DHS knew mail-in voting was risky but pressured Big Tech to censor users who voiced concerns, lawsuit claims
By isabelle // 2024-01-30
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When the idea of relaxing mail-in ballot rules to facilitate voting during the pandemic was initially floated ahead of the 2020 presidential election, many people’s first instinct was that the move would open the process up to an undue amount of fraud. And while we now know that’s exactly what happened, it turns out that the Department of Homeland Security also knew it would play out this way – but they chose to not only ignore it but censor those who dared to criticize the policy. The nonprofit group America First Legal obtained documents as part of a lawsuit proving that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, highlighted a series of major voter fraud risks in the run-up to the presidential election of 2020. For example, they said that some of the risks that are normally avoided by in-person voting would be in the hands of outside entities rather than those manning the polls. These entities include the United States Postal Service, mail processing facilities and even ballot printers. They also said that inbound and outbound processing of these ballots requires further technology and infrastructure, which could potentially make it easier to scale cyber attacks. They also said that “threat actors” could take advantage of the general lack of understanding among the public about mail-in voting processes to confuse and mislead people. CISA also concluded that voting in person would not raise the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Considering this conclusion as well as the six-point list of risks identified by the agency, it is fair to question why they still put their support behind implementing mail-in voting throughout the nation. Moreover, CISA provided its findings to the mainstream media, yet numerous outlets chose to ignore them and instead derided those who expressed concerns about the process. One such outlet was the Washington Post, which chose to focus on the agency's “independence from Trump” and the statements made by the agency's director about the security of mail-in ballots that went against concerns identified by Trump.

Americans who shared their fears about the risks of mail-in voting were censored

CISA even went so far as to monitor social media and flag posts made by Trump as well as other conservative commentators who discussed the risks of the policy on social media. They formed an alliance known as the Election Integrity Partnership to censor people's speech and discussions about the mail-in voting process. America First Legal stated: “Accordingly, EIP collaborators—including CISA—submitted ‘tickets’ to flag social media posts relating to mail-in voting.” It appears that the federal government was set on using COVID-19 as an excuse to get the country to shift toward mail-in voting despite its many risks precisely because these vulnerabilities could help them ensure a victory for Joe Biden and get Trump out of office. AFL’s Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations, Reed Rubinstein, said: “These documents demonstrate federal bureaucrats knew that there was no credible evidence supporting the claim that in-person voting spread COVID-19, and that mail-in and absentee voting were indeed less secure than in-person voting, precisely as President Trump, Attorney General Barr, and others had warned.” The group sued CISA to compel them to release records showing their collusion with Big Tech and the media to shape people’s opinions about mail-in voting. They maintain that terms like “misinformation” are so vague that it is easy for authorities to abuse them to further their narrative. "State and CISA are not ministries of ‘truth’ – the public has a right to know precisely who decides what information to censor, and how the government is using its private sector allies to shape public opinion,” Rubinstein noted. Sources for this article include: InfoWars.com AFLegal.org WashingtonExaminer.com
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