Buckeye Reporter

Special interests, George Soros and Zuckerberg-backed PACs, and dark money funding. These are all behind-the-curtain political factions that can hijack elections from everyday voters and hand them over to the political and social elite. While covert dealings and the players behind them are not totally unexpected from campaigns, questions have begun to arise about the controlling interests behind the companies that make the machines that decide our elections.

The ideal voting operation would be a fully transparent process from start to finish, one that has no political leaning to the right of left. That also applies to the companies that build voting machines. Some CEOs of established companies have stepped forward to explain their processes and shed some light on the security mechanisms involved, but for newer vendors, there is still very little information available. One such company is Clear Ballot.

Founded in 2009 by technology executive Larry Moore, Clear Ballot is one of the newer companies on the scene among voting machine giants who have been operating for decades. It actually started as a ballot auditing system and expanded into the fully operational voting systems in 2017 when the company secured $18 million in venture funding from investors.

Moore has since stepped down as CEO, but even during his tenure, he has never shied from expressing his political views in the form of political donations. In fact, Moore has an extensive history of donating to political campaigns on the left side of the aisle. Since 2007, Moore has donated over $17,000 dollars to Democrats including former President Barack Obama and failed Senate candidate from Massachusetts Martha Coakley.

Understanding Clear Ballot’s beginnings and its founder’s political ideologies is enough to raise an eyebrow, but it only paints half of the picture of the risk in operational transparency and political integrity of Clear Ballot. The question of political bias runs far deeper than just their former CEO.

Numerous Clear Ballot executives have been consistent in their support of left-wing politicians. This includes Keir Holeman, Vice President of Technology Services, who made 18 contributions to Democrats, and Helen Michuad, Vice President of Product, who made 30. Hillary Lincoln, Clear Ballot’s Vice President of Marketing expressed her support via social media instead of her pocketbook. She retweeted a left-wing account Upworthy that praised the election of liberal US Senator Elizabeth Warren.

If the top-heavy partisanship of Clear Ballot doesn’t sound like a election security vulnerability, or at the very least a PR crisis waiting to happen, perhaps we can take a look back into what happened in one major swing state not even two decades ago.

Ohioans will recall that during the 2004 Presidential race, Democratic Members of Congress objected to Ohio’s vote (it seems when Democrats attempt to overturn election results, it is not labelled an “insurrection” but their patriotic duty). Their objection cited a bit of political hyperbole from a fundraising letter endorsing President George W. Bush penned by Ohio-based electronic voting machine vendor Diebold’s CEO Walden O’Dell. One throwaway line from one letter became the subject of intense media scrutinty, countless newspaper articles and editorials, lawsuits, and Congressional objections including U.S. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Cleveland) and U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Warrensville Hts.).

There is certainly a possible conflict of interest that Clear Ballot is teeming with executives who are long-term supporters of a party that consistently refuses to address or believe there is a voter fraud issue. This concern played out in real time amidst Maricopa County’s 2020 GOP-sanctioned election audit of which Moore was a vocal opponent. Though the county admitted Cyber Ninjas, the firm hired to conduct the audit, came up with totals close to their own, Moore claimed they had made up the numbers entirely.

For American voters who prefer elections to be free and fair, Clear Ballot’s background should raise a red flag. And for anyone who is skeptical that a voting machine vendor can remain unbiased when their leadership is consolidated around the left, they have good reason. Concerned voters need to call on their county officials to ask more questions and demand transparency from these vendors for the sake of the security of our vote. After all, Liberals said that one line in a fundraising letter in 2004 was evidence of a plot to “steal the election.” We are not talking about one line in one letter, but with Clear Ballot a clear pattern of actual political bias from the firm’s higher ups.

Trakas is a City Councilman in the City of Independence, former State Representative and co-author of numerous election related legislation in Ohio. He was a candidate for Ohio Secretary of State in the 2006 Republican Primary before he exited the race.