Hundreds of Montanans Attend Missoula, Hamilton Election Integrity Events
By Roy McKenzie | Originally published by Missoula Tyranny on Sept. 25, 2021
Wednesday [Sept 22] over 500 Montanan’s and a dozen or more legislators including representatives Paul Fielder (HD-13), Lola Galloway (HD-22), Steven Galloway (HD-24), Bob Phalen (HD-36), Amy Regier (HD-6), Matt Regier (HD-4), Jerry Schillinger (HD-37), Derek Skees (HD-11), Brad Tschida (HD-97), and senators Theresa Manzella (SD-44) and Keith Regier (SD-3) attended events in Missoula and Hamilton which featured guest speakers who shared their analysis of Montana’s 2020 General Election.
The Missoula event titled “Take Back Montana: 2020 Election Analysis” was organized by a newly formed group called the Montana Election Integrity Project. The organization’s stated mission is to “restore the integrity of Montana elections through grassroots citizen outreach and education.” The Missoula event’s emcee, Jane Rectenwald, a member of the MEIP, said the team started out as a group of concerned citizens who “met around the kitchen table,” to figure out how to address concerning anomalies in Montana elections. The Missoula event was held at Discovery Alliance Church and lived streamed for those who could not be in attendance. The Missoula County Republican Women volunteered for the event.
The Hamilton event titled “Montana Election Integrity Symposium” was held at the Ravalli County Fairgrounds and was sponsored by Ravalli County Republican Women. Sen. Theresa Manzella and Rep. Brad Tschida emceed the event which featured three speakers including physicist and elections analyst Dr. Douglas G. Frank, New Mexico State University Law Professor David Clements, and Couy Griffin, Cowboys for Trump founder and January 6th political prisoner. The Hamilton event was also live streamed by Conservative News for Montana.
Hamilton’s Event Recording - Election Integrity Symposium. Conservative News from Montana. September 22, 2021.
Former Army Captain Seth Keshel, a featured speaker at the Missoula event alongside Dr. Frank and Professor Clements, provided an analysis that pointed to 46,000 excess votes being cast in Montanan’s 2020 General Election with more than 6,000 excess votes estimated in Missoula County alone.
Keshel utilized voter and demographic trend data to develop his estimates noting that Democrats in Missoula County gained about 12,000 more votes from 2016 to 2020 despite historically flatlining turnout for Democrats in the County and GOP gains during the same time period.
The table below represents voter gain or loss by party for the past five general election cycles in Missoula County. Since Obama’s first election, Democrats in Missoula County had been losing voters, first dropping about 4,000 voters in 2012, the year Obama ran for reelection and losing about 1,000 more voters in the 2016 General Election between Trump and Clinton.
In 2020, however, the GOP had a record turnout for Trump in Missoula County, increasing their numbers by about 4,000 voters. In what can reasonably be described as a concerning anomaly, Democrats increased voter turnout in 2020 from 2016 by about 12,000 votes. The last time Democrats came close to breaking this 2020 record was in 2008, during Obama’s first election campaign, which saw historic turnout gains of nearly 10,000 additional voters throughout the county.
Another speaker, Dr. Douglas G. Frank—a physicist, chemist, and mathematician—also provided his analysis of the election results for every Montana County. Dr. Frank’s analysis showed that for all counties but three (Petroleum, Treasure, and Wibaux) he was able to predict the turnout by age for the 2020 General Election in each county using only 2019 US Census data. For background, a correlation coefficient is a statistical value generally between -1 and 1. When two sets of data correlate to a value of 1, the first set of data exactly predicts the second set of data. 0 Indicates there is no relationship and -1 indicates there is an exact opposite relationship. In the case of Montana, Dr. Frank was able to predict 53 of 56 Montana county turnouts by age to an average correlation of 0.98.
Paul Fielder (HD-13) and his wife Jennifer Fielder, Montana’s Public Service Commissioner and former Montana State Senator attend Take Back Montana in Missoula on Sept. 22, 2021. Paul Fielder is one of 86 Montana Legislators Requesting a Special Committee on Elections.
Also, Dr. Frank charted the population and registered voters in Missoula County and found more registered voters exist in age cohorts from 30-40 years old and from 70-80 years old than US Census data shows live in the county. In November of 2010, Kurt Hyde wrote for The New American how US Census Data could be used to fraudulently register voters.
According to Dr. Frank, the total eligible voting population in Missoula County is about 97,000 people and a whopping 91,079 of those are registered to vote. That means that about 94% of the voting-age population in Missoula County are registered to vote, an unusually high number of the population for any county in America. According to Kaiser Family Foundation data, only 77% of Montana’s population is registered to vote, making Missoula County’s total registered voting population an anomalous outlier. Dr. Frank shared that, “That ain’t natural, buddy.”
Dr. Frank also demonstrated that an equation could be applied to the US Census data for each county in Montana to predict the total ballots cast by age group to an unnatural rate of correlation. Without using any actual vote data, Dr. Frank could predict the outcome of the 2020 General Election in Montana and thousands of other counties throughout the United States.
Law Professor David Clements also spoke and shared his legal opinions and his suggestions for strategies moving forward. Clements said that given the evidence provided by Keshel and Dr. Frank, there is reasonable suspicion to believe something went wrong during the elections and that the anomalies must be investigated. Clements mentioned that ballots, machines, and tabulators are the means to which Montanan’s could discover what went wrong, but acknowledged that elections administrators across the country have turned a blind eye to the anomalies and are obstructing access to these public records.
At the Missoula event, Clements asked attendees, “We have to gather up within ourselves this attitude of we will not stop telling the truth. Either they break or we break. So my question to you is, do you intend on breaking?” Attendees shouted, “No!”
Clements also noted that legislators have ultimate authority and responsibility for resolving these discrepancies and anomalies, but that many “RINO” (Republican in name only) legislators are not taking up their constitutional authority to address the issue. Clements surmised that these legislators are too scared or that they benefit from the alleged fraud. Clements said that similar events where he has spoken there are usually “empty chairs” where they have been reserved for legislators, but that Montana was unique with the large number of legislative representatives who attended the events.
Attendees of the Missoula event were given a “checklist” of tasks and public records to request from their elections administrators including monies and receipts related to grants from the Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic life, contracts and maintenance logs for ES&S election machines, and additional tasks like meeting with election administrators, county party chairs, and learning which company printed ballots for their elections.
The Montana Election Integrity Project shared that they are planning on continued educational events in addition to pressure campaigns on Montana legislators to call a special session to write new election rules, audit rules, and conduct an audit of Montana elections. Sen. Theresa Manzella has committed to forming a “select committee” to investigate anomalies found in Missoula County elections where 4,592 ballots were missing required ballot signature envelopes in the 2020 General Election.