hello
my name is barb byram and i am the
ingham county clerk in the state of
michigan
i've run 30 elections and have been the
chief elections official in my county
for nearly nine years unlike some states
michigan county clerks are elected
partisanly
every four years elections in michigan
are also decentralized
so while i perform the programming for
the election equipment
and accept some candidate filings and
enforce campaign finance laws
it's the local clerk city and township
clerk that is responsible for the day of
running the election keep in mind there
are over 1500
local clerks in the state of michigan
those local clerks
are responsible for hiring precinct
workers and distributing ballots to
voters
prior to my time as an election official
i served six years in the michigan house
of representatives
and owned and operated a hardware store
for nearly 20 years
i've been fortunate enough to be
involved with defcon voting village for
a number of years
and thank you for the opportunity to
speak with you again
albeit virtually this year thank you for
your participation in defcon voting
village
because through your activism election
administrators like me
will forever be positively impacted i
thank you for sharing your knowledge
and being engaged in voting village as a
result of things that i have learned
from you
i have established additional security
practices and am focused on continuing
to mitigate the risk
and maintaining a close working
relationship with my i.t department
i remember my first defcon that i
attended i was absolutely terrified
and i didn't even know what to be afraid
of little did we know
then just a couple years ago that one of
the largest
threats on our republic was going to be
the president of the united states
and his inability to admit defeat
so let's set up the 2020 election and
the experiences we as election officials
have had in michigan
back in 2020 august of 2020 trump
claimed
that if he did not win the election it
would be rigged
media entities and that sided with the
president
parroted his claims his surrogates and
family members criticized election
administrators
and he sent out many social media posts
before he was banned that indicated his
victory was inevitable
and that the deck was stacked against
him if the unthinkable happened
late on november 3rd or early november
4th 2020
with absent ballot counting sometimes
referred to as mail-in voting
not yet completed in several
battleground states
the president declared victory in-person
ballots had been tabulated
and results were reported they favored
the president
which was less than surprising given
that he had been downplaying the
severity of the coven 19 outbreak
to his supporters and sowing seeds of
skepticism
towards absentee voting biden supporters
meanwhile
favorite absentee voting mail and voting
and early voting as safer options
the larger urban areas typically lean
leaning democratic like the city of
detroit in michigan
were still counting the large volume of
absentee ballots they had received
days later shortly after the winner of
the november general election was
announced
conspiracies began popping up in the
darker corners of the internet
these included whether or not sharpies
were being utilized
in predominantly republican leaning
precincts because they somehow
invalidated ballots
this is not true in fact sharpies are
usually the recommended the preferred
ballot marking device for optical
scanned voting machines
there were allegations of boat dumps in
the wee hours of the morning
nope not true either what they probably
saw was the upload of larger
jurisdictions results
you know the ones that had more absentee
ballots to count
and probably could not finish by the
time polls closed on election day
being added to the reported results
in ingham county we were still receiving
election results from our largest city
at six o'clock in the morning on
wednesday november 4th
and quite frankly i was surprised it was
that soon
in michigan we're not allowed to feed
absentee ballots into tabulators
until polls open on election day at 7
a.m local time
this means that local clerks are not
permitted to begin tabulation until 7am
typically this means completing
everything from opening the ballot
to verification of the ballot number
assigned to the voter
while the ballot is still inside the
secrecy sleeve to maintain the secrecy
of the vote
to removal of the ballot stub to the
removal of the ballot from the secrecy
sleeve to flattening the ballot
and finally to feeding that ballot
through the tabulator
for november election the michigan
legislature gave local clerks a morsel
of assistance
in the form of allowing clerks and
jurisdictions with populations
of more than 25 000 to open the outer
absentee ballot return envelope
on the day before the election so there
was still a
great amount of work to be done come 7am
on election day
there were also allegations of 138
000 ballot dump for biden but let's be
clear
that was an extra zero that was added
when a vote totals were
manually typed into a state database it
was quickly corrected
but not quick enough for fake news to
travel
election challengers claimed ballot
delivery trucks arrived from
goodness knows where to the tfc center
in detroit
this theory too was proven incorrect
voters who requested an absentee ballot
in michigan have until 8 pm on election
day
to return said ballot there are drop
boxes
all over the city of detroit that
accepts absent voter ballots
which all had to be checked at 8 pm on
election day
once the ballots were retrieved from the
drop boxes they had to be returned to
the clerk's office
where they were marked return in the
voter file and the signature on the
outside envelope was compared to the
signature
in the voter file plus they were
probably being sorted by precinct
of which there are hundreds in the city
of detroit for easier and more
efficient and secure processing
once they once only then could they be
delivered to the absent voter county
boards
where they can go through the process of
opening that outer envelope
verifying the ballot number assigned to
the voter
removing the ballot stub removal of the
ballot from the secrecy sleeve
flattening the ballot and finally to
feeding that ballot
in through into the tabulator oh
and man with the mysterious wagon full
of ballots in detroit
was from a local news station so that
man was a
was a reporter another conspiracy was
that something screwy was going on in
antrim county michigan
again not the case interim county
michigan reported that biden beat trump
which prompted the trump team to claim a
software glitch
and baseless claims that dominion voting
systems election computer malfunctioned
spread around the nation the truth is
the problem was human error as the
tabulator programming and the ballots
had been updated to include some late
added candidates
which did not match the programming on
the computer that accumulated the
results
therefore vote totals were not properly
awarded to the proper candidate
the county clerk worked with the county
board of canvassers to certify the
proper results
this was able to be done because one the
tabulators read the ballots properly and
printed the proper
the correct report on election night
into
michigan's paper ballots that can be
reviewed
a full hand recount of the county's
paper ballots also showed
that the certified election results were
correct trump did in fact win
interim county michigan the barrage of
theories around the foundation of our
democracy has left a large swath
of the american population frustrated
and sometimes
outraged over what they perceive to have
happened
with a calming word from trusted leaders
the mistrust and disbelief
may have faded away and the election a
distant memory
however for months the tru trump and his
compatriots
sought to rile up crowds and stoke the
fires
trump sent rudy giuliani to michigan to
take part in a kangaroo hearing
about the november 3rd election after
weeks of perpetrating these falsehoods
and bullying officials like the georgia
secretary of state
you may even recall the saturday night
live skit
and i wish i could say the real hearing
was more serious
mr giuliani and his associates spent
five hours repeating these conspiracies
without much credibility unfortunately a
lot of the testimony
from that hearing which was not under
oath boiled down to people who did not
understand the elections process
and who were upset about the result of
the election and
observed it with a negative bent
our elections officials are under attack
there were claims that there were
tabulation errors in rochester hills
which again turned out to be human error
of a file being sent twice
to the county clerk for the purpose of
reporting unofficial election results
it was corrected the morning after
election day the
vile messages and threats that that
local clerk received after setting the
record straight
certainly contributed to her leaving her
post abruptly and seeking employment
elsewhere
the brennan center for justice put out a
report last month
about the attacks election officials
have faced
it states that one in three election
officials feel unsafe
because of their job and almost one in
five
listed threats to their lives as a
job-related concern
the video that accompanies the report is
eye-opening to the attacks my colleagues
have experienced
over the past eight months and even
longer than that
when our election officials are under
attack our democracy
is under attack now i'd like to play
this video for you real quick
he will demand the truth and you will
pay for your
blind remarks liberal flying rhino
we will take you out your family
your life you watch your back
[Music]
they had assault rifles a pipe bomb
you're gonna get what's coming to you it
threatened my life couldn't go anywhere
without the police officers
we had officers on the roof of our
building i'd never had people
so engaged and enraged about what we
were doing just to ensure that people
could vote
we had go bags ready for my family and
my children
the biggest problem we have right now
are the ballots
millions of ballots going out what's
going to happen on november 3rd when
somebody's leading and they said well we
haven't counted the ballots
we have millions of ballots to count
it's a disaster
that was picked up by his political
allies and perpetuated against
election administrators this to me was
an effort
to undermine confidence in
our entire electoral process the
national narrative was
no early voting make them go to the
polls you know you can't trust
absentees there was certainly
unfamiliarity with the process
and and people took advantage of that
people exploited that
uh to try to make people question
the validity of the system and what they
were doing was again trying to discredit
the results if they didn't turn out
and the bullseye was on us
there were people who showed up outside
of election officials houses
armed people that showed up outside of
offices threatening phone calls
harassment and online discussions about
types of
ammunition and guns to use on me it
became a daily
occurrence outside of our facility to
have anywhere from
50 to 150 individuals outside some of
them were armed
there was a fence sort of separating
the building from the from the
protesters
and they were armed i was walking up the
street to the park
to this big big caucasian guy came up to
me out of his car and he said i've been
waiting for you miss winfrey i want to
know why you cheated during the election
i want to know why
donald trump lost it's your fault we
were terribly concerned about
every threat everything that was said
because we just didn't know i was
encountered with a
partisan operative campaign manager with
his cell phone
where he videotaped me hurling
insults and accusations it had over 400
000 views commenters were saying we
should find out where she lives
we should hang her for treason she
should be shot
this is not what um i i expect
uh to have to really run and fight for
my life we think about that happening in
other places around the world but that's
happened in the united states
and it's happened specifically because
of the big lie
this is going to be a fraud like you've
never seen the only way
we're going to lose this election is if
the election is rigged
it's going to be fraudulent it's going
to be fraud all over the place
who's getting the ballots who's sending
the ballots
this is stealing millions of votes this
is a rigged election
[Music]
i made the decision to go with an
all-male ballot for the primary election
we had to redo pretty much the entire
way that philadelphia votes and we only
had a couple weeks to do it
i mailed all applications to all
registered voters in the city of detroit
government and industry representatives
from the election security community
issued a joint statement reflecting a
consensus perspective
that the 2020 election was the most
secure in u.s history
we actually had a record number of
turnouts of people that came out
in a pandemic everything that you had
written in a playbook as far as like how
you normally do things in an election
cycle
had to be set aside we had no idea that
we would be
having to purchase personal protective
equipment
at a time when none was available we had
a lot of senior
facilities churches that were not even
open to their own congregations let
alone open their doors and let several
hundred people come in and vote
as you're hearing the country is seeing
record turnout in early voting
americans waiting in lines for hours
even braving pouring rain to make their
voices heard
we had a camera in the convention center
with a live feed for the networks could
tap into it anytime and it was a massive
operation again 24 hours a day hundreds
of people
it was very surreal we had people coming
and signed up to work that november
election cycle who had never worked in
an election
ever before and a lot of them were
people that were
college age the work that my team did to
run this election is about as good as
any team
in the united states of america has ever
done election officials
are in this for passion for service they
don't do this job to get rich
and they care more about the integrity
of elections than anyone i know
that feeling that you get when elections
are over on election night and
everything has worked
according to plan is there's a feeling
that i can't just describe it it is
so much more than just an exercise we do
every six months
it's our fundamental right and we know
that when more people participate
the better off we are there is a lot
that can be done to help educate
lawmakers educate the public
about the process the leaders have made
it comfortable
to be racist
to be so partisan
[Music]
it needs to be a bipartisan effort and
there needs to be leadership who's
willing to support
what we do we all need to work together
to stop the misinformation
at its core america is good we are good
people
this isn't about how you feel it's about
ensuring that every american
has the legal right to vote gets to
exercise that right and participate
[Music]
law enforcement do not seem to be taking
these threats seriously
over 75 percent of election
administrators in the u.s are women
these public servants are being bullied
threatened
and ran out of office this is happening
to democrats
republicans independents nonpartisan
appointed and election officials
and it has to stop just recently the fbi
announced that they will be
investigating
and prosecuting threats against election
workers
i am grateful that these threats are
being taken seriously
but saddened that it has come to this
point i am afraid that this will become
our new normal as a matter of fact
just earlier today in response to an
email reminding voters to turn
in their absent voter ballots a local
clerk was told that if he emailed that
particular voter again
he was going to slit his throat
lawsuits across the nation have been
plaguing
election offices michigan like many
other states
have seen countless rallies and lawsuits
crying fraud
due to these already debunked
conspiracies
legislators and legislatures at both
the state and federal level call have
called for the election to be overturned
then others joined a texas lawsuit that
would have
upended the electoral college process
let us not fail to note the proposed
legislation that has been introduced in
the majority of states in the united
states
reportedly to combat the election fraud
at least 389 restrictive election bills
have been introduced in state
legislatures across the u.s
michigan has seen a 39 bill package
introduced in the senate that was
written by the heritage action fund
and disseminated to republican caucuses
across the country
these bills sought sought to restrict
the vote
suppress the vote and disenfranchise the
voter
those pushing back against the
misinformation
bills are being targeted in future
elections
we are already seeing that in michigan
with a secretary of state candidate
attending the arizona audit and people
who are behind
numerous election lawsuits and fraud
rallies running for attorney general
let's talk about what's happening in
arizona i refuse to call what is
happening in arizona
arizona a true audit because what we are
seeing
are partisan election reviews exercises
by unqualified individuals with little
to no
transparency the one we are witnessing
in arizona is being pushed across the
nation in places like pennsylvania
wisconsin and even michigan
election officials in arizona have to
spend
more time creating websites to respond
to baseless
inaccurate claims and less time serving
the voters
this is causing our election equipment
to be decertified
due to unauthorized access in fact the
systems
in the arizona case were taken to
another state and subject to
unknown compromises these exercises are
just perpetuating the conspiracy
theories without actually consulting
experts or doing anything to improve
election process or experience
in michigan we even have a sheriff
investigating election officials now
one michigan county sheriff is also
taking it upon himself
to conduct an investigation into the
election
going so far as to hire a private
investigator and harass
local clerks into giving them access to
their election materials
or straight up seizing the election
equipment
we're seeing more and more election
administrators leave the field
in 2020 nearly 35 percent of election
officials
would be retirement age by 2024.
the institutional knowledge that we'll
leave with them
is going to be devastating not to
mention who will be taking their place
when the people have watched election
officials get harassed
and it will ar and it's already a
thankless job
those that are pushing the conspiracy
theories will be running
for those positions we may not see the
real impact at least in michigan until
2024
when county and township clerk offices
are up for re-election
we have to do more we have to stay
engaged
fight back against these conspiracies
that is how
we hack them it is not all doom and
gloom
the michigan senate oversight committee
put out a report after numerous hearings
and investigations
that concluded there was no fraud in the
november general election
and the certified results were accurate
one can only hope that people in places
of power standing up to the conspiracy
will pave the way for others to do the
same
election integrity the security and
sanctity of the vote
is of paramount importance the federal
government knows this
as election administration was deemed
critical infrastructure
back in 2017 so what else can we do to
protect the future of our elections
demand that our elections continue to
follow the most secure
protocols that every voter votes
in the least hackable way possible
with a paper ballot hold those
politicians
who would undermine our democratic
system or government accountable
stand up for a free press and the safety
of members of the media
we must demand that those that threaten
the media
and election administrators are held to
the fullest extent of the law
get more involved in the process of
election administration
sign up to work an election as a
precinct inspector
work an absent voter accounting board
learn as much
as possible about our elections because
the more
people with knowledge of how the process
works the more people will be assured
that it is working the way it is
supposed to
call on those with skills to help us
keep elections safe and secure
election officials are not usually cyber
security experts
but we must work with government
agencies to bolster our defenses
against cyber attacks again
again thank you so much for the
opportunity to speak with you this year
please join me in fighting back against
miss diss
and mal information whether that is by
reporting false
social media posts or learning for
yourself if something is accurate before
amplifying the message
i welcome and appreciate your assistance
2022 and 2024 are right around the
corner
and we must be ready with the tools to
secure our elections and fight back
against unsubstantiated election
conspiracies
so please reach out to your election
administrators
introduce yourself offer to assist
as a precinct or poll worker develop
that relationship
and take the opportunity to suggest
election security measures
mitigation actions report
miss and disinformation on social media
if you read something about an election
or an election administrator
or how things are done ask your clerk or
other trusted administrator
if it's accurate before amplifying that
message continue
to work towards safer more secure
election
and a more perfect union again thank you
so much for joining me
please feel free to contact me if i may
ever be of assistance to you
my email is clerkbyrum gmail.com
my twitter handle is at barbirum
thank you and have a great great.com