‘It’s up to us.’ Meet the 2020 skeptics now working the polls.

Over the weekend, the Monitor sat down with a group of Republicans in Arizona’s Pima County who, for the first time, were volunteering to work at the polls in Tuesday’s midterms. All decided to get involved after what they believed was a problematic election in 2020 – with some becoming poll workers and others poll observers.

Poll workers are short-term employees paid a small stipend by the county to work at voting locations. In Pima, where they must go through multiple hours of training, their tasks on Election Day could be anything from showing voters where to go to checking their identification. 

Poll observers, by contrast, are partisan appointees put in place to watch for things like improper influence on voters or tampering with equipment. They are not permitted to handle election materials or speak with voters. Sarah Ramsey, who runs the Pima County Republican Party’s Election Integrity Program, has led two-hour training sessions for 360 new observers this year. 

In an almost two-hour discussion inside the Pima County GOP office next to a laundromat in a Tucson strip mall, these new election workers talked about why they still don’t accept the 2020 results, what they’ve learned so far – and what, if anything, might give them confidence in future elections.

This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. 

How has your involvement in politics changed over the past few years?

Janet Neustedter, a poll worker and health coach: I’ve always been a Republican, I’ve always voted, I’ve always been aware of the issues.

In Arizona, when they called the [2020] vote at 10 at night, I was on the couch like, “What is happening?” And I saw the newscaster look shocked on his face too. ... I started doing a lot of research and listening to a lot of podcasters and digging down rabbit holes. A lot of the people that I listened to said, it’s not enough to just hear this stuff – you got to get in. It’s not up to President Trump, it’s not up to the military, it’s up to us. So here I am. 

Annie Szalay, a poll worker and former human resources employee: I’m a “walkaway” Democrat. I walked away [from voting for Democrats] in 2012, but I hung onto the Democrat title until 2015, when Donald Trump came on. I loved the way he spoke to the people. ... I really believed he was going to do what he said he was going to do, so I voted for him.

I’ve watched the movie “2000 Mules,” I’ve watched the Rudy Giuliani interviews in Phoenix, and I just didn’t know how [the 2020 election] was put together. And now that I’m working the polls, like, there’s so many ballots. There are some things that are really scaring me that are out there and not tied down. 

[Editor’s note: The film “2000 Mules” used “geotracking” data to allege that “mules” had been depositing large numbers of ballots into drop boxes. Experts have widely dismissed it, noting that drop boxes tend to be in highly trafficked areas where many people are likely to pass by repeatedly.] 

Susan Kelly, a poll observer who’s retired from a defense company: I found Dr. Frank, with his statistics that he was collecting on COVID and on the election, and being an engineer I totally understand. I believe he has some truth to his data. 

We don’t have any proof, and that’s the hard part. So all we can do is what we can do from where we are. If we can fix Pima County, make sure we feel confident that what Pima County is doing is right, we at least have that. 

[Editor’s note: Ohio high school math teacher Douglas Frank’s presentations claiming to show fraud based on an algorithm have been debunked in numerous outlets; Ohio’s GOP secretary of state called it a “conspiracy theory.”]

Kerry Torgerson, a poll worker and retired engineer: I got involved because of the so-called election. We were watching, I’ll call it “better” news services, and hearing the real story of what’s going on. And we’re like, OK, well then who is going to do something about this?

We heard all these false flags about how Trump’s going to come back in three months and stuff, and we’re waiting and waiting, and nothing ever happens. And then the phrase started becoming on various news outlets, “The cavalry is not coming to save us. We have to do it.”

Why do you believe the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump?

Joseph Griggs, a poll observer who’s retired from a manufacturing company: At 2 in the morning, they wheel out all these votes. And guess what? There are no poll watchers or observers there. I’m retired, so I have spent about eight hours a day for the last three years doing nothing but going down rabbit holes.

Jack Kennedy, a poll observer and retired engineer: You’re watching television at night, and you say, ‘Look! Trump’s ahead!’ And then suddenly in the middle of the night, boom. Biden was getting tons of votes. And they were saying that votes were coming in a package and 90% of them were for Biden. That’s improbable. So you go, ‘Well I don’t know how to prove it, but this doesn’t look right.’

[Editor’s note: Overnight vote “spikes” for Joe Biden in certain states were largely the effect of heavily Democratic urban counties reporting their totals.]

Ms. Kelly: I was listening to the Ben Shapiro podcast, and he has divided the people who don’t believe the last election was true into two categories. One [believes] there was some conspiracy, and somebody took it over. In my gut I feel like that happened – but I have no proof. I’m an engineer, so I need facts and data. So there is nothing you can do with that. You have to inaugurate Joe Biden and let it go.

The second category though, [believes] that Big Tech controlled what our population knew about the candidates. And they totally did. I couldn’t post anything on Facebook. 

So you see it as an indirect theft?

Ms. Kelly: Totally. But on purpose. The younger generation, my kids, they don’t watch CNN or Fox News. Where do they get their news? From the internet.

Where do you get your news from?

Ms. Kelly: Newsmax. I don’t even really trust Fox News, [Others around the table nod in agreement.] You just can’t trust ’em. Even at the local level. If they say it, I almost instinctively say, ‘That’s not true.’

What have you learned so far from being a poll worker or observer?

Mr. Kennedy: I didn’t really accomplish anything [as a poll observer] sitting through the primary. I just sat there and listened to everybody. And I decided, they are doing a good job at the poll centers. The people are honest, and they try to do what they are supposed to do, and they are helpful to the voters who come in.

I applied to be a poll worker myself, but they responded: ‘We’ll get back to you’ and never did. I think I may apply again. I’ll do the 18 hours [of training] or whatever it takes, you know, because I think I’d learn more being on the inside than I am just being an observer. 

Mr. Torgerson: [Anyone] can be a poll observer and that’s great. You need to be there.

But if you’re a poll observer, you can’t do anything about [fraud] right then. You have to deal with it after the fact. If you’re a poll worker, you’re the judge. Here comes a person, they don’t have the right ID. Someone else might have let them go through, but you can stop it. You stop the fraud.

Ms. Kelly: On the primary day, I literally just observed. I watched what was going on. In the voting center I was at, they were all trying their absolute best to be doing right. Even the Democrats. They were all really trying to figure it out.

The observer’s role is strategic. Because anything I learn or I observe, I’m going to try to use to change the process or the laws as necessary.

Mr. Torgerson: There is another aspect. Having poll observers there is like a cop on the freeway. ... If you have a poll observer in the room, that’s not where the fraud is going to happen. That’s a good thing, because then you can isolate it. If there’s fraud in all these different places, it’s really hard to figure out how they stole the election. But if this is the only [place] left not being observed, maybe we should spend time figuring it out.

Even if this one gets stolen again, we’re going to have a lot better idea of where to focus all of our time now to do an audit and not waste it.

Do you believe Tuesday’s election will be free and fair?

Mr. Torgerson: It’s too late. There were too many early [vote by mail] ballots. There’s no chain of custody on them. There’s no chance that you could make sure it was an honest election.

But if the Republican candidates win, would you think then that the election was fair?

Mr. Griggs: There is no way to know. 

Mr. Kennedy: We are just hoping that they get such a large majority that even the cheating won’t help [Democrats].

So what would make you trust the results of elections again?

[Several people start speaking at once.]

Ms. Szalay: We got to fix this early ballot problem. 

Mr. Kennedy: Voting on one day.

Mr. Torgerson: Hand count ballots only.

Ms. Kelly: We have to stay involved.

Do you have hope for the future of our country?

Ms. Kelly: I do, because –

[Several people at the table finish the sentence together]: They have awoken a sleeping giant. 

Mr. Torgerson: And the head of the giant they awoke is retired people. We have the time.