To the editor:

In response to my letter of 6/9, which pointed out the need to be skeptical of the claim that there’s no need to look under the hood of the 2020 Presidential election, another writer submitted a letter stating that there is no need to look under the hood of the election because it’s already been done — by state officials and the auditors they have hired. The writer would have us believe that state officials who conducted the audit can be trusted to be objective and unbiased in conducting an examination of their own work, while an outside group of citizens can’t.

It is not at all surprising that the Maricopa County, Arizona, officials who examined the election found no problems. They themselves limited the scope of the audit by manipulating state law to reduce the number of precincts that were examined. Within those precincts, they did not do any of the in-depth examination of ballots that a forensic auditor would perform to determine whether or not each ballot was legitimate. They simply assumed that each ballot was legitimate and counted it.

But did they investigate discrepancies between reported ballot batch totals and the number of actual ballots in the batch? No.

Did they examine each ballot to determine whether there were indications that the ballot was mass-produced and not submitted through the mail? No.

Did they trace ballot signatures to determine whether they were signed by actual legal voters? No.

State officials have a vested interest in finding that an election was problem-free. Finding problems means they did not do their job properly. Finding widespread problems means there is probably corruption within the government. So instead of opening the hood and taking an honest hard look, these officials cracked it open three inches, took a peek, and declared, “Nothing to see here!”

The forensic audit that is taking place in Arizona is a good thing. We would do well to pay close attention to what is found, and ask whether we can apply their findings to our own state to make our elections less susceptible to fraud. Without fair elections, the will of the people is not done.

Michael Thom

New Ulm