Call for Investigation

The lead plaintiff in a legal case questioning the accuracy of the 2024 election, has submitted 15 pages of document requests as part of the discovery process.

SMART Legislation, the action arm of nonpartisan watchdog group SMART Elections, also submitted a series of questions to the Rockland County Board of Elections in New York this week, according to court filings reviewed by Newsweek.

"The best way to reassure the public about the accuracy of the election results in Rockland County, New York, is to conduct a full, transparent, hand recount of the 2024 Presidential and Senate elections," Lulu Friesdat, the founder and executive director of SMART Legislation, said in a statement to Newsweek. "That is why we have requested it, and so far, the judge seems to agree" ....

The plaintiffs are seeking evidence about how the 2024 election was conducted due to the irregularities detailed in the initial complaint, according to SMART Legislation's press release.

Documents requested include information about voting machines; voter rolls; software; software updates; hardware, including forensic-grade copies of hard drives; diagrams of all equipment, including network and Wi-Fi components; and flash drives that carry election results.

The Board of Elections has been asked to provide documents concerning "any actual or alleged irregularities, errors, problems, or misalignment of election results or voter rolls" in the 2020 or 2024 general elections, according to documents.

The document requests also cover security protocols, such as rules for password creation and chain of custody procedures; lists of workers; financial interactions, such as vendor contracts; and communications with voting machine manufacturers including Elections Systems & Software and testing lab Pro V&V.

SMART Elections reported in February that a software update to some ES&S systems were not sufficiently tested. Jack Cobb, the director of the federally accredited testing lab Pro V&V, previously told Newsweek that the changes were not "of any significance."

But SMART Legislation said a technical adviser who was consulted disagreed with the testing lab's classification of the updates as minimal, saying it "is a major change and should require closer inspection as to what the changes are."

SMART Legislation also asked the Board of Elections to answer questions about modem, Wi-Fi or cellular connections to Rockland County's election systems and to confirm if it has ever used either Starlink satellites' Direct to Cell service or a program known as BallotProof.

They also asked if any individual or organization had made any type of complaint or expressed concern about possible inaccuracies in election results from January 1, 2020 to the present.

Lulu Friesdat, the founder and executive director of SMART Legislation, said in a statement provided to Newsweek: "One of our main concerns at this point is whether the chain of custody of the ballots and the equipment has been robust enough for the public to have confidence in the paper ballots. That is the reason for many of our discovery requests."

County Attorney Thomas Humbach said in a statement to Newsweek: "We believe that this claim has no merit, and that the petitioners do not qualify for a recount as a matter of law."

The lawsuit is seeking a full, hand recount of ballots cast in the presidential and U.S. Senate races in Rockland County. 

The Rockland County Board of Elections will have to respond to discovery requests and the questions, and plaintiffs will seek to conduct depositions.

The next hearing is scheduled for September 22, and the case is expected to go to trial early next year.