Trump Ballots Defaulted and Switched to Biden Votes on Dominion System: Maricopa GOP Chairwoman

Trump Ballots Defaulted and Switched to Biden Votes on Dominion System: Maricopa GOP Chairwoman
A Maricopa County Elections Department staff member counts ballots in Phoenix, Ariz., on Oct. 31, 2020. Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images
Isabel van Brugen
Updated:

Maricopa County GOP chairwoman Linda Brickman on Nov. 30 testified before members of the Arizona State Legislature that she personally observed votes for President Donald Trump being tallied as votes for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden when input into Dominion machines.

Brickman, the GOP head of one of the country’s largest counties and a veteran county elections worker, submitted her testimony in a sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury. She testified that she and her Democratic partner witnessed “more than once” Trump votes default and shift to Biden when they were entering votes into Dominion machines from ballots that couldn’t be read by machines.

She alleged that she was later threatened by election supervisors at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) for speaking out about what she had witnessed.

“I observed, with my Democratic partner, the preparation of a new ballot, since the original one was soiled, or wouldn’t go through the tabulators. I read her a Trump Republican ballot, and as soon as she entered it into the system, the ballot defaulted on the screen to a Biden Democratic ballot,” Brickman told GOP Arizona State legislators on Monday.

She remarked that when she reported the issue to election supervisors, others in the room also commented that they had “witnessed the same manipulation.”

“We were never told what, if any corrective action was taken,” Brickman continued. “All I know is the next day, I was called outside the room that I was working in for signature verification by a supervisor who said, ‘I understand you caused some problems this week and you thought our machines were not working correctly.’

“I was told at that point in time that I could not discuss anything or talk about what was going on.

“Many people were threatened,” Brickman told the hearing. “They were told that their voices would be suppressed, they would have to leave the room and not work there again. I’m here because I think this is our duty to speak the truth.”

Supporters of President Donald Trump demonstrate at a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally in front of the Maricopa County Elections Department office in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 7, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Supporters of President Donald Trump demonstrate at a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally in front of the Maricopa County Elections Department office in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 7, 2020. Mario Tama/Getty Images

She told the hearing that she was yelled at and “reprimanded” by her own supervisor, who accused her of causing trouble and “bringing things up that I shouldn’t have.”

The Maricopa County recorder’s office and the Arizona state secretary’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comments from The Epoch Times.

She also said that during testing and certification of the Dominion voting machines on Nov. 18, she had refused to approve the certification of the Dominion system during a meeting with Secretary of State Katie Hobbs because the machines had malfunctioned during the test, and were shut down and reset by Dominion staff instead of corrected.

She said that no explanation was given about the errors. “We could see the machines but we could not see or observe the software behind the machine to confirm what had really gone on,” she added.

Trump’s legal team had previously pointed to witness testimony alleging that election results from Dominion Voting Systems are susceptible to manipulation—an allegation that the company has repeatedly denied.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal in a piece published this week, Dominion CEO John Poulos said recent claims against the company “fueled the harassment of election officials and Dominion employees across the country,” including death threats.

“The lies and smears have no basis in fact but they do real damage to our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral process. The false allegations should be retracted immediately,” he said.

Dominion has not responded yet to a request from The Epoch Times for comment.

Poll workers count ballots inside the Maricopa County Election Department in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 5, 2020. (Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images)
Poll workers count ballots inside the Maricopa County Election Department in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 5, 2020. Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images

Brickman in the hearing also testified to a number of other voting irregularities that she directly observed, including the constant lowering of signature verification standards by her election supervisors in order to “move more quickly” and process the higher amount of early and mail-in ballots received for the November election.

“Standards were lowered from approximately 15 points of similarities ... reduced to a minimum of three, and then lowered to one, and ultimately none,” Brickman said, recalling that she was told to “just pass each signature verification through.”

“We were told, ‘Too many rejections have already been turned in … we need to move more quickly.’ This is not the way an election should be run. Where’s the integrity?” Brickman challenged.

The GOP chairwoman also said she observed signatures on envelopes that were completely different from the name of the listed voter being let through by election supervisors.

“So the ones who signed the envelopes were not the actual voters, but these were allowed to go through with ‘Maricopa County verified’ stamped on the outside of each affidavit envelope,” she said.

Batches of envelopes bearing the same handwriting for different signatures were also observed, she said.

“There were at least 30 ballots that I saw at one time, that were signed by the same handwriting but on different voters’ names,” Brickman testified. “When I asked if the county attorney would be alerted for possible fraud, I was told ‘no,’ that supervisors would take care of it.”

One of the most “egregious” irregularities, Brickman said, was the turning away of Trump votes as duplicated votes or “overvotes” because the voter filled checked both the bubble for Trump on the ballot but also wrote in the president’s name under the write-in candidate.

“This would continue on as an overvote, which means no vote was counted at all despite the policy having been changed to allow these overvotes. Supervisors contradicted their own policies where the [voter’s] intent was clear,” she said.

“I am here today again not as an expert in the Dominion software but as a voter in Maricopa County who wants to hear and speak the truth even though myself and others have been suppressed to speak before you now,” Brickman told the hearing.

“There should be integrity,” she said.

Isabel van Brugen
Isabel van Brugen
Reporter
Isabel van Brugen is an award-winning journalist. She holds a master's in newspaper journalism from City, University of London.
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