to kick it
into gear. We're going to talk about that in the
five o'clock hour and have a school board member from
Albert County, Heather Booth, on to talk about an issue there.
But we also as parents, I think, need to give
our kids room to grow, to heal from what happened
with COVID and some of the things in the past
few years, but also give them structure. And you know,
(07:45):
by any means, I'm not I'm not saying I'm the
best parent on the planet, but I have four kids,
been through the through the ups and downs of a
twenty nine year old all the way down to I
have twins that are twelve, and I just think that
too much structure isn't necessarily good as well. I'd love
to hear your feedback on that. You can call in
at three zho three seven one three eight two five
(08:05):
five or text five seven seven three nine text the
word Dan and we'll talk about it. So if you
have a different perspective, Jesse, I don't know. Do you
have kids?
Speaker 5 (08:15):
Do not?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
You don't yet? Uh no, I hopefully I'm not deterring you.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
No, no, no, no, I dodged that bullet.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
What do you think about what's going on with kids
today in society?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
I think you're onto something when the guy have to
have purpose, and there's so many distractions like that we
didn't have to deal with when we were growing up.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
You know where'd you grow up?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Southeast Denver?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Did you what high school?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
George Washington?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Nice? Nice?
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Yep, Patriot.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I mean things have changed a lot in Denver too,
especially in the education system. I remember when Denver Public
Schools was one of the top school districts in the
whole country. Am I how the the mighty have fallen?
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Not anymore?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
No, it breaks my heart me too.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I don't have the latest stats, but when I was
running for governor a couple of years ago, there was
a stat that was really really horrible that only five
percent of African American and Hispanic kids could read at
grade level in Denver Public schools.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
It's inexcusable.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
No, and I imagine things haven't changed that much. I
haven't seen anything that would change it that much. In fact,
I've heard more and more parents moving out at DPS
or finding other options, whether it's charter schools, private schools, homeschool.
But boy, we've really got to get more focused on
like success in education, not just making our kids feel good.
(09:31):
Which I guess is a little counter to what I
was saying earlier. But our kids need to know how
to read, write, and do math in order to be successful,
and thus will give us more highly qualified people to
be engineers at you know, SpaceX or Tesla or any
of the high tech companies that they're saying they have.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
A lack of.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
But I, you know, I applaud Vivek and Elon for
doing all the hard work they're doing. I doubt they're
getting paid for taking the hits that they are. Every
once in a while we're going to disagree with their approach.
But I do think Doze is really important, and I
think it's really important to, you know, have these tough
discussions about the HB one versus about Doze, about the government,
(10:11):
the size of the government, the whole shebang. So more
to come after this break. It's Hidi Ganal filling in
for Dan Caples. We'll see you soon afternoon. It's Heidi
Ganal filling in for Dan Caples. Great to be here.
It's kind of a sleepy week between Christmas and New Year's.
Hopefully you guys have some great New Year's plans. If
you've got some great advice on what to do, where
(10:33):
to go in Denver.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Give us a call.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You can call the call in line at three O
three seven one three eight two five five or text us.
Just put the word Dan to start off, and then
five seven seven three nine. I believe we have a caller, Jesse.
Her name's Jessica. Hello, Jessica.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Hey, Hi, it's for us Mommy.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
By the way, Oh hello jess How are you good?
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Are you? I wanted to talk about this stuff because
I was raised so strictly where I wasn't allowed to
do it, And now I'm obviously I'm not a mom now,
but I'm like, I wouldn't let my kids either. I
would be so strict about it.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Well, just I think there's a couple aspects to that.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like one is, when I first heard the article, I
was like, oh, I didn't let my kids do actual
sleepovers until they were older and could communicate to me
really well. And I knew the families really well, but
we would do like I can't remember what we called them,
but where they'd stay a little bit later. But I
think the more general theme is do you kind of
let loose have a more like let them have more
freedom or you're really strict, like Vive's talking about, where
(11:37):
it's all about studying math, not going out on the weekends,
staying in and really being disciplined about education, like.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
The Tiger mom stuff. I can see that. But yeah,
it's so funny because I grew up to like hating
how strict my parents were. Nowadays, I'm like, oh my gosh,
I wouldn't let my kids do anything either. No, everything's
so different nowadays.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But it's tough.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
It's tough, and you know, I have different approaches with
my four different kids, right They're all different, especially with
social media. It's so tough around social media. It's a
constant battle to keep them off their screens. But yet
here we are, you know, we have to live our
lives on screens too, So it's a crazy balance right
now for us. Mommy, I want you to tell us
(12:20):
what happened today, if you know, with the open meetings
hearing did you go to that?
Speaker 5 (12:26):
I didn't go, but I was listening in and recording it.
There was probably like twelve people who testified if they
weren't voting on anything today, but there was some really
good testimony on it, and you know, they just kind
of said some stuff, but there was no vote to
be done today.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
What was your feel like?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
And can you explain to the listeners or I can
what that was about?
Speaker 5 (12:51):
So they passed what was the bill number? Last legislative session,
they passed the bill. I forget what number. It was basically,
and I think Soper was in on it, but it
was basically to make the open meetings like harder, making
things harder for to be open and transparent, and so
they had to this was this meeting was a part
(13:12):
of that.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
It's also convoluted, it is.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And they wanted to be that way, don't they. For
those of you don't know, Jessica has a great Twitter
handle Force Mommy. She is constantly calling out the government,
local and state for all their shenanigans and just what
do you think is the most egregious thing you've seen
lately that really bothers you that the government's up to, well,
the egg.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
Thing, Yeah, Carrie Sonovan and the egg thing. And she's
up at her ranch in the mountains, you know, probably
has her own eggs and everything. And they pass that
and I guess someone was looking at her blue Sky
account because they all ran the blue sky, of course,
and she was like basically saying, Oh, it wasn't our fault,
blah blah blah, you know that kind of stuff. And
just all the rules they make on businesses, all these
(13:58):
people who've never run a bit businesses making all these
regulations on the businesses. It just drives me insane.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, I mean, that was one of the most difficult
things about being an entrepreneur. I built a company called
Camp bow Out. It was a big pet care franchise,
and one of the things that got me involved in
politics was how difficult it was to get through all
the regulations and the red tape to even get one
of the locations open.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And granted, we were trying to open doggy daycare.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Facilities in the middle of city areas, but we were
respectful and understood that there were noise issues and like
drainage problems, et cetera. And we were always trying to
select properties that would work, but they just wanted to
make it as difficult as possible. And we would create
so many jobs with those businesses and bring a lot
of joy to the dogs and the dog owners in
the neighborhood, and we would have all of them testify
(14:43):
and they would still turn it down over and over
and over again. And so that's actually when I finally
at some point said this is enough.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Teach me how to push back.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
And I learned how to advocate for my franchise ease
and small business owners. And that was back in like
I don't know two thousand and eight or nine when
I first started getting engaged, but that's you have a
similar path to getting involved in the local government. You
ran for city council in Arvada. Tell us how you
got engaged.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
I was well, mainly during the COVID stuff when I started,
and then I got onto Twitter and I was just
so mad about everything that was happening. And I learned
the local government and these unelected people were ruining all
of our lives. So, you know, I started people like
love to say they're political experts and stuff, and I'm like, no,
you have to actually get involved and know what's going on.
So it was kind of like that where I just
(15:32):
had to get involved and how to start, you know,
I had to use my voice. I'd use my little
bit of a platform, which I think it's growing and
I think this legislative session in Colorado's gonna be one
of our best. We're going to have the most people
down there testifying, hopefully, and I don't know. I'm hopeful
about Colorado. I'm just not giving up on Colorado.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
No, I'm not either, And I think Freestate Colorado's doing
a great job also of covering what's happening at the capitol.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
You can follow.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Brandon on Twitter and also I think he has a
YouTube channel. But thanks Jess, thanks for joining and keep
up the great work.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
No sleepovers for Jess's kids if she has any WHOA. Yeah,
I tend to agree with her on what's happening in society,
and we got to be very careful. But I also
think there's a crazy balance we have to find as
parents between giving our kids freedom to make a few
bad decisions or you know, keep them locked in their
room studying all the time. I don't know my kids
would freak out if I tried to do that. Oh, Jesse.
(16:31):
One of the things that really caught my attention this
weekend on the Sunday morning shows.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I like watching it.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I'm a glutton for punishment. Face the Nation had on
a gal who was talking about the bird flu and
how everyone should get vaccinated.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Right now for this bird flu that's coming. Did you
see that.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
I did see the clip of it. Yeah, that's I
forget the name doctor Wynn I think is her name.
I'll pass on that.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I think all of America is going to take a
pass on that. What are they thinking?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I mean, even if it's serious, like take a different approach.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Right, they're so tone deaf after everything that happened with
COVID that to go out there and still push that
is be beyond dumb to me.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah, getting whacked in the election wasn't enough.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
It's like, Okay, there was a red tsunami all across
America telling you to stop this nonsense.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Let's dry some more, let's do some more. Take the
hint people, I know, and I mean that.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
That's a big conversation to the MAHA movement make America
healthy again with RFK Junior, and I think there was
even some little spats going on in that movement over
the weekend. Everybody was feisty this weekend. I mean, our
football team's lost, so we had a good reason to be.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
But right, yeah, there's a lot of infighting going on
in the x sphere at the moment between the MAGA
people and vivic and it's getting it's getting nasty.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Well, you know, legislating is messy, and winning an election
is one thing, and then figuring out how to actually
change policy or lead a country in a different direction
is is pretty different. But I think Trump made a
statement today too with Speaker Johnson. He came out supporting
Speaker Johnson, the current Speaker of the House, when there
was a lot of questions about whether he should be
(18:10):
the one. But we have such a slim majority, and
we have a one seat majority in the House. There's
it's not like we have a lot of options to
choose anybody else. But next up, we're gonna talk about
election integrity with my friend Bob Cooper. It's gonna be
really spicy, really interesting. So join us back after the break.
This is Hidi Ganaal filling in for Dan Capless. Thursday. Everyone,
(18:31):
it's Hidi Ganna. Oh is it's not Thursday? Oh my gosh,
see I'm in that weird, weird zone right now, Jesse, what.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Day is does not apply? I believe today is Monday.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Oh it's Monday. That's why I had I was in denial.
This is Hidi Ganall. I'm filling in for Dan Caplis.
Obviously I have holiday brain. We're gonna talk a little
bit now about election integrity, a very interesting issue one
that's been you know, in the in the headlines. In Colorado,
we had Jenna Griswold, her department as Secretary of State
(19:04):
leaked some bios passwords and caused a lot of voters
a lot of concern about this election. And of course
she put Tina Peters in jail for doing that exact thing.
So I think that it's so so ridiculous that Jenna
Griswold is not being held accountable, especially after the venomous,
(19:27):
I mean way she went after Tina Peters, who truly
believed with all her heart she was doing the right
things for the voters and to protect her election in
Masa County.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
She was the Mason County Clerk.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I have my friend Bob Cooper on to talk more
about election integrity and what's happened over the last few months.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
Hello, Bob, Hi, how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I'm good, except it's Monday, not Thursday.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Did you know that?
Speaker 6 (19:53):
No, you're kidding.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
I know, I know, Bob.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
No.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I was just going to say, you've been in the
trenches on the election integrity front for a while. We've
gotten to know each other over the last year or so,
and you are involved with a group called Colorado Institute
for Election Integrity Coffee doing great work. But I want
to talk a little bit about what's happened in the
last couple months since you actually helped me with an
(20:22):
audit we did in Douglas County over the last two
years since the twenty two election, and we did a
press conference a few months ago, it was a couple
months before the election, talking about a few key issues
that we found that we're concerning leading up to the
twenty four election, and one of those was the US
post Office and you were the lead on some research.
(20:45):
I want you to talk a little bit about that
project and what you did and.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
What you found.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
Sure, be happy to do that, just just as the
backdrop that most Colorado citizens should understand, as we are
in a mail in voting state, so not every state
is like that, but what we do because we are
a mail in voting state, is we mail out three
(21:12):
point eight million ballots the US Postal Service and that's
how votes are cast, the mail voting system. And there's
two parts of that process. One is the delivery of
the ballot to the home by the United States Postal
(21:32):
Service or the residents, and the other part of that
is a critical part of the election system is the
ballot packets that are returned and categorized as undeliverable ballots.
And many people do not understand that the accuracy of
(21:56):
the voter registration records are partly dependent on reporting of
undeliverable ballots because what happens is the counties are returned
all the undeliverable ballots by the United States Postal Service
that gathers them all up during an election, and these
(22:21):
are typically ballots where records that the voter changed residents
moved out of the state, and the US postal carriers
along with the central Postal Office, categorize these ballots as undeliverable.
(22:43):
They are not permitted to be forwarded and they are
gathered up in returned to the county that controls that
part of the voter registration system. The reason these are
a vital election record is because they are partly used
(23:05):
to determine whether the voter's status should be changed from
active to inactive undeliverable. The reason that is extremely important
is because if the record is not recorded as undeliverable inactive,
(23:28):
that voter will continue to get a ballot even though
they don't live at that address anymore. So it is
a really crucial record.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Bob.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Can I ask you a question, do you know how
many undeliverable ballots there were returned to the post office
like statewide?
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Or can you give us an example in a county?
Speaker 6 (23:51):
Yes, I can give a county in the data I
have right now for twenty twenty two. Or if I
did the first thought it and that number was curtly
over one hundred and fifty thousand, I think it's left
one hundred and sixty thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
So one hundred and sixty thousand or so ballots in
the twenty two election were returned undeliverable. And I know
that what you found in your research was there was
a big gap in just the eleven counties that you
looked at, specifically nine there were about thirty thousand ballots
that were unaccounted for in those nine counties. Is that accurate?
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Yes? Let me clarify this so that the people listening
understand one of the major issues on a voting system
is they are poorly audited. And when I I'll give
this example. Normally in a business, on this type of
a document, what you'd want to have is very good
(24:49):
chain of custody, in other words, documents that showed in
the county. Hey, the United States Postal Service delivered to
my county on this date four thousand undeliverable ballots as
election returned items. Yes, So in twenty twenty two, via
(25:13):
education from a former postmaster, we know that the United
States Postal Service is required by regulation to return those
ballots marked undeliverable. But they also are required to bill
for that return. That's not done for free. So almost
(25:34):
all the counties are supposed to have some kind of
postal invoicing based on the returns of those undeliverable ballots.
So when you mentioned thirty thousand in eleven counties in
twenty twenty two, none of thirty thousand undeliverable ballots, the
(25:57):
invoicing did not match. Ranged from counties like Denver where
there were ten thousand out of the like seventeen thousand
where there were no invoices, and yet they counted those
as undeliverable, And there were three counties where they were
(26:22):
built for twelve thousand more undeliverable ballots than they counted.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (26:29):
So you know, and we are doing this again, doing
an audit from the twenty twenty four election. Not from
the standpoint point that we know something's really wrong. We're
doing it because you can't determine if it's wrong or
(26:50):
not if you don't have procedures like this to audit,
to chain a custody.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, Bob, That's one thing that I became very aware
of after doing a lot of research and going through
this analysis of the Douglas County election in twenty two
is there is really no outside auditors that come in
and look at the processes and systems of our elections,
all of its self governing. Like we saw that with
the BIOS password, Like she even hired I think a
(27:16):
law firm that was involved somehow in her race or
I can't remember, but anyway, it was all like very incestuous.
And instead of bringing outside experts that know what they're
doing to come in and look at the machines, look
at the signature verification process, look at the US Post
Office process for invoicing ballots, there's none of that. They
(27:36):
all just kind of watch over themselves, which doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I mean, we'd never do that in the business world.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 6 (27:44):
That's absolutely accurate, infective any message your listeners say out
on this. The country should be all over this, citizens
should be all over These voting systems are very poorly audited.
In fact, we can absolutely illustrate to the public that
(28:08):
they would not pass even federal GLO audit standards.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So, Bob, let me take a break real quick to
ask you a question. So when we talk about auditing
and bringing in someone from the outside to look at things,
I want to talk about who makes those decisions. Because
we have a lot of Republican county clerks across the state.
We have the majority of county commissioners that are Republican,
(28:37):
I think it's about sixty forty the split, and the
county commissioners hire the county attorney that has a lot
of say over how things go in the counties. So
even if the clerk doesn't want to do it, could
pressuring the county commissioners or asking them to ask their
attorney and their clerk to do some of these things,
or bringing outside people. That's not allowed anymore. Because Jenna
(28:57):
Griswold changed the rules is that correct.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
That's absolutely correct. That was done in twenty twenty one
when the you know, the angst over the twenty twenty
election was really high, and they immediately panned outside audits.
And the citizens should really be upset about this, and
it is up. This has to be changed with the
(29:22):
Secretary of State and that the legislature must get on this,
and that will only occur via a couple of things.
The first item would be a public needs to understand
these systems are poorly audited. The second item and thank
you for having a show to get into this. The
(29:44):
media needs to cover this.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
It's not you're funny. Maybe Rocky Mountain Voice has covered it.
I don't know about the others.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
Yeah, And so we've tried to get this in front
of even conservative streams and and it's not we're screaming
election fraud. We're screaming the thing isn't properly audited.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You'd never know, right, That's not too much to ask,
especially with what's at stake right now, with people's mistrust
in the elections. I don't think there would be any
harm in opening up the books, as they say, and
letting some experts.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Obviously, in a.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Secure way evaluate these systems and processes. We saw the
disconnect in the signature verification process in Mason County where
three ballots got through that shouldn't have and those voters
weren't allowed to have their vote count because of that.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
That's a perfect illustration because it's parents I know in
the entire state. I don't know of any audit that's
been done on the accuracy of the signature verification system.
There's no report you can find. So the entire process
that is used to secure that the voter ID is
(30:58):
linked to that that ballot, there is no reports on
how accurate the process is that I know of. If
someone knows, they ought to call in and let us know.
But I know of no published report in the accuracy
of that process.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Bob, if you're willing to stay after the break, we'd
love to keep talking to you. If not, I'll keep
the conversation going and folks can call in at three
oh three seven one, three eight two five five or
text Dan to five seven seven three nine and we'll
engage there.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
But this is really really important information.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
It's not the most fun topic to discuss, but it's
really critical to in storing ensuring trust in our elections again.
So this is Hidi Ganall filling in for Dan Caples
with my guest Bob Cooper.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Right now. We're going to talk more after the break.
See you in a minute. Good afternoon.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It's Heidi Ganall filling in for Dan Caplis, and have
my friend on Bob Cooper, who's kind of election integrity expert.
He's done some incredible work over the last couple of years.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Bob.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
We've talked about the US Post Office and how there's
some serious issues around reporting undeliverable ballots and just ballots,
tens of thousands of ballots floating around that no one
can account for. We've also talked about signature verification and
how there's really been no analysis of whether the system
works or not. And I think Jenna Griswold even says, hey,
(32:20):
if you're looking for the signal, if you're working in
the election process and you see a signature in your
fifty one percentage, sure it's right, go for it. Then
it's okay, which is crazy. And then we've got the
voter roles that aren't necessarily cleaned up like they were
supposed to be, even after the Judicial Watch lawsuit. And
then we've got Jenna Griswold who lied about remote Wi
(32:41):
Fi access in our voting systems in twenty twenty and
come to find out there's twelve apparently counties according to
Matt Crane, the head of the Clerk's Association, that have
remote access in the voting systems after she said there wasn't.
And the final straw that we discovered over the last
couple of years was that the drop boxes are not
(33:01):
monitored appropriately. The cameras aren't high quality enough, they're not
pointed in the right direction. We've got four hundred plus
drop boxes across the state, and the counties typically don't
evaluate the tape or look to see.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
If anything went wrong.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So with all that being said, I think you're right,
and we only have a couple minutes to wrap this up.
But one of the most important things we can ask
our county commissioners and our county clerks at our local
levels is to bring in outside experts to do audits.
The Secretary of State's going to say, no, she created
that rule, but someone needs to have the kahunas to
(33:34):
sue her and say absolutely, we're going to do this.
And I bet half of Colorado at least would have
their backs.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
What do you think?
Speaker 6 (33:41):
I think so, I think it's part of it is
the citizens need to understand this needs to be done,
and it's not a political issue. It's an issue of
having a very good, secure voting system with proper audit standards.
There are none, So you know, this citizen should make
(34:06):
an issue of this because heney this can be fixed.
This is not a case of you know, there are
simple things that could improve it immensely. And having met
with multiple election officials and county clerks, these are very
good people. They just are really charged with getting the
(34:28):
election process done. But they can be a big part
of a campaign to try and improve the auditing and
improving chain of custody in demanding it and even if
going past the Secretary of State in demanding it. So
I think there's a bunch that can be done here.
(34:49):
And I just think it's great you're willing to cover
this well.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I think it's so important to restore trust in our
voting systems, in our process, in our vote, and that's
missing for a lot of America, for a lot of Colorado,
especially with all the debacles that happened in this latest election,
and when we came out and did that election integrity
press conference a couple months before the election, it was
(35:14):
shocking how even the Republican clerks got mad at me
and said, you know, I was freaking everyone out. And
then a couple weeks later, Jenna does her whole bios
password Lake. Good times here in Colorado, but we can
fix it. Like Bob said, Bob, thank you for joining us.
You can learn more at CEO Coloradofair Elections dot org,
get involved Ceofair Elections dot org, and we'll be back
(35:36):
right after the break
Ladies and gentlemen in this corner from the University of Colorado.
Thirty years in Lorraine, fighting for truth, justice and the
American Way.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Dannchapleas, all right, guys, this is not Dan Caplas. This
is Heidi Ganol filling in for Dan. It's great to
be here this afternoon.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It's like Thursday. I hope, I hope you understand if
I forget what day it is, what time it is,
what meal I've eaten.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I mean, it's that crazy break period between Christmas and
New Year's. But wow, what a great holiday it was.
And the weather's been fantastic. It's kind of weird. I'm
actually headed down to Florida next week for a little break, and.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I think it's going to be freezing down there.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's supposed to be this big ice storm that hits
all of America. I guess I don't know, at least
the eastern now. But anyway, so happy to fill in
for Dan, So grateful to be here. There is so
much going on in the news, but I wanted to
start with something kind of sad for Colorado. It was
a rough, rough weekend when it comes to football in Colorado.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Jesse, did you watch any of the games.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Unfortunately, Yes, I was actually working the Buff game, so
it was brutal. CSU didn't do fair much better, but yeah,
the Colorado teams all the way around.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It was a struggle not to mention the Broncos. What
the heck was that?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
That was a cherry on top of a bad football
weekend for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I know we're all recovering. Yeah, the Buffs, saw man.
I love my Buffs. I've done a diehard Buff fan
since I was there in eighty six, and it's been
quite a journey. But you know, I've got to give
it to Dion. He's done an incredible job with the program.
I'm really gonna miss seeing Travis and Chador play together.
You never know where they're going to end up, but
probably not on the same teams, but it's going to
(01:56):
be so exciting to see them take off into the
NFL and see what they do. God, wouldn't it be
fun if one of them ended up a Bronco. I
don't think that'll happen, but that would that would be
really cool.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You bet?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So where what's like your big college team? Jesse? I'm buffs.
Oh you are Buffs?
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Good?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Good, good, well for us.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Phew that that's a relief, and that's why I love
hanging out with Dan.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
He's a huge buff too, so he.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Yes, he is in primes. Got those boys pointed in
the right direction for sure, So you got to remember that.
I mean, they won one game last year, so.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
That is insane, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
And people were pretty pessimistic coming into this year too,
and I think they did a great job. The kids
stayed really teed up even when they weren't winning or
even when they were facing a rough game. So you know,
I'm really proud of the program, proud of what he did.
The last thing I did as a regent in at
the University of Colorado, which was in January of twenty three,
when I finished out my turn, was approved that contract
(02:52):
for Dion, So I think that.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Was a great way to go out, Yes, you bet, but.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Onto other crazy things going on in world. I don't
know how many of you are on Twitter what's now
called X, but I perused X today just to see
what the latest greatest stories were, and I tried not
to be on too much over the break. In fact,
I took a couple days off and when I came
back the world had gone mad about HB one visas,
and everyone was mad at Elon and then Vivek wade
(03:20):
in and he was talking about how kids shouldn't do sleepovers,
and it was just.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
A lot of turmoil.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
But what I liked about this was we were having
feisty debate about a really important issue and how it
plays into the promises that were made during the campaign.
And I think it ended up okay. I think we're
at a place where we can agree kind of what
happens next. We need to reform the visa program. We
need to stay firm in dealing with immigration, especially criminals
(03:49):
who need to be booted out of the country, especially
here in Colorado. And we need to make sure that
we fund and build that border wall and stop people
from coming in illegally, especially bad actors. So you know,
I think at the end of the day, we all
ended up in a good place. But I would love
to hear your feedback. I want this next couple hours
to be really engaging. I would love for you to
(04:10):
call in the call in numbers three oh three, seven, one,
three eight, two five five, or you can text Dan.
Text the word Dan to five seven, seven three nine
and that'll pop up on my screen and I can
talk to you that way. But I think I think
we're in a good place there. I do want to
chat a little bit about vivec and his comments about
(04:31):
fewer sleepovers.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Now, I grew up.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
In the eighties, graduated high school eighty four, and it
was just a thing that you had sleepovers, you hung
out with your friends.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
You would be gone most of the weekend.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
You know, even as a younger kid kind of you know,
as they kid around, we were traveling around the neighborhoods
drinking out of water hoses. I mean, that's kind of funny.
But I grew up a monument which is right down
the road. It was a small town back then, And
I'm not sure I agree with Vivek's take. He said,
quote a culture that celebrates the prom queen over the
(05:05):
math Olympia champ or the jock over the valedictorian will
not produce the best engineers. He went on to recommend
a different upbringing for America's kids. More movies like Whiplash,
fewer reruns of Friends, more math tutoring, fewer sleepovers, and
I just I feel like I had an incredible upbringing.
We had a lot of freedom to roam the neighborhoods
(05:27):
and do things to kind of exert our will, but
also be held accountable if we were behaving badly. So
I'm not sure that I agree that that's what America
needs now. Do our kids need a little bit more guidance,
a little bit more clarity about what's happening in their lives, Yeah,
I would say so. I think one of the things
that we're seeing with kids is they're really lost right now.
(05:49):
There's a lot of mental health issues. They're turning to
drugs in some cases. I don't feel like they have
a good purpose. I don't feel like they have a
really clear purpose about what they want to do in life.
I think purpose can do a lot of things to
turn kids around. A few years ago, I think it
was twenty fifteen, I did a TED talk called the
Art of the Comeback and the Comeback Gosh, I've been
(06:12):
through so much more now than I could do Art
of the Comeback two point zero. But I reference a
talk I had with my pediatrician, who is the great
doctor Bucknam. If any of you live in Lewisville or
up in Northwest Metro area, I'm sure you know of
doctor bucknam Or you've read the book Baby Wise's we
call him the Godfather and our family, he's an incredible
Guy's wife, Gail's equally is incredible and he's raised four
(06:35):
just wonderful children who've been very successful. And my oldest
daughter was struggling, and I went to him and said,
what can we do to help my daughter deal with
what she's going through in high school? And he said,
the best thing you can do for kids is turn
them outward, make them realize they're part of something bigger
than themselves, get them volunteering, get them seeing the world
(06:57):
for what it is.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And the world is very complicated.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
It has a lot of issues, and it usually makes
their issues seem a lot smaller. So that's what my
TED talk was about. And really what occurred to me
was kids need a sense of purpose, and once they
have a sense of purpose, they can really kind of
push aside some of their struggles and make a difference
in the world and make a difference for themselves. So
that's where I think Vivek's a little.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Off on that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think, yes, our education system needs to kick it
into gear. We're going to talk about that in the
five o'clock hour and have a school board member from
Albert County, Heather Booth, on to talk about an issue there.
But we also as parents, I think, need to give
our kids room to grow, to heal from what happened
with COVID and some of the things in the past
few years, but also give them structure. And you know,
(07:45):
by any means, I'm not I'm not saying I'm the
best parent on the planet, but I have four kids,
been through the through the ups and downs of a
twenty nine year old all the way down to I
have twins that are twelve, and I just think that
too much structure isn't necessarily good as well. I'd love
to hear your feedback on that. You can call in
at three zho three seven one three eight two five
(08:05):
five or text five seven seven three nine text the
word Dan and we'll talk about it. So if you
have a different perspective, Jesse, I don't know. Do you
have kids?
Speaker 5 (08:15):
Do not?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
You don't yet? Uh no, I hopefully I'm not deterring you.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
No, no, no, no, I dodged that bullet.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
What do you think about what's going on with kids
today in society?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
I think you're onto something when the guy have to
have purpose, and there's so many distractions like that we
didn't have to deal with when we were growing up.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
You know where'd you grow up?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Southeast Denver?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Did you what high school?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
George Washington?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Nice? Nice?
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Yep, Patriot.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I mean things have changed a lot in Denver too,
especially in the education system. I remember when Denver Public
Schools was one of the top school districts in the
whole country. Am I how the the mighty have fallen?
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Not anymore?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
No, it breaks my heart me too.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I don't have the latest stats, but when I was
running for governor a couple of years ago, there was
a stat that was really really horrible that only five
percent of African American and Hispanic kids could read at
grade level in Denver Public schools.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
It's inexcusable.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
No, and I imagine things haven't changed that much. I
haven't seen anything that would change it that much. In fact,
I've heard more and more parents moving out at DPS
or finding other options, whether it's charter schools, private schools, homeschool.
But boy, we've really got to get more focused on
like success in education, not just making our kids feel good.
(09:31):
Which I guess is a little counter to what I
was saying earlier. But our kids need to know how
to read, write, and do math in order to be successful,
and thus will give us more highly qualified people to
be engineers at you know, SpaceX or Tesla or any
of the high tech companies that they're saying they have.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
A lack of.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
But I, you know, I applaud Vivek and Elon for
doing all the hard work they're doing. I doubt they're
getting paid for taking the hits that they are. Every
once in a while we're going to disagree with their approach.
But I do think Doze is really important, and I
think it's really important to, you know, have these tough
discussions about the HB one versus about Doze, about the government,
(10:11):
the size of the government, the whole shebang. So more
to come after this break. It's Hidi Ganal filling in
for Dan Caples. We'll see you soon afternoon. It's Heidi
Ganal filling in for Dan Caples. Great to be here.
It's kind of a sleepy week between Christmas and New Year's.
Hopefully you guys have some great New Year's plans. If
you've got some great advice on what to do, where
(10:33):
to go in Denver.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Give us a call.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You can call the call in line at three O
three seven one three eight two five five or text us.
Just put the word Dan to start off, and then
five seven seven three nine. I believe we have a caller, Jesse.
Her name's Jessica. Hello, Jessica.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Hey, Hi, it's for us Mommy.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
By the way, Oh hello jess How are you good?
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Are you? I wanted to talk about this stuff because
I was raised so strictly where I wasn't allowed to
do it, And now I'm obviously I'm not a mom now,
but I'm like, I wouldn't let my kids either. I
would be so strict about it.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Well, just I think there's a couple aspects to that.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like one is, when I first heard the article, I
was like, oh, I didn't let my kids do actual
sleepovers until they were older and could communicate to me
really well. And I knew the families really well, but
we would do like I can't remember what we called them,
but where they'd stay a little bit later. But I
think the more general theme is do you kind of
let loose have a more like let them have more
freedom or you're really strict, like Vive's talking about, where
(11:37):
it's all about studying math, not going out on the weekends,
staying in and really being disciplined about education, like.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
The Tiger mom stuff. I can see that. But yeah,
it's so funny because I grew up to like hating
how strict my parents were. Nowadays, I'm like, oh my gosh,
I wouldn't let my kids do anything either. No, everything's
so different nowadays.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But it's tough.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
It's tough, and you know, I have different approaches with
my four different kids, right They're all different, especially with
social media. It's so tough around social media. It's a
constant battle to keep them off their screens. But yet
here we are, you know, we have to live our
lives on screens too, So it's a crazy balance right
now for us. Mommy, I want you to tell us
(12:20):
what happened today, if you know, with the open meetings
hearing did you go to that?
Speaker 5 (12:26):
I didn't go, but I was listening in and recording it.
There was probably like twelve people who testified if they
weren't voting on anything today, but there was some really
good testimony on it, and you know, they just kind
of said some stuff, but there was no vote to
be done today.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
What was your feel like?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
And can you explain to the listeners or I can
what that was about?
Speaker 5 (12:51):
So they passed what was the bill number? Last legislative session,
they passed the bill. I forget what number. It was basically,
and I think Soper was in on it, but it
was basically to make the open meetings like harder, making
things harder for to be open and transparent, and so
they had to this was this meeting was a part
(13:12):
of that.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
It's also convoluted, it is.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And they wanted to be that way, don't they. For
those of you don't know, Jessica has a great Twitter
handle Force Mommy. She is constantly calling out the government,
local and state for all their shenanigans and just what
do you think is the most egregious thing you've seen
lately that really bothers you that the government's up to, well,
the egg.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
Thing, Yeah, Carrie Sonovan and the egg thing. And she's
up at her ranch in the mountains, you know, probably
has her own eggs and everything. And they pass that
and I guess someone was looking at her blue Sky
account because they all ran the blue sky, of course,
and she was like basically saying, Oh, it wasn't our fault,
blah blah blah, you know that kind of stuff. And
just all the rules they make on businesses, all these
(13:58):
people who've never run a bit businesses making all these
regulations on the businesses. It just drives me insane.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, I mean, that was one of the most difficult
things about being an entrepreneur. I built a company called
Camp bow Out. It was a big pet care franchise,
and one of the things that got me involved in
politics was how difficult it was to get through all
the regulations and the red tape to even get one
of the locations open.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And granted, we were trying to open doggy daycare.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Facilities in the middle of city areas, but we were
respectful and understood that there were noise issues and like
drainage problems, et cetera. And we were always trying to
select properties that would work, but they just wanted to
make it as difficult as possible. And we would create
so many jobs with those businesses and bring a lot
of joy to the dogs and the dog owners in
the neighborhood, and we would have all of them testify
(14:43):
and they would still turn it down over and over
and over again. And so that's actually when I finally
at some point said this is enough.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Teach me how to push back.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
And I learned how to advocate for my franchise ease
and small business owners. And that was back in like
I don't know two thousand and eight or nine when
I first started getting engaged, but that's you have a
similar path to getting involved in the local government. You
ran for city council in Arvada. Tell us how you
got engaged.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
I was well, mainly during the COVID stuff when I started,
and then I got onto Twitter and I was just
so mad about everything that was happening. And I learned
the local government and these unelected people were ruining all
of our lives. So, you know, I started people like
love to say they're political experts and stuff, and I'm like, no,
you have to actually get involved and know what's going on.
So it was kind of like that where I just
(15:32):
had to get involved and how to start, you know,
I had to use my voice. I'd use my little
bit of a platform, which I think it's growing and
I think this legislative session in Colorado's gonna be one
of our best. We're going to have the most people
down there testifying, hopefully, and I don't know. I'm hopeful
about Colorado. I'm just not giving up on Colorado.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
No, I'm not either, And I think Freestate Colorado's doing
a great job also of covering what's happening at the capitol.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
You can follow.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Brandon on Twitter and also I think he has a
YouTube channel. But thanks Jess, thanks for joining and keep
up the great work.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
No sleepovers for Jess's kids if she has any WHOA. Yeah,
I tend to agree with her on what's happening in society,
and we got to be very careful. But I also
think there's a crazy balance we have to find as
parents between giving our kids freedom to make a few
bad decisions or you know, keep them locked in their
room studying all the time. I don't know my kids
would freak out if I tried to do that. Oh, Jesse.
(16:31):
One of the things that really caught my attention this
weekend on the Sunday morning shows.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I like watching it.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I'm a glutton for punishment. Face the Nation had on
a gal who was talking about the bird flu and
how everyone should get vaccinated.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Right now for this bird flu that's coming. Did you
see that.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
I did see the clip of it. Yeah, that's I
forget the name doctor Wynn I think is her name.
I'll pass on that.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I think all of America is going to take a
pass on that. What are they thinking?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I mean, even if it's serious, like take a different approach.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Right, they're so tone deaf after everything that happened with
COVID that to go out there and still push that
is be beyond dumb to me.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah, getting whacked in the election wasn't enough.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
It's like, Okay, there was a red tsunami all across
America telling you to stop this nonsense.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Let's dry some more, let's do some more. Take the
hint people, I know, and I mean that.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
That's a big conversation to the MAHA movement make America
healthy again with RFK Junior, and I think there was
even some little spats going on in that movement over
the weekend. Everybody was feisty this weekend. I mean, our
football team's lost, so we had a good reason to be.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
But right, yeah, there's a lot of infighting going on
in the x sphere at the moment between the MAGA
people and vivic and it's getting it's getting nasty.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Well, you know, legislating is messy, and winning an election
is one thing, and then figuring out how to actually
change policy or lead a country in a different direction
is is pretty different. But I think Trump made a
statement today too with Speaker Johnson. He came out supporting
Speaker Johnson, the current Speaker of the House, when there
was a lot of questions about whether he should be
(18:10):
the one. But we have such a slim majority, and
we have a one seat majority in the House. There's
it's not like we have a lot of options to
choose anybody else. But next up, we're gonna talk about
election integrity with my friend Bob Cooper. It's gonna be
really spicy, really interesting. So join us back after the break.
This is Hidi Ganaal filling in for Dan Capless. Thursday. Everyone,
(18:31):
it's Hidi Ganna. Oh is it's not Thursday? Oh my gosh,
see I'm in that weird, weird zone right now, Jesse, what.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Day is does not apply? I believe today is Monday.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Oh it's Monday. That's why I had I was in denial.
This is Hidi Ganall. I'm filling in for Dan Caplis.
Obviously I have holiday brain. We're gonna talk a little
bit now about election integrity, a very interesting issue one
that's been you know, in the in the headlines. In Colorado,
we had Jenna Griswold, her department as Secretary of State
(19:04):
leaked some bios passwords and caused a lot of voters
a lot of concern about this election. And of course
she put Tina Peters in jail for doing that exact thing.
So I think that it's so so ridiculous that Jenna
Griswold is not being held accountable, especially after the venomous,
(19:27):
I mean way she went after Tina Peters, who truly
believed with all her heart she was doing the right
things for the voters and to protect her election in
Masa County.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
She was the Mason County Clerk.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I have my friend Bob Cooper on to talk more
about election integrity and what's happened over the last few months.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
Hello, Bob, Hi, how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I'm good, except it's Monday, not Thursday.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Did you know that?
Speaker 6 (19:53):
No, you're kidding.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
I know, I know, Bob.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
No.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I was just going to say, you've been in the
trenches on the election integrity front for a while. We've
gotten to know each other over the last year or so,
and you are involved with a group called Colorado Institute
for Election Integrity Coffee doing great work. But I want
to talk a little bit about what's happened in the
last couple months since you actually helped me with an
(20:22):
audit we did in Douglas County over the last two
years since the twenty two election, and we did a
press conference a few months ago, it was a couple
months before the election, talking about a few key issues
that we found that we're concerning leading up to the
twenty four election, and one of those was the US
post Office and you were the lead on some research.
(20:45):
I want you to talk a little bit about that
project and what you did and.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
What you found.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
Sure, be happy to do that, just just as the
backdrop that most Colorado citizens should understand, as we are
in a mail in voting state, so not every state
is like that, but what we do because we are
a mail in voting state, is we mail out three
(21:12):
point eight million ballots the US Postal Service and that's
how votes are cast, the mail voting system. And there's
two parts of that process. One is the delivery of
the ballot to the home by the United States Postal
(21:32):
Service or the residents, and the other part of that
is a critical part of the election system is the
ballot packets that are returned and categorized as undeliverable ballots.
And many people do not understand that the accuracy of
(21:56):
the voter registration records are partly dependent on reporting of
undeliverable ballots because what happens is the counties are returned
all the undeliverable ballots by the United States Postal Service
that gathers them all up during an election, and these
(22:21):
are typically ballots where records that the voter changed residents
moved out of the state, and the US postal carriers
along with the central Postal Office, categorize these ballots as undeliverable.
(22:43):
They are not permitted to be forwarded and they are
gathered up in returned to the county that controls that
part of the voter registration system. The reason these are
a vital election record is because they are partly used
(23:05):
to determine whether the voter's status should be changed from
active to inactive undeliverable. The reason that is extremely important
is because if the record is not recorded as undeliverable inactive,
(23:28):
that voter will continue to get a ballot even though
they don't live at that address anymore. So it is
a really crucial record.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Bob.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Can I ask you a question, do you know how
many undeliverable ballots there were returned to the post office
like statewide?
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Or can you give us an example in a county?
Speaker 6 (23:51):
Yes, I can give a county in the data I
have right now for twenty twenty two. Or if I
did the first thought it and that number was curtly
over one hundred and fifty thousand, I think it's left
one hundred and sixty thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
So one hundred and sixty thousand or so ballots in
the twenty two election were returned undeliverable. And I know
that what you found in your research was there was
a big gap in just the eleven counties that you
looked at, specifically nine there were about thirty thousand ballots
that were unaccounted for in those nine counties. Is that accurate?
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Yes? Let me clarify this so that the people listening
understand one of the major issues on a voting system
is they are poorly audited. And when I I'll give
this example. Normally in a business, on this type of
a document, what you'd want to have is very good
(24:49):
chain of custody, in other words, documents that showed in
the county. Hey, the United States Postal Service delivered to
my county on this date four thousand undeliverable ballots as
election returned items. Yes, So in twenty twenty two, via
(25:13):
education from a former postmaster, we know that the United
States Postal Service is required by regulation to return those
ballots marked undeliverable. But they also are required to bill
for that return. That's not done for free. So almost
(25:34):
all the counties are supposed to have some kind of
postal invoicing based on the returns of those undeliverable ballots.
So when you mentioned thirty thousand in eleven counties in
twenty twenty two, none of thirty thousand undeliverable ballots, the
(25:57):
invoicing did not match. Ranged from counties like Denver where
there were ten thousand out of the like seventeen thousand
where there were no invoices, and yet they counted those
as undeliverable, And there were three counties where they were
(26:22):
built for twelve thousand more undeliverable ballots than they counted.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (26:29):
So you know, and we are doing this again, doing
an audit from the twenty twenty four election. Not from
the standpoint point that we know something's really wrong. We're
doing it because you can't determine if it's wrong or
(26:50):
not if you don't have procedures like this to audit,
to chain a custody.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, Bob, That's one thing that I became very aware
of after doing a lot of research and going through
this analysis of the Douglas County election in twenty two
is there is really no outside auditors that come in
and look at the processes and systems of our elections,
all of its self governing. Like we saw that with
the BIOS password, Like she even hired I think a
(27:16):
law firm that was involved somehow in her race or
I can't remember, but anyway, it was all like very incestuous.
And instead of bringing outside experts that know what they're
doing to come in and look at the machines, look
at the signature verification process, look at the US Post
Office process for invoicing ballots, there's none of that. They
(27:36):
all just kind of watch over themselves, which doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I mean, we'd never do that in the business world.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 6 (27:44):
That's absolutely accurate, infective any message your listeners say out
on this. The country should be all over this, citizens
should be all over These voting systems are very poorly audited.
In fact, we can absolutely illustrate to the public that
(28:08):
they would not pass even federal GLO audit standards.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So, Bob, let me take a break real quick to
ask you a question. So when we talk about auditing
and bringing in someone from the outside to look at things,
I want to talk about who makes those decisions. Because
we have a lot of Republican county clerks across the state.
We have the majority of county commissioners that are Republican,
(28:37):
I think it's about sixty forty the split, and the
county commissioners hire the county attorney that has a lot
of say over how things go in the counties. So
even if the clerk doesn't want to do it, could
pressuring the county commissioners or asking them to ask their
attorney and their clerk to do some of these things,
or bringing outside people. That's not allowed anymore. Because Jenna
(28:57):
Griswold changed the rules is that correct.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
That's absolutely correct. That was done in twenty twenty one
when the you know, the angst over the twenty twenty
election was really high, and they immediately panned outside audits.
And the citizens should really be upset about this, and
it is up. This has to be changed with the
(29:22):
Secretary of State and that the legislature must get on this,
and that will only occur via a couple of things.
The first item would be a public needs to understand
these systems are poorly audited. The second item and thank
you for having a show to get into this. The
(29:44):
media needs to cover this.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
It's not you're funny. Maybe Rocky Mountain Voice has covered it.
I don't know about the others.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
Yeah, And so we've tried to get this in front
of even conservative streams and and it's not we're screaming
election fraud. We're screaming the thing isn't properly audited.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You'd never know, right, That's not too much to ask,
especially with what's at stake right now, with people's mistrust
in the elections. I don't think there would be any
harm in opening up the books, as they say, and
letting some experts.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Obviously, in a.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Secure way evaluate these systems and processes. We saw the
disconnect in the signature verification process in Mason County where
three ballots got through that shouldn't have and those voters
weren't allowed to have their vote count because of that.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
That's a perfect illustration because it's parents I know in
the entire state. I don't know of any audit that's
been done on the accuracy of the signature verification system.
There's no report you can find. So the entire process
that is used to secure that the voter ID is
(30:58):
linked to that that ballot, there is no reports on
how accurate the process is that I know of. If
someone knows, they ought to call in and let us know.
But I know of no published report in the accuracy
of that process.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Bob, if you're willing to stay after the break, we'd
love to keep talking to you. If not, I'll keep
the conversation going and folks can call in at three
oh three seven one, three eight two five five or
text Dan to five seven seven three nine and we'll
engage there.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
But this is really really important information.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
It's not the most fun topic to discuss, but it's
really critical to in storing ensuring trust in our elections again.
So this is Hidi Ganall filling in for Dan Caples
with my guest Bob Cooper.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Right now. We're going to talk more after the break.
See you in a minute. Good afternoon.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It's Heidi Ganall filling in for Dan Caplis, and have
my friend on Bob Cooper, who's kind of election integrity expert.
He's done some incredible work over the last couple of years.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Bob.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
We've talked about the US Post Office and how there's
some serious issues around reporting undeliverable ballots and just ballots,
tens of thousands of ballots floating around that no one
can account for. We've also talked about signature verification and
how there's really been no analysis of whether the system
works or not. And I think Jenna Griswold even says, hey,
(32:20):
if you're looking for the signal, if you're working in
the election process and you see a signature in your
fifty one percentage, sure it's right, go for it. Then
it's okay, which is crazy. And then we've got the
voter roles that aren't necessarily cleaned up like they were
supposed to be, even after the Judicial Watch lawsuit. And
then we've got Jenna Griswold who lied about remote Wi
(32:41):
Fi access in our voting systems in twenty twenty and
come to find out there's twelve apparently counties according to
Matt Crane, the head of the Clerk's Association, that have
remote access in the voting systems after she said there wasn't.
And the final straw that we discovered over the last
couple of years was that the drop boxes are not
(33:01):
monitored appropriately. The cameras aren't high quality enough, they're not
pointed in the right direction. We've got four hundred plus
drop boxes across the state, and the counties typically don't
evaluate the tape or look to see.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
If anything went wrong.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So with all that being said, I think you're right,
and we only have a couple minutes to wrap this up.
But one of the most important things we can ask
our county commissioners and our county clerks at our local
levels is to bring in outside experts to do audits.
The Secretary of State's going to say, no, she created
that rule, but someone needs to have the kahunas to
(33:34):
sue her and say absolutely, we're going to do this.
And I bet half of Colorado at least would have
their backs.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
What do you think?
Speaker 6 (33:41):
I think so, I think it's part of it is
the citizens need to understand this needs to be done,
and it's not a political issue. It's an issue of
having a very good, secure voting system with proper audit standards.
There are none, So you know, this citizen should make
(34:06):
an issue of this because heney this can be fixed.
This is not a case of you know, there are
simple things that could improve it immensely. And having met
with multiple election officials and county clerks, these are very
good people. They just are really charged with getting the
(34:28):
election process done. But they can be a big part
of a campaign to try and improve the auditing and
improving chain of custody in demanding it and even if
going past the Secretary of State in demanding it. So
I think there's a bunch that can be done here.
(34:49):
And I just think it's great you're willing to cover
this well.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I think it's so important to restore trust in our
voting systems, in our process, in our vote, and that's
missing for a lot of America, for a lot of Colorado,
especially with all the debacles that happened in this latest election,
and when we came out and did that election integrity
press conference a couple months before the election, it was
(35:14):
shocking how even the Republican clerks got mad at me
and said, you know, I was freaking everyone out. And
then a couple weeks later, Jenna does her whole bios
password Lake. Good times here in Colorado, but we can
fix it. Like Bob said, Bob, thank you for joining us.
You can learn more at CEO Coloradofair Elections dot org,
get involved Ceofair Elections dot org, and we'll be back
(35:36):
right after the break
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