Gessler Interview Part 3

Thank you to AsheinAmerica.com for editing the interview transcription. This is the final segment of the Gessler Interview. Scott Gessler is running for the Colorado State GOP Chair position. Elections take place in March 2021. To help take over the CO GOP party, contact your county GOP Chair to be appointed to a Precinct Committee position in your county. The time commitment is approximately one meeting per month. What you get in exchange for your time is the ability to vote on who represents the CO GOP, electors, and candidates during election season. Think *PRIMARIES!

SG: In law, okay, so what you would do is you would take your take a sample as big as you want of images, and you get your statistician gurus to say, you’re going to be able to do this with a 99 or 100% confidence. If you don’t want to do a sample, then you got to figure out the manpower, which is 1000s of hours, take the images, and you pull out every single ballot, and you compare it to the image. And that’s how you find out. So first, you do the count with the images. Because you know, you can do that. The clerk can’t stop you from doing that. But the clerk can stop you from pawing through all the ballots and counting them separately, but you still have access to them, even if it’s individually. Now let us be realistic. It’s gonna take 1000s of man hours to do that.

SG: I’m looking through the PCPs that we have, and our bonus members. Okay. And there are hundred, thousands, of PCP positions open. That’s a precinct committee person. That’s what PCP stands for. People looking for Republican volunteers, to simply participate in the process. And we’re not even at a fraction of the number of PCPs, but we’re not even close to filling up all of the PCPs. One of the most massive counties in the state of El Paso County, and there’s a huge controversy right now over filling those PCP. And we’re talking like 60 PCP slots. That’s El Paso, one of the busiest ones. 60 vacancies, they’re just trying to find people, and now they’re fighting over whether these people are allowed or not. You look at Denver, I mean, I’m guessing Denver, and that’s a major county. I understand the democrat county, but that’s a major county they have maybe maybe 5-10% of all their PCP positions filled.

So, if you’re going to say to me, “Well, let’s do it! this is so important. We need to do it.” And I’ll say, “Yes, great. Where am I going to get the manpower to do it?”

HaA: I’ll make a deal with you, Scott. I’ll get the manpower. Are you going to help us do it? I can do this. I can get I can get your man hours.

SG: Okay. So right now, Nick Levenstein has the images for the 2018 election, and there’s allegations that Dominion goosed the 2018 election too, or suspicions, I should say. Okay, and he has ballot images right now. He’s like, “Alright, Scott, I’m ready to go.” Well, he sort of says he’s ready to go. He’s got an election coming up, and I’ve got an election coming up, and I ain’t doing a thing before March 27.

Besides talking about this, okay. But if you can get the manpower to count those ballots doing hand counts, okay. And look, I’m gonna be frank with you, you’re only going to be able to focus on one or two races.

HaA: Let’s do it for one or two races and see what happens. Because if we find fraud, if we find irregularities, then I think there’s a case that it’s widespread. If we don’t, well, then that’s a different discussion.

SG: The best way to do this by far, and I got the phone number. Now, I used to know all the people who ran Clear Ballot now, I used to know several but the management has moved on. But one of the things that I would do, and I have no problem spending time on this, is talking to clear ballot and say, “Look, guys, are you willing to do this?” Because Jefferson County tried to get this through, and they said, “No, we don’t want to do this.”

SG: The reason Jefferson County tried, is because I told him that this methodology, I’m like, “Clear Ballot, the company to do [this], they initially started off as an audit company. That’s what they initially did.” And so, Clear Ballot has declined. And I know, the reason Clear Ballot has declined, is because they earned their money by selling Clerks and Recorders. And if they’re, if they’re in a position of pissing Clerks and Recorders off, they’re never going to be able to get that sale. So they don’t want to be pissing Clerks and Recorders off. And I had this exact conversation with the former CEO of Clear Ballot back in 2014. And that’s another story. So, we get Clear Ballot, then you don’t have to worry about getting that amount of manpower. You can get those images, you get those images and a whole bunch of counties, so it’s not just one or two counties that you’re doing. It’s like five or 10, or, you know, whatever, and run it through the clear ballot equipment and there’s going to be a cost associated with that.

I’ll show you how you how to create a 501c4 to be able to do that. And you can get unlimited money from any source to do this, as opposed to the Republican Party which has to beg people who say, “Well, you’re not Trumping up or you’re anti Trump or I hate Trump” and you have to deal with all that stuff. And you get to deal with a pure issue that everyone’s going to rally around and agree on to, you know, raise the money for. But if you can do that, and you can get your ballot, then you can do these images in a whole bunch of counts.

Now, I understand you’re gonna say, and there’s a possibility that the images were goosed, okay. Well, there’s a methodology under current Colorado law. But here’s the other thing. If you want changes, if you want to remove the mail ballot system…HHaA5:37Yes, and Dominion. How do we get those two things out?

SG: you’re gonna have to win elections.

HaA: Okay, or ballot measures.

SG: But really the way you’re going to have to do it is win elections. I mean, I can tell you the shortcomings of how you write a ballot measure, but you’re going to have to win elections

HaA: Scott, it’s got to be a two-pronged deal. We’ve gotten so hosed in elections, with people that we can’t trust, They say one thing when they get elected, they turn out to be different. I’m not saying this is you, by any means. I’m just saying in general. And so, there’s not a lot of trust there. There’s not a lot of trust in the GOP. And so I see this Chair position as being really difficult. I think one of your biggest challenges is going to be restoring the trust in the GOP. I think fundraising is going to be very difficult because I don’t know anybody who is excited about the GOP and putting money into that. I’m curious, what are you going to do to turn that around or what is your plan for all of this?

SG: I’ll give you a three minute conversation on that. I’m not trying to blow you off, When I start talking about elections, I can go on forever. But look, part of it, frankly, is having a plan that can have a chance of success. What we have in Colorado is a Republican Party that doesn’t help candidates get elected. Okay, I mean, our candidates, we do a poor job of recruiting. You look up in Weld County there’s a recall effort. The Democrat resigns, they all lift their arms and cheer, and then we don’t run a candidate against him in 2020. You can’t win an election, when you don’t have candidates.

SG: We don’t do any candidate training the data is very difficult for a lot of candidates to get that (inaudible). We’re not helping campaigns have actual personnel to do the work. We can’t get can’t get personnel, so we got to fix that. We get outraised 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, even in our competitive races. So we have this huge cash disadvantage. And then we have a Republican Party that is not spending any time focusing on the crazy stuff that the Democrats do to be able to balance, to try and even out this media environment where Republicans are always getting criticized and Democrats aren’t. They need a plan for that. And look, I mean, there’s gonna be people that say you’re never conservative enough, you’re not fighting this enough. I got people running around saying that I support mail ballots. And I’ve given you this long history of me like taking more hits than you can imagine, politically. Not only that, but you know, when I did this stuff, I mean, my family had to move out of our house for a week while I was out of town because of the death threats.

I have permanent police presence around my mom because of threats to do horrible things to her. Yeah, that sucks. And then at the same time, I’m earning no money, and I’m getting criticized. And even now I do. Alright, so when you talk about people not having trust, who is a public official, who wants to go through this hassle? Who the wants to do this? And I’ll tell you, for the most part, the only people who want to go to the hassle are the ones who are the go along, get along people who the media is gonna love, because everyone else is going to hate him. I’m telling you that, and you may not want to hear that either, but it is hard,

HaA: I’m not saying it’s an easy job. I’m saying, I preface the question with, “Hey, it’s an uphill battle. And I’m curious…

SG: Look, having a plan that donors can buy into, showing them what the communication is going to look like, showing them what a voter registration plan is going to look like, so that they know that their hard-earned money is going to go through for a worthy cause. And it’s going to be spent wisely. That’s what you have to do. And not everyone’s gonna buy into that.

HaA: hey, nobody’s gonna buy into anybody 100%. I’m curious what what are your bull’s eyes? So it looks like you’re going to be focusing on, you know, putting your plans together, they’re probably not totally formed yet. Fine. But it looks like it’s on recruitment, media and facilitating candidates getting elected. Is that fair?

SG: Hey, take a look at my website. Just go to scottgessler.com. (interesting contradiction, SG’s site is all about election integrity, yet in this interview he outlines very specifically the state GOP chair position is to get candidates elected. It’s possible these two positions reconcile. Decide for yourself).

HaA: one other quick question. The Federal voting bill that’s coming through. What are your thoughts on that? Does the federal government have the ability to put through these sweeping mandates for how elections are run in the US?

SG: Yes.

HaA: They do have the authority to do it? It’s not unconstitutional?

SG: Look under Article One, Section four, the US Constitution. “Time manner in place for elections shall be prescribed in each state, by the legislature of each state there of, but that sometimes, Congress may make us regulations from time to time.” I’m paraphrasing a little bit. But it’s hardwired into the organic constitution, that Congress has the ability to step in and regulate elections for federal elections. The fact of the matter is, if you have a federal election regulation from Congress – that’s the authority for HAVA, that’s the authority for the Voting Rights Act, although there’s some…well, there’s lots of debate on that – that’s the authority for more voters, that’s the authority for all of this stuff. So, Congress can do that it is hardwired in, and if they do it for a state for the general federal elections, there is no state that I’m aware of that will ever spend the money to create a parallel system for odd-year elections.

HaA: What do we do? Nobody wants this bill to go through.

SG: Yeah, well, stop trashing Republicans and help them get elected. I think the Republicans will fillibuster this in the Senate, so we keep our fingers crossed that that stays on point. I don’t think the Republicans know what’s going on.

HaA:, Let’s say it goes through, how do states hate fight it? Can they?

SG: Not really. They can they can fight a little bit here and fight a little bit there, you know, depending on what gaps are in the bill, and what discretion is allowed to the states… Congress has plenary authority to be able to do that under the Constitution, if they so choose.

HaA: That’s gonna be brutal. This is going to be a real problem, because the thing is, the feeling now is that the election was rigged. Right? There’s not a whole lot of confidence in the election. So in trying to get candidates elected, the overwhelming feeling is, “Hey, if the system is rigged, it doesn’t matter how much money we give to the GOP, how much we support our candidates, they’re not going to get through.”

SG: I think it was Hugh Hewitt, wrote a book a number of years ago saying, “They can’t cheat of it’s not close,” or something like that. And, you know, you just have to work at it to try and overcome that margin. You know that’s just the bottom line. Here’s the thing. I understand Republicans, a lot of Republicans believe this is rigged.

HaA: That’s a large reason I like to do the Dominion review. We need to know, for sure. Republicans need to know for sure.

SG: Colorado has one of the best and most sophisticated Risk Limiting Audits out there. When I say Colorado is better than other states, it is in a lot of ways, at a lot of levels. As much as we’re grumpy. As much as I’m grumpy about Colorado. Compared to other states, it’s far better. Okay?

HaA: But, that doesn’t mean CO is good.

SG: I hear the “but,” but it is better. I’m telling you that. You know, we don’t have vote buying going, blatant vote buying, like they did in Nevada. We at least do some signature verification…

HaA: How many? How many votes were bought in Nevada?

SG: I don’t know.

HaA: That goes back to how many votes were cast by the people using Dominion, It’s like a salad bar in how this fraud happens. [You asked me how many people used ICX machines in CO. I didn’t know. Your point was that it wasn’t many].

SG: We do need a review. I’m completely on board with that. But here’s the thing when you say, “How are we going to do this?” Or, “How are we going to do that?” Look, the Democrats. They’re a big monster. Republicans aren’t perfect.

HaA: How are we gonna create our big monster. You say, through elections. I get that. On the other hand…

SG: It’s through election, period. Look, I understand you say, “I get that.” But that is foundational to what we are as a country. That is our mechanism, period. You know, and whether we like it or not, whether it’s working great or not, that’s all we have. We’re not the Soviet Union where you know, when you win, when you win power, you take the other side out and shoot them.

HaA: We’re going in that direction, because the elections are not free and fair. Unless that gets cleaned up, there’s no, there’s no reason to even vote anymore. You know?

SG: I disagree with that. I completely disagree with that. And as long as you and others are thinking that, Republicans will be doomed, and a monster will win. I can guarantee you, I can guarantee you, if a lot of people like you are thinking that, the monster will win, I can guarantee you.

HaA: So we have to get the elections cleaned up.

SG: Well, and we have to get out and vote, and do that, and win by a margin that can’t be subject to cheating.

HaA: Trump DID! He did win by an overwhelming margin. It was a landslide.

SG: Well, look, I get it. But are you going to give up? Are you going to say, No, we hate Republicans. Don’t ever vote republican anymore?

HaA: No, no, no, I didn’t say that. I said, it’s not worth voting if it’s not counted properly. There’s no motivation. There’s no reason to rally.

SG: I disagree with you, because I think there are changes we can make. Okay, and I think there’s monitoring we can do. And I don’t think right now, right now, we don’t have the evidence that shows Dominion goosed this election in Colorado. We may, if we do the review, and we have the suspicions of it. But right now, we don’t have that evidence.

HaA: But we did.

SG: I went down – listen to me – when I went down…

HaA: Hold on. I’m talking about now, with Tom Bjorklund’s data, and Shawn Smith’s testimony in front of the House, they did have statistical evidence. I helped call dead voters. I went and looked at obituaries in counties and called the families and asked if that person who voted was still alive. And there were many, hundreds, of dead voters who had voted. So that is…

SG: get it. I understand. No, no, I said evidence of the Dominion machines.

HaA: Okay. So you do believe that there was fraud in Colorado.

SG: I think there is normally some level of fraud in elections.

HaA: Right.

SG: Okay. That is the reality. There are bad people who will do bad things. And so we try to mitigate that. We and we try hard to eliminate it, but we never can. Look, I still have three articles, an article where, you know, this was I think in 2016…was it 2016 or 2014… 2016 or 2018. I think it’s 2016. You know, where there were a number of dead people who had voted in the newspapers reported on it, you know. And the answer is, yeah, and you know, and under me, you know, we did the Social Security death index. We removed people through the Colorado Department of Health. We didn’t only do the updates, we did regularly did the Cumulative Index, in case anyone got back in. So we did that under me. we tried to remove non citizens from the voter rolls. Part of the reason I did that, because I knew that non citizens were voting. We had the evidence that they were voting. I mean, when I ran, there’s one immigration attorney, a friend of mine, she said, “You know, I have a client, who came over 20 years ago, has never become a citizen, but has been voting in elections ever since. And she was even an election judge one year.” So I know that stuff happens. I know, it happens. Okay. And I know, our courts don’t like looking into this. And I know our DAs don’t like looking into this. I know that. And I know there’s a base level of fraud. Okay. I very well believe that this election very well may have been stolen from Trump. And I use the word may because I don’t think I have the evidence, and that’s what I look for. But I do have a lot of evidence from Nevada, and I do have, and I did review the processes in Pennsylvania, which opened the door to fraud. I mean, they were prohibited from doing signature review, weeks in advance. Okay, you know, so, so I get all this stuff. But what I’m also saying is, this is a flawed, imperfect system. And some of its flaws and imperfections are designed by people who don’t want to believe that bad things can happen or that perhaps want to create bad things. I get all of that. And I agree with every goddamn word of that. But if we give up, and we say Republicans aren’t strong enough on this or you’re not strong enough, the monster wins. And so what we need to do is try and organize and be well enough that we can overcome the reality of a baseline of fraud. That’s what we need to do. And I applaud you for trying to get to the bottom of this stuff. And I do think we need to review of Dominion. And if there’s discrepancies or a Dominion goosed us, we need to know that. And if they didn’t goose us and they shot us straight, then we need to use that as a way to help restore trust in our elections. Okay, so we need the truth on that we need the verification, and I get that. But what I’m also saying is, you know, if you and others are saying, “It’s not worth it anymore. It is so bad, that it’s not worth it anymore,” it will stay bad, and we will lose everything we hold dear. And if you get involved, I can’t promise you we turn it around. I can’t promise you. But I can promise you we’ll have a chance. And I can promise you will have a far better chance, far better chance of turning it around than if we do nothing, in which case we have a zero chance. So we have had, and we have had, you know, historical figures and former Americans and that’s one thing I take pride is that ideally, I come from at least that intellectual and emotional and philosophical lineage of people who faced far worse odds and far worse unfairness than we’ve ever dealt with in our lives, including the elections. I’m from Chicago. So tell me how bad elections can get cuz I know. All right, we don’t give up.

HaA: That’s not what we’re debating. We are debating what the priorities are and what actions can be taken.

SG: Well, I will…look, I mean, if I’m Chair, you’ll have my support. Can I promise you, I’ll give you big financial support? No, I can’t promise you that. I can promise you, you’ll have my support. And I can promise you, you know, that I’ll be a constructive way of trying to help get to the bottom of things. That I can promise you. I mean, I have no problem on Clear Ballot. I have no problem begging them. I sat down with JeffCo to sort of work out this approach. And that’s why they did, and it’s because I talked to him about it. I’m like, here’s what Clear Ballot does, and here’s what it looks like. And here’s how you look at ballot images, and then you can compare it to the original ballot. And you can’t get ahold of the original ballots to run through a machine unless the clerk allows you to do it. And I’ll be surprised if the Democrat JeffCo Clerk and Recorder allows you to do it, yada, yada, yada. Okay, I’m fine doing that. And I’m fine calling up for that as a level of support. And look, I mean, if you want to do it in Weld County, I’ve already spoken to Carla. She’s want to make every ballot image available. She’s like, “I got every single one, you want to go for it. Go.” And she says, “I even have the record of, you know, the number of people who voted, and you can match it against that. And it does match. But you’re welcome to look at my underlying data. But I got no problem with it. Go ahead and do it.” And I said, “Well, are you going to do it?” She says, “My voters in Weld County, all the activists and people I’ve talked to, none of them are demanding it. My voters.” Okay. But she said, “If you want it, you can have it. I got no problem with it.” You know, so…

HaA: How about Boulder County? Would you help us in Boulder County to do it? Because that’s where I was an election judge.

SG: I got no problem helping you in Boulder. And what that help looks like, I’ll be frank with you is, you know, here’s the pathway. Let’s get the CORA. Let’s get the CORA documents.

HaA: Okay.

SG: My challenge to, Boulder is with everyone, it’s gonna be, “Hey, county, if you want to do it, you got to mobilize the manpower.” I’m not, you can’t call me and say, “Hey, Scott, go solve all of our problems. ” Because I’m not… I don’t have the resources and the bandwidth.

HaA: I’ll get the manpower to do a hand recount. I can get people to help. Thanks Scott for your time. I appreciate the interview.