#konnech

Alex Kaplan at MMFA:

During July and August media appearances, the leadership of the election denier organization True the Vote revealed that it is trying to partner with local sheriffs to monitor ballot drop boxes for supposed voter fraud during the 2024 election, particularly in swing states like Wisconsin, where the organization’s founder claimed to “have three very influential sheriffs.” True the Vote was founded in 2009 — following the election of former President Barack Obama — by then-tea party activist Catherine Engelbrecht with the goal of pushing for voter ID laws and purging voter rolls. Engelbrecht, whom “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander has called “the godmother of the election integrity movement,” and her business partner, Gregg Phillips, a Republican operative and former Mississippi official, have repeatedly pushed false election-related claims since at least 2016. Phillips claimed without evidence that millions of illegal votes had been cast in the 2016 presidential election, and both Engelbrecht and Phillips were listed as executive producers for and starred in 2000 Mules, a widely debunked 2022 film that claims to show evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. (Salem Media, which distributed the film, has since retracted it and removed it from its platforms.) Engelbrecht has admitted that former President Donald Trump is a “natural beneficiary of the majority of what we [True the Vote] do.”

Engelbrecht and Phillips also cultivated a close relationship with influencers in the QAnon community, turning over supposedly “devastating” evidence of 2020 election fraud and asking the QAnon community to “start connecting dots” and look further into election software company Konnech. As a result, those figures targeted the company, and the Los Angeles County, California, district attorney later indicted Konnech CEO Eugene Yu, apparently spurred at least in part by True the Vote’s and QAnon figures’ efforts. The charges were ultimately dropped, with the county and Yu later reaching a $5 million settlement. True the Vote also collaborated with a then-QAnon supporter whose group monitored drop boxes during the 2022 elections.

Ahead of the 2024 elections, the organization has launched an app based on flawed data that “enables users to research voter data and submit voter-eligibility challenges to local election offices.” In multiple media appearances in late July and early August, Engelbrecht appeared to reveal an additional 2024 effort to partner with local sheriffs and target ballot drop boxes, particularly in swing states like Wisconsin.  During a July 30 interview with self-described Christian nationalist “prophet” Lance Wallnau — in which Wallnau predicted that “there will be cheating” using drop boxes in swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan — Engelbrecht said that True the Vote would be “working with sheriffs to identify areas that sheriffs would be willing to allow us to grant them camera equipment that they can monitor and we can livestream.” When Wallnau asked specifically about Wisconsin, Engelbrecht said, “We have three very influential sheriffs, and we look forward to more. We’re getting there next week to do a site assessment.”

Alex Kaplan at MMFA:

A right-wing influencer has released 2022 messages from a private Telegram group chat showing that QAnon figures seemingly coordinated efforts to target Konnech, an election software company, and have election denial organization True the Vote convey their supposed “intel” to law enforcement. In 2022, True the Vote collaborated with QAnon influencers, with QAnon figures working on some of the organization’s projects, and its leadership appearing on QAnon-affiliated shows and lauding the supposed research abilities of the “Anons” (a term for QAnon supporters), including floating the idea that True the Vote would pass along Anons’ supposed research to law enforcement and sheriffs groups that partnered with the organization.

As part of that collaboration, True the Vote invited multiple QAnon influencers to attend an event during the weekend of August 12, 2022, called “The Pit” dedicated to providing supposedly “devastating” evidence of election fraud. At the event, True the Vote’s leadership, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, turned over to QAnon attendees supposed evidence of nefarious behavior by Konnech, an election software company, and asked them to “start connecting dots” and look further into the company.  Now, messages sent less than two weeks after the event have been released that further detail how QAnon figures coordinated to target Konnech. On May 6, a right-wing influencer known online as “GusQuixote” posted a screenshot of Telegram chat logs from a group called “Pit Crew Think Tank,” likely a reference to The Pit. The logs seemingly featured messages from GusQuixote and QAnon figures “Red Pill Babe” and “The Authority.” In the weeks following the event and the messages, True the Vote endorsed all three of those figures on a stream, and even tasked The Authority to “tak[e] over a lot of ... the True the Vote research activities.” GusQuixote’s May 6 post also seemingly claimed regarding the Telegram group chat, “There were 50 of us. 10 worked. 20 talked. 20 watched.” 

[...] After The Pit, in the days both before and after those private messages were sent, True the Vote praised and shared what the QAnon community had supposedly found on Konnech, and in September 2022, Phillips suggested that True the Vote had passed this supposed research on Konnech from the QAnon community to law enforcement, including to a “particular county in California.”

THEY LABELED THEM ELECTIONS - ELECTED BY WHOM?

CCP ELECTION INTEGRITY?

VALID PHYSICAL AND ELECTRONIC CHAIN OF CUSTODY?

ONE VOTER, ONE VOTE?

Judge to jail Houston pair tomorrow for telling the truth about Konnech’s Wuhan servers? -dated OCT 30

As of Nov 3rd, jailed for not divulging a confidential source in a story that calls-out poll-watchers personal data being sent and stored in CCP China relating to the ‘Konnech’ debacle in connection with the issue of election integrity, and which includes original cooperation with the FBI.

Statement on the Imprisonment of Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips

True the Vote calls for the immediate release of founder Catherine Engelbrecht and contractor Gregg Phillips, who were jailed for contempt October 31st for refusing to deliver to Konnech the name of the third party who was present at a presentation of evidence of Konnech’s wrongdoing. This evidence was initially provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigations in Q1 of 2021. In Q3 2022 information was provided to the LA District Attorney’s office in their investigation of Konnech, which resulted in the arrest of CEO Eugene Yu. True the Vote attorneys are expediting an appeal seeking to have Engelbrecht and Phillips released.

Catherine Engelbrecht said, “Trust, honesty, and respect will always be our highest values, regarding both our work and our lives. As a result, we will be held in jail until we agree to give up the name of a person we believe was not covered under the terms of the judge’s TRO. We ask that you keep us in your prayers. Thank you to those who continue supporting and believing in us and our mission to make elections safe for all parties and for all people.”

https://newsothersmiss.com/blog/judge-jail-houston-pair-for-telling-the-truth-about-konnech-wuhan-servers-china-truethevote-catherine-engelbrecht-gregg-phillips-eugene-yu-wei-jianwei-spy-chinese-msu-msuf-michigan-lansing-mason

Complaint from Prominent Election Denier, Gregg Phillips, Led to Arrest of Election Tech CEO, Eugene Yu

True the Vote, the Texas-based non-profit that’s dedicated itself to denying the validity of the 2020 election and spreading conspiracy theories about voter fraud, was directly involved in the arrest of the CEO of a small election software company earlier this month. A complaint from Gregg Phillips, a True the Vote… Read more…

Alex Kaplan at MMFA:

True the Vote, a conservative organization that’s known for pushing false claims of widespread voter fraud and that was behind the debunked film 2000 Mules, has actively collaborated with QAnon influencers, promising to act as a liaison between them and law enforcement and using them to target an election software company in Michigan.

True the Vote’s collaboration with QAnon influencers is a significant development when it comes to the QAnon community’s ongoing influence in the election denier movement. Media Matters has previously reported on the community’s close associations with election denial efforts; one QAnon influencer is even involved with a coalition recruiting and electing election-denialist secretary of state candidates.

A Media Matters investigation into True the Vote’s extraordinary and blatant collaboration with QAnon figures to push election misinformation — including during repeated appearances on QAnon-supporting shows and the group’s “The Pit” event that included many QAnon figures — reveals the community’s connection with the election denial movement taken to a new level. Most recently, a software company targeted by True the Vote and its QAnon collaborators has sued the group, claiming defamation and saying its founder has left his home due to death threats. True the Vote’s leaders claimed the FBI refused to look at their supposed evidence against the company, so they turned their findings over to QAnon-supporting “citizen researchers.”

[...]

From The Pit, Phillips and Engelbrecht used the QAnon community to target Konnech, a Michigan-based election software company, with election fraud conspiracy theories. Konnech has since sued True the Vote, Phillips, and Engelbrecht for their claims about the company, saying they hacked its servers and that their campaign resulted in death threats against its founder and forced him and his family to flee their home.

While much of The Pit was livestreamed, a portion of it was kept private. That portion focused on conspiracy theories about Konnech, where they claimed it was a “questionable company involved in this that may have been rigging elections on behalf of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” according to Sather, and that the FBI was “too compromised to do anything” about it.

Engelbrecht has criticized the FBI, saying True the Vote shared this information about Konnech with the FBI, but “we became the target” of the agency instead. Therefore, the aim of The Pit event was to “go public … initially in a trusted space with people who could help gather up more and more and more information so that if, God forbid, something happens to us ... that other people are equipped.” Phillps has also said that the FBI “betrayed us.”