Election denier will be keynote speaker at Shasta Supervisor Jones' town hall

At a public board meeting in May, Shasta County Supervisor Patrick Jones declared that he is convinced there was voter fraud in his election victory in November 2020.

Jones beat incumbent Steve Morgan by nearly 11 percentage points.

Jones explained at the meeting that the Mesa, Colorado, “pattern of fraud” played out in his race, referring to claims made by Jeffrey O’Donnell, who — like former President Donald Trump and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell — has pushed debunked theories about voting machines manipulating election results.

“So, in 2020 on my race, if you take a look at the statistics and analyze that race, you will see the Mesa, Colorado, 'pattern of fraud' existed in my race. Explain it to me,” Jones said during the meeting.

Now, Jones is bringing O’Donnell to Shasta County.

O’Donnell, a software and database engineer from Florida, will be keynote speaker at Jones’ public town hall about voting that is being held Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Holiday Inn in Redding.

Jones, who chairs the Board of Supervisors and is leading the charge to go back to hand counting votes in local elections, said O’Donnell is the first of several “experts” he will bring to Shasta County for future town halls about voting during the next few months.

Who is Jeffrey O’Donnell?

On Thursday, Jones will kick it off talking about voting machines and the county’s quest to return to hand counts. Jones and Supervisors Kevin Crye and Chris Kelstrom in late January were in the 3-2 majority to terminate Shasta County’s contract with Dominion Voting Systems, a decision that has received state and national attention.

O’Donnell will make his presentation after Jones presents. Then Jones will join O'Donnell for a “back and forth” with questions, Jones said.

Asked if he will take questions from the audience, Jones said, “I hadn’t planned on it.”

Note to readers: If you appreciate our effort to highlight critical issues in your community, please help power our local journalism. Subscribe to the Redding Record Searchlight.

O’Donnell received media attention when his name came up in news reports about former Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters. Last year, Peters was indicted on charges related to an alleged election security breach in her office in the summer of 2021, purportedly carried out to prove fraud and sparked by Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, according to news reports.

Colorado Public Radio reported that investigators in Mesa County looked into three reports made by election fraud conspiracy theorists.

One of the reports, identified as Report 3, was co-authored by O’Donnell.

Prosecutors find no voter fraud in Mesa County, Colorado

Colorado Public Radio quoted the Mesa County District Attorney’s report: “Despite repeated claims that there was extensive questioning of the Mesa County election officials, we were not able to locate a single person who said that they were interviewed by the drafters of Report 3.”

The story went on to say that investigators contacted co-author Walter Daugherity of Texas A&M University and he said O’Donnell conducted the interviews.

Colorado Public Radio said that Mesa County District Attorney Dan “Rubinstein said O’Donnell declined to participate in the investigation and referred the DA’s office to … Peter’s attorney.”

The District Attorney’s investigation concluded that rather than a bad actor, human error caused the anomalies in Mesa County’s vote-tabulation system in the November 2020 election and in the 2021 Grand Junction Municipal Election, the story said.

Justin Grimmer, a political science professor at Stanford University, said that O’Donnell and Daugherity are clear in their reporting that either the voting machines were manipulated or it was the result of human error, “but they don’t say it was human error.”

“But even beyond that, O’Donnell engages in the particular data analysis effort that it is pretty easy to see it won’t lead to the conclusion he wants it to,” Grimmer said.

Elections expert: Human error a concern in hand counting

Meanwhile, to illustrate why he thinks machines can’t be trusted while defending his decision to hand count votes, Jones often brings up a study conducted in 2007 in which computer scientists from California universities were able to hack into three electronic voting systems.

“To say they are not hackable, we already know they were. The question is, is it still happening?” Jones said.

Grimmer countered that the professor who did the 2007 study stated in one story that it didn’t necessarily reflect conditions in a polling place, where security precautions would be in place, especially in today’s political environment.

“Of course, voting machines could be made secure and of course there are ways to improve every election system. But it doesn't follow that (Jones' reasoning) because it was possible 16 years ago to hack an election machine in a laboratory setting that voting machines now are insecure or inaccurate,” Grimmer said.  “Beyond the fact that there is no evidence of fraud in voting machines, there are real reasons to worry about hand counting.

"Hand counting can be error prone while counting introduces the potential for hand writing errors, and of course individuals could manipulate the counts in the hand count.”

Grimmer said none of the evidence that has been presented in Shasta County, including a presentation made by 2020 election denier Douglas Frank last September, points to something nefarious happening in elections.

More: Redding councilor says cost to hand count votes could affect city's ability to hire police

“So regardless of what the supervisor (Jones) might think about security issues, it is important to keep in mind no one has provided a single piece of credible evidence of vast voter fraud conspiracy in Shasta County or elsewhere,” he said.

Grimmer plans to attend Thursday’s town hall.

“I am sort of interested to get a sense of who the people are who are persuaded by election denial claims,” he said.

Jones said he is paying to rent the space at the Holiday Inn because “he thinks it’s important information to get out there” so the voters can make up their own minds.

On social media, there have been calls for people to show up and protest the event.

Jones said there will be security at the town hall and potentially Shasta County Sheriff’s deputies and Redding Police officers.

“What we are asking for there is for decorum,” Jones said.

David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly "Buzz on the Street" column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-338-8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Shasta Supervisor Jones hosts town hall about voting on Thursday