Nearly three dozen county officials, some in key swing states, have refused to certify voting results since 2020 and the threat of disruption in the upcoming November election “looms large,” according to a government watchdog group.
“There is a direct through-line between the attempts to subvert the 2020 election, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and what we are seeing at present at the county level,” said Nikhel Sus, deputy chief counselor for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. “It is simply becoming more decentralized.”
In a 109-page investigative report, CREW identified 35 county officials in eight states — Colorado, New Mexico and swing states Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan — who have sought to illegally delay or deny certifying election results since 2020, falsely claiming irregularities or fraud in voting. Sus said each of the 35 officials are currently in or up for reappointment to positions that would give them the ability to again refuse to certify election results.
Among those officials are avowed 2020 election deniers, individuals who acted as fake presidential electors for Donald Trump and a criminally convicted participant in the January 6 insurrection who was later removed from office, according to CREW.
Sus said some of the officials admitted they had no reason for refusing to certify voting results in their counties but were “just going with their gut” and those who suspected fraud offered no credible evidence of it. He emphasized county election officials have a largely ministerial role in counting, reporting and certifying voting results.
“The law simply does not empower them to do the things that they are purporting to have authority over,” Sus said. “Their role is not to investigate voter fraud and is not to resolve voter fraud. That is somebody else’s job, and it’s typically a court’s job. And so everybody in an election has to stay in their lane and perform their role, otherwise there could be widespread disruption.”
Sus said the potential for mischief in November isn’t confined to the eight states mentioned in the report and any attempts to delay certification could affect the final presidential vote certification.
He recommended that states explicitly remind county election officials of their duties and the penalties they could face for not complying with voting laws.
A San Diego County Registrar of Voters spokesperson declined to comment on CREW’s findings, saying only it “adheres to all state and federal laws as it relates to the administration of elections.”
